Our drakes are ok

[daboarder]

So got the new marine book

 

The icarus skythingymajig.

 

Its heavy 4 twinlinked autocannon with skyfire

 

Thats for both arrays firing at once, nothing we really need to worry about.

 

if firing sepperatly its Heavy 4 autocannon at both targets needing 5's to hit.

 

and without interceptor its basically an aegis quad gun.

 

edit: Don't see many people taking them, particularly over a talon.

[Fallen11]

This is now for long time. Both marines AA tanks are underwhelming, nothing new, specially since they are 1 per heavy slot and can't take squadrons. Aegis is better, for few points more, it gives your army nice cover save.

[daboarder]

To my knowledge it wasn't known is the array was heavy 4 for each gun, with a total of 8 shots or not.

[Scribe]

So regardless, its 4 shots, unless someone where to take 2, how is it cost wise though? Way under a Drake? If so, is it competitive in the slot. I mean yes, at a glance its fine, but if its the next Anni. Barge at 90 points...

[daboarder]

its 4 shots at one target TL bs4

 

or 4 shots at each target without twinlinked and at BS 2

 

takes a heavy slot, same price as a bare pred.

[SRSFACE]

I actually think the rocket launcher one is better suited for taking out a Heldrake. If it misses, there's a good chance it'll come back around and ping it in it's butt armor or at least scare the drake into fleeing off the table.

[daboarder]

yeah I agree, still I don't think we'll see many of those either. slot competition and all that.

[Sception]

Drakes have more to worry from eldar and tau anti-air options.  And marines will do better allying those options in for anti air rather than bothering with the new tanks.

 

They're not awful, not really, but they're hardly anything to write home about.  Mostly they're just another counter-example to dredge up whenever someone argues that GW just makes the new stuff overpowered to try and sell models.

[Zhukov]

I rate Stalkers as good. Reasons:

 

Av12 on front and side is very solid. They are required to be somewhat resistant to the units they are supposed to counter after all.

75 points is not a lot.

It complements especially Bike armies very well: Tackling both Skimmers and Fliers, a thing Bike armies normall don't excell at.

 

If the Aegis is better or not is not relevant.

 

I'm going to build a marine army in 2 months and as far now, I see myself including 3 Stalkers, no joke.

[the jeske]

Ah and to add to what Z said . The "it takes up a slot" isn't a problem . They will self ally and 99% of the time the self ally are going to be of the  Iron fist kind. twin linked  str8 shots can hurt av 12 even with an inv.

[Zhukov]

I think you got confused there, there is no way to make the Stalker S8 as far as I can see.

 

But I do agree that taking up slots isn't really an issue, just for other reasons: SM armies can spend their points just fine on Troops, HQ's and Elites instead or even FA. Even though their Heavy Support is technicly crowded (So many choices lol), most of them aren't attractive.

[the jeske]

ah yeah my bad . forgot that the tank hunter thing works only on devastators. wish it was all hvy support units. well at least it is cheap.

[Urauloth]

I actually think the rocket launcher one is better suited for taking out a Heldrake. If it misses, there's a good chance it'll come back around and ping it in it's butt armor or at least scare the drake into fleeing off the table.

 

 

true, but no intercept means the drake will do some at least some damage before it gets hit, and against codex SM that damage could be horrific. I wouldn't be that worried by the hunter, and it can't do anything else. It's kind of awful, really.

 

Stalkers, on the other hand, look cool imo. I'm probably going to ally one in for my wolves at some point. Its gun amounts to 2 twin-linked bs4 skyfire autocannons and that's a pretty good investment for its points cost. Should absolutely murder skimmers and light aircraft, especially backed up by an aegis.

[SRSFACE]

It's not like the Stalker doesn't also suffer the same issue. No interceptor on that, either.

 

I'd rather have something that's super good at taking down flyers than one thing that is pretty good at taking down flyers and can be an okay snapshot against ground targets. I am bringing it TO BE anti-air and to focus on that. If it has several turns it doesn't have that great a target to shoot at, oh well. It lets me focus the rest of my army on to the tasks of denying enemy scoring units. If they don't have any skimmers or aircraft, so be it. It's all of a single heavy support slot and like 70 points down the drain.

 

It's worth noting that because both tank variants have skyfire, there's nothing stopping them from moving Cruising speed in the movement phase before taking pot shots at ground targets. You could utilize it as mobile cover for power armor foot troops, perhaps more effectively than a Predator could because while it's only armor 12 in the front, it's also armor 12 on the sides.

[Tenebris]

I expect to see a great deal of White Scars/Imperial Fist alliances in the coming tournaments and a great deal of dakka lists with the new SM. Keep in mind that along with a Hunter/Stalker there is a good chance that a Strom Talon would be in there somewhere, either as an ally or in the main detachment, providing even more AA fire to the army.

 

While the above will not spell doom for our Helldrake the good access to many nice weapons across the enitre SM FOC means that we would struggle with keeping our fliers on the board. We speak of a probable Grav spam, tons of bolter fire that while not that powerful can and will cripple our Drake and also the access to Divination can be troublesome.

 

In the end do not look at the Stalker or Hunter to see the immediate threat to our dragons but look at the tons of weapons that a SM player will be able to bring on the board and keep in mind that they are battle brothers with the Tau and Tigurius has the access to Divination. Like it or not even if the Helldrake comes to play he will not last long, not against so many weapons pointed at him while still the most of the enemy army is shooting at our troops. And on the other side, half of the army now has a good reason with the Ultramarine Tactical trait to come via Drop Pod and they couldn't care less for the Helldrake while they can be in melee by turn two.

[SRSFACE]

To take Tigirius and therefore the only option in C:SM with Divination, you have to be running Ultramarines. So, if you really feel people are going to run White Scars/Imperial Fist, there's no divination in that table.

 

Considering how adaptable C:SM is, it's kind of hard to predict who's gonna do what with it on the tournament scene.