Hitting my drakes.........with nerf bats.

[GreyCrow]

Come on, the FAQ just means the Heldrake can't breathe fire from its ass anymore ! :p

[MaliGn]

No, it means it can't turn it's head.

[incinerator950]

...*silence*

[Warsmith Aznable]

Blight Drones are so fragile as to be a one target slimed per game unit, since they explode much easier due to their special rule and low AV.

[incinerator950]

I was planning a pair of them, but that was quashed simply because I wanted a single drake for the points for Air superiority/fire support, and most importantly because 1 useful drake was cheaper than buying two forgeworld drones which can or cannot be effective given the situation, even if you're dropping pie plates and slam their exploding bodies into the enemy.

[minigun762]

Topics merged.

[Iron Skull Mask]

You say hades drakes are dead, but are they? I mean the gun is better against vehicles than the flamer (obv.), and now with vc nerfed the gun seem more versatile than the flamer. Two drakes, one with flamer, one with a gun still might do a good job after all. Let's make some games before drafting eulogies.

[Sception]

Can't vector strike and shoot the same target. Still wildly less effective at it's specialty of anti-light-vehicles than the baleflamer is at its specialty of any-infantry-shy-of-terminators, which is a much broader specialty. Hades still only averages 2 hits with its gun, still needs to roll against armor (needing a 3+ even against armor 11) and cannot one shot a vehicle on any individual hit. Most likely it strips a single hull point off a light to mid armored target, and even that only if the target isn't enjoying an invulnerable or cover save.

 

The flamer on the other hand hits automatically, ignores cover, and wounds its primary targets on twos. Where the hades most likely strips a single hull point from a vehicle, the flamer most likely wipes out half a squad of infantry.

 

Yeah, I'd say the nerfs to the drake hit the hades considerably harder than the baleflamer, and the baleflamer was by far the stronger of the two to begin with.

[Iron Skull Mask]

Both got worse by the firing arc being limited, but I can't get why the hades should have been hit harder than the flamer. Hades is still more effective against vehicles, and since the flamer does nada against vehicles, two flamers aren't as good as before.

[Sception]

The hades does almost nada against vehicles itself. Again, four shots, only BS3, still has to roll against armor, can no longer score a destroyed result. A baleflamer shot can, and likely will, decimate a unit of infantry targeted. A hades shot likely does little more than scratch a vehicle, and cannot even scratch the same vehicle that it tried to vector strike.

 

Not being able to vector strike and shoot at the same target hurts the hades more than the bale because the hades probably wanted to vector strike and shoot the same thing and the bale drake probably wanted to vector strike one thing and shoot something else anyway.

[Iron Skull Mask]

Don't know, but rolling 3+ two times (on average) per round, sounds like a better deal to me than rolling 1 time for a 5+ ? Then again you simply vectorstrike one vehicle, and then shoot another, just play around with coordinating the movement of your drakes. The thing is, hades adds to your anti tank barrage, while the flamer doesn't. So 1 hades, 1 flamer might be more useful than 2 flamers. Hades stripping hullpoints makes the flamer better as well, as vehicles are opened quicker.

[Sception]

Why are you using drakes as your primary anti-vehicle? The hades drake isn't very good at it (compared to options like oblits, havocs, predators, etc), and the bale drake is specialized in something else entirely (which it actually is good at).

 

We have better tools for anti tank barrage than drakes in general, especially now that the hades does it so much more poorly than it used to. Take oblits, predators, havocs, melta bikes, deep striking melta raptors or terminators, CSMs or Plague marines with meltas in rhinos with combi-meltas, MSU chosen with a lascannon or sonics with a blast master, maulers, nurgle mace princes, or fortifications with icarus or quad guns. If you need a job done, take a unit that is good at it, or at least ok at it, not a unit that does it poorly while also doing nothing else well.

[daboarder]

Ok they did it, the drake is now hull mounted, good job GW, frak heads

 

http://www.blacklibrary.com/Downloads/Product/PDF/Warhammer-40k/7th-faq/Chaos_Space_Marines_v1.0_May14.pdf

[Iron Skull Mask]

Never said the hades drake was the primary weapon against vehicles. It just ADDS to the anti tank barrage. So 1 hades, 1 flamer > 2 flamers without vectorstrike as it was. Wait, are we having one of those pointless internet debates here? I mean, do as you please man, I'm not into the business of converting people.

[Prodigal Son of Magnus]

Chaos Space Marines: get an FAQ that could change their entire dynamic and make a bunch of useless units better, best unit nerfed, bad units nerfed even further.

[incinerator950]

The HD was better at engaging air opponents while still being able to hurt tank weakspots.  Both versions of the drake could kill air support and most people go with the Bale simply because its the better approach torching things over cover and burning infantry up to power armor.  The other implication was the balance aspect of just how good the Torrent flamer could be, and you could get away with a single hadesdrake covering your ass and scaring enemy air support and killing them. 

Now that it has a hard time being a nuisance to ground units, using it solely for dedicated Ack Ack is pointless when you're now forced to dogfight in evasive patterns instead of flying over and shooting behind you (not mentioning VS).  This makes it redundant at 170 points when you can take an Aegis for less, or squeeze in any other option.  Or if you still want mobile air support options, there are FW options (I forgot that one unit that has an abundance of firepower).  This double-nerf makes it pointless to use hacs it opposed to the FF, which is questionable to use to begin with.  So, personally, less use against armor and not a great chance for Air superiority means I can't see a purpose for the Hadesdrake.  Sad as I really wanted that Wartdrake conversion.

[daboarder]

some genius forgot to give abbadon back his protection from spawndom.....god what a shoddy job this is

[incinerator950]

Don't worry, everything they could have done in their power to balance CSM was taken into consideration.  Unfortunately,when they were implementing it, they decided to go to a corporate barbeque and decided to post the update hastily instead of properly laying down checks and balances that could make units more edible.

[Slayer le Boucher]

Yup they did put new useless stuff, but forgot to add the old stuff that we still needed.

 

And this is again proof that GW is uncapable of balancing correctly.

 

6Th, D3+1 Vector strikes to anything, 360 AoF.

7Th 1 VS or D3 VS, 45 AoF.

 

So they where like" mmmh...360 its too much, waht do you think?...yeah...45 then?, Deal!!, now lets go get lunch"...

 

Dunno could have made it 180 or even 90 AoF that would have been enough.

 

Its Just like with Powerfist between 4th and 5th, 15pts and +1 A, then 25pts, specialist weapon, they could have done 15pts and specialist or 25pts and keep the extra attack, but noooo, too good, need to nerf it so deep into the ground, that it comes out in Australia...

 

"Sight"...

[Iron_Within]

The FAQ makes no god dammed sense. Their quality control has completely gone out the window. I cannot understand for the life of me what the fudge all this crap is.

 

So... do we have divination or not? Are we still forced to take god specific powers or not? What is the warp cost of these powers? What about Abbaddon and spawndom. What about spell familiars. What about the HUNDRED AND ONE questions that are clearly on the cards and they've not even tried.

 

Absolute frigging idiots. I would be in disciplinary if my work caught me doing such a half arsed job.

[Tenebris]

Well I can positively say that I never relied on the Heldrake for anything but to have an airborne flamer. I agree the Vector Strike was a bit too nasty if used properly but the Baleflamer was a turret weapon which helped a lot the Chaos Space Marines who as a book struggle to get to grips with the enemy, especially of the cover hugging and transport sheltering sort of enemy.

 

What I lament most of this nerf is that the CSM book is down of one solid, reliable and cost effective unit. You could expect things of a Heldrake, you knew that one thing was to be wounded and another thing burned in the turn it arrived. Sure only spammers rely on the Heldrake for the overall strategy of their army but to every Chaos player the Heldrake was the old warhorse, an unit which got things done and was very well rounded.

 

The competitive aspect of this nerf means that all the sudden we will be seeing less and less Heldrake armies. One will usually be the norm for the Chaos lists but things like Daemons + Heldrakes, Necron + Heldrakes will be void and I predict a very low placement for CSM primary armies or CSM allies armies as the effect.

 

As it is now, the Heldrake assured that the CSM were played, now even this incentive is quite gone and expect a ton of armies simply to switch to 11 Horrors and a Herald of Tzeentch as their allies, or as primary, effectively cutting the usefulness of Chaos Space Marines.

 

Yp, the Heldrake was our entry card to the competitive scene, sad as it is, but this is the truth. Now it is still a solid unit but is it really worth 170 points for an unit which can easily be now replaced by a much cheaper Hellhound?

 

The question I present you is the following. Please tell me how will you deal now with an even more static meta and cover hugging units with an army which lacks mobility, deep strikers or Ignore Cover weapons. How would you score now knowing that your answer to enemy transports is effectively gone and all you are left are now Autocannon Havocs followed up with some form of assault unit, since we can hardly shoot things dead now...

[daboarder]

How I will deal with this? By getting out. Screw GW and screw their bull:cuss. I will still play the odd game or two but from now on Im only getting what I already own finished. I've had enough of their crap

[incinerator950]

I'm honestly amazed there are no petitions or GW forum/mass blogs about how bad these FAQs are done.  Even the loyalist Space marines are mostly copy and pasted redoes. 

Like, did GW not want to pay employees to sit down and read customer feedback?

[Nehekhare]

So... do we have divination or not? Are we still forced to take god specific powers or not? What is the warp cost of these powers? What about Abbaddon and spawndom. What about spell familiars.

 

correct me if i'm wrong:

-CSM psykers generate powers from daemonology in addition to the others listed in their army list entries (no divination listed)

-arguably chaos psychic focus powers are not "rolled" (p.23)

-warp costs are specified in the brb.

-abby is a champion of chaos.

-re-rolls of 2 or more d6 must re-roll all the dice, not just some (p.11).

[Scribe]

I'll be back in a few weeks. Maybe everything will make sense then.

 

Going to make my Heldrake for my Vow harder to finish, but till then, its 30K time. :p