Uses for the drake

[truesonofruss]

Ok so I'm adding a drake into my list but I'm trying to decide how to use it best. What functions does it primarily perform best at? Which weapon do you find most useful and for what purpose? Are these things really as awesome as I keep hearing? Please educate me fellow followers of the dark gods, I'm eager to please grandfather nurgle!

[Malatox]

"truesonofruss"... PAH! Even the Space-Pups are falling to Father Nurgle now :P haha.

The Heldrake is as awesome as people make it out to be; it's very points-efficient. I haven't played one myself, but I've seen them used on countless times in my FLGS, and they'd always seemed to do well enough (if not destroyed almost instantly by dedicated anti-air fire).

The best weapon, popularity-wise, is the Bale-flamer. You can use it to burn troops off of objectives in cover, or to maul MEQ squads that are threatening you, but it's also good as it helps our horde-control. You could even be a true traitor and get rid of some Long-Fangs that I'm sure you used to use ;) :P.

Oh, and don't forget that you can vector-strike, taking out some lightly-armoured vehicles on your way to toasting some Marine-Marshmallows.

If you're into Nurglesque things, I would sincerely suggest you check out some of the Heldrake conversions on the internet. One of my favourites is the Helfly, which I will hopefully be building over the summer.

Enjoy your heresy.

- Malatox

[nurglez]

A single heldrake is quite a threat, and 2 is better, though 3 I consider overkill (although personally I wont play with more then 1 vs most of my friends).

Like any armour 12 flyer they can fold to dedicated anti air firepower, however having a 5++ means you never have to evade (unless you manage to improve your cover save somehow).

The baleflamer is nasty vs everything shy of 2+ saves or low model units. You get to place the narrow end of the flamer template within 12, and the large end can't be closer to you then the narrow end is. This gives a lot of flexibility for maximizing wounds, combined with it being str 6 ap 3 this means 2+ to kill for most normal infantry, ignoring cover saves of course. And daemon forge means once a game you can reroll to wound or armor penetration, for when you really want to kill every model under the template. This also has an effective range of 48 inches from your table edge...

Generally a second or third drake will have a hades autocannon, as the bale flamer is just that good, so go for the flamer :D

Vector striking is also quite good, d3+1 str 7 ap3 ignore cover auto hits on something you have flown over, means this has an effective range of 25-29 inches from your board edge (depending on how you model your drake and what you have targeted). This also happens at the end of the movement phase, so you can force a ld test on an enemy unit in your movement phase, which is great too, as well as destroying a rhino or chimera and then flaming the troops as they jump out

[Fibonacci]

The drake is only BS3 wich is rather lack luster.  However, with auto-hits from its vector strike and placing the template where you want it you will never need to roll to hit with a flamer drake.

 

And while it is not likely to happen often, not only can a heldrake vector strike on the turn it arrives, it does so at the end of the movement phase; this is the time those pesky interceptor guns fire.  Being your turn, you decide the order they happen.  So it is possible to come on board and destroy a gun emplacement before it has a chance to fire.

 

The bread and butter use of a heldrake is to fly over trasport vehicles, wreak it with vector strikes and flame the disembarking troops with AP3 death.  I am usually not a fan of mixed role units but it is this combination of single tough target strikes and horde killing torrent flames that make it such a threat.

[Polaria]

Baleflamer is where its at, unless you are desperate on turning the Drake into dogfighter.

 

There is little subtlety in its use. Usually I just bring it to field and burn everything to cinders. Next turn I fly over something to put a in a few free hits and then burn everything to cinders. Since its Torrent weapon with high S and AP3 you can use the baleflamer pretty much against any and all infantry units. With S6 it can put out enoug wounds to wound even against 2+ saves or 3++ invus and it will positively murderize everything else.

[Warsmith Aznable]

You want a Baledrake. Oh yes, you do. You stand a very high chance at earning its points back from the scoring units of your opponent, and a lucky Baledrake will do much more than that. Barring a very lucky Interceptor hit, it WILL do something useful. I reckon on a single Baledrake being on the table two turns, and this is more than enough time for it to wreak havoc upon the enemy formation.

 

They're so reasonably priced, there's no reason not to take two of them at mid to high point levels. I've said it in every thread it's come up: one is good, two is better, three is hilarious.

 

I never bother with targeting TEQ, because I've found it too hard to remove models with the wounds and gear that normally goes with that. But it strips away their support units and even light armour nicely, though, allowing your own support to operate unmolested.