Flyers/ HQ

Im wondering what you guys bring in venom spam lists as HQ?
- Duke seems crap cause he doesnt give anything
- Vect is nice but that price....
- Baron is cheap and gives nice bonus, but he is not powerful in combat and cant compare to other armies HQ in terms of CC/Shooting
- Urien doesnt give anything to the venomspam
- Drazhar is too expensive
- Malys seems kinda nice choice, but I find her S3 atacks rather useless against high T enemies
- Haem is usually an option ppl in Poland bring, but when I take him I always see him as "come here for free warlord VP" guy. He is just so easy to kill.
- Archon is what I currently bring. Blaster, agoniser, shadow field. Expensive, but I dont see any other options.

With which HQ choice had you most success?

Reading polish national wh40k forum I noticed how DE are screwed with their flyers. Every good thing is in heavy support. Chaos has FA Drakes, Tyranids have HQ Flytyrants, FA Harpies, Necrons have dedicated transports Night Scythe, and rumored Tau will probably have another flyer transport. Wouldnt be so bad if Ravager wasn't also in Heavy Support, dont you think? Have any of you resigned from Ravagers to take our Flyers?

Baron Sathonyx is fantastic.

And on flyers, I dont bring them and I still beat flyer lists. Ravagers ftw

Baron generally. Sure he isn't a monster HQ like some and won't be 1v1ing the top enemy commanders but he's respectable enough (plenty of S6 attacks) and what he really brings is his extra rules (and, most importantly, low cost), not his combat power (leave that to the beasts he's leading). Even a combat monster HQ is going to get buried under the number of attacks a beast squad brings to the table. He's also pretty survivable with his shadow field and a squad full of beasts around him to absorb wounds. If I'm not running a Beast squad then I go minimalist with a lightly equipped Archon, Succubus, or Haemon (depends on the point value and what units are in the army).

Regarding Flyers, no I never feel the desire to run fliers. I honestly don't think they're good enough to replace a Ravager (for tons of reasons like starting in reserve, higher cost, restricted movement, and so on). I might (only might mind you) run some fliers if they were Fast Attack (just because I don't really like Scourge/Reavers all that much and only want 1 beast squad) but even then I have no trouble spending all my points regardless (maxed out troops/elites) so I likely wouldn't run them even if they weren't competing against the Ravager.

For HQ, I go with either the Baron with a Beast squad (3 BM, 5 Khy, 4 RWF). Or one Haemy w/PW and Liq with 8 Wracks w/Liq and Acothyst w/VB in a Raider.

Versus flyers, you could park some wracks with an Aegis Defense Line with Quadgun and deploy their Venom somewhere else. I sometimes take a single Voidraven Bomber instead of a third Ravager. You could also ally with Eldar, take Eldrad and Warwalkers, and then guide/prescience your Warwalkers or Ravagers.

for venom spam i take an archon with blaster, venom blade and shadowfield. If i have points spare maybe drugs.

and the flyers i take a voidraven instead of a 3rd ravager though you can get away without it with enough lances or some ally psychic support for rerolls to hit with say warwalkers or hornets