So today I faced Heldrakes

[Ishagu]

Post the list and I'll try to help.

 

Fight Cheese with fire until it melts!

[Robert2004]

http://www.bolterandchainsword.com/topic/277248-how-do-i-beat-this-list/

 

Put up his list and a brief of my list for you to look at pal.

[WarriorFish]

Maybe so, but the tactics will still be valid :)

 

I don't think I can offer any help for your battle for justice so rather than clutter the other topic I'll wish you luck for your next duel here!

[Teetengee]

So I haven't had a chance to test it yet, but something tells me the answer to baledrakes is terminators/land raiders.

The baledrake does a lot of AP3 which against termies is wasted points, so it should ideally be less effective, (any given hit from the heldrake will kill a termy only 5/36 times). Moreover termies and land raiders go very well together and land raiders are immune to the baledrake set up. I would maximize land raider/termie percentage of your starting on the board troops and keep the rest in reserves. Also, go second. That means that his heldrakes will get to a board they can do little about, or are at least inefficient at dealing with. Use anti-flamer positioning for non-termie (especially) you have. If you are using allies that are cheaper then marines I would put them on the field to start with, especially if shooty, because you will want to shoot down his other units early and if they have bad armor saves he is wasting the drake on them anyways. Focus his non drake units. If you can wipe his troops then you will have a much easier time of it. Also I would consider using gk termies as allies as they are troops (aka scoring termies), meaning he has to try to deal with them. But his army will be bad at dealing with them, all the better for you.

Remember I haven't had a chance to try this out but it seems like it might prove effective. To beat large amounts of AP3 it seems to make sense to avoid 3+ armor saves as AP3 weapons tend to come on expensive units and are wasted on 2+s obviously, but also on much worse armor saves as he is paying for useless stats, which in a sense is just him starting with a smaller army for no particular benfit.

 

 

Also I would go with a land raider redeemer if possible. Throw some good old AP 3 back at him. That should easily wipe his troops too.

 

So if you are looking for advice on your army list I would suggest dropping the tau for a grey knight termie squad or two if points allow in a lr redeemer (with delicious psyflame ammo if you would like) and maybe grab a squad of angry inquisitorialness for hq (or a grand master, although you are really only doing the GK thing for the scoring termies.) Although I haven't looked up $$ for any of that recently so I don't know if that gels with your budget.

Alternatively just grab some cheap(er) plastic termies and field elites, perhaps with another unit of tacts to really fill out your scoring unit possibilities.

[Grey Mage]

Why not a standard landraider for the twin linked shots vs the enemy flyer?

[infornography]

2 twin linked shots at BS 1 is still terrible odds.  I avoid wasting firepower like that unless I have no other worthwhile targets.

[Grey Mage]

Not significantly worse than BS 5, and plenty of players deal with that. Sometimes you gotta take the shot and see what happens. Unless you play C:SM, theres alot of missing AA firepower and TL is about as good as it gets.

[infornography]

I'm assuming you mean BS2.... not many armies have the "burden" of "dealing with" BS5 ;-)

As for anti air options, we have plenty.  Even without Forgeworld.

Storm Ravens
Storm Talons
and
ADL with Quad gun or icarus.
 

That is two more than some armies have and they are all solid performers for their points.

With Forgeworld we have some of the best anti air capabilities in the game with Storm Eagles (especially ROC pattern), Hyperion defense missile platforms, and Contemptor Mortis Dreads.

 

And all of that is before having to resort to allies which we have multiple battle brothers with EXCELLENT anti air capabilities.

Good anti air is absolutely not in short supply.

[Grey Mage]

Yes lol, BS 2, my apologies.

 

As a SW player, in an area where more than half the groups down allow FW, I find my options severely limited. Somehow though, we all make do- in my case I usually use twin-linked weapons on dreads, or via a Rune Priest.

[infornography]

Ahh, yes.  Space Wolves.  Unless you take quad guns and allies you really are kind of screwed on anti air options.  As a Tyranid player I can totally sympathize, though I don't even have the option of taking quad guns or allies.  We have to dedicate one or both of our HQ picks to the role. 

Both codecies desperately need updates for this edition.

[Robert2004]

Your right there, we have some options with the aegis defense line and stormraven and stormtalon but are quite limited in the regards of other codex. Look at the Tau they can take a load of velocity trackers and do a number on flyers, Chaos marines can take flakk missiles on their squads. Hope the codex gets an update soon because its really showing in my games how old and out dated our current one is.

[minigun762]

But nobody uses flakk missiles because they are too weak for the price tag. Snap shot LCs are usually cheaper and better, especially if you TL them somehow.

[appiah4]

But nobody uses flakk missiles because they are too weak for the price tag. Snap shot LCs are usually cheaper and better, especially if you TL them somehow.

 

This is why TLLC/ML Dreadnoughts are so awesome.

 

As a sidenote I spamming these bad boys would also do well against Hell Drakes.  Start them on the board and focus longrange S8/S9TL firepower on them until they go down.

[WarriorFish]

The "Hellfire" is one of my favourite Dread configurations, but even with two high strength long range weapons aren't you running the risk of missing too much with snap shots?

[Iron Father Ferrum]

Yeah, that's a horrible means of providing anti-aircraft fire.  What makes Rifleman Dreads or Razorbacks with assault cannons or Wave Serpents with scatter lasers so useful as improvised anti-aircraft guns is the combination of twin-linked and a high rate of fire.  That combination gives you a good chance of achieving a hit, and decent chances of achieving multiple hits.  A single twin-linked lascannon and a non-linked krak missile have a snowball's chance of doing meaningful damage to a Heldrake on their own.  It's all about the number of dice you can throw.