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

[Iron_Within]

 

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).

 

 

Except the Psychic deck states that Chaos Space Marines can take all save Telekinesis.

[incinerator950]

I think the problem is that the card says it as a general application, but the FAQs are stating that you can only take Divination through such-and-such to specify how to get it. 

Which is a shame if that is what's happening.

[daboarder]

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.

Eh, 30k lost me when they dropped that they had moved prospero back to two years from now....maybe

That finally got me to realise that they are just going to milk HH till its desicated corpse drops dead, at which point the accountants will tell them to cease producing for the whole thing without ever having gotten close to terra and completion. And some rancid apologist will blame this on the community and defend GW for it. I can do without that stress

[Sception]

My feelings towards 30k are less bitter then that. Regardless of how far along the heresy they get, the work they've done has been very nice. They've done a good job with it, and I have every reason to think they'll continue to do a good job for as long as it goes. Then again, 30k never really held any interest to me, so maybe I'm just not invested? My chaos marines were born in the aftermath of the Heresy, and FW's 30k line was never going to get to them, no matter how far along it went.

[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.

Eh, 30k lost me when they dropped that they had moved prospero back to two years from now....maybe

That finally got me to realise that they are just going to milk HH till its desicated corpse drops dead, at which point the accountants will tell them to cease producing for the whole thing without ever having gotten close to terra and completion. And some rancid apologist will blame this on the community and defend GW for it. I can do without that stress

As someone who's tolerated 'When its Done' as a release date for any number of games, I can accept it. As long as they are pretending its for balance (hell maybe it is!) then stuff will come.

Its not going to come fast, I get that, but if they are done each faction in 2 or 3 years? Well, we could be at 8th by then. In fact I am making a note here, we likely WILL be at 8th if not 9th in 3 years.

I am PLEADING with FW to keep some sense in the game, GW certainly is throwing it out the window.

[Smurfalypse]

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...

 

You hit the nail on the head. 

In every tournament I go to I would always bring two Baledrakes to the party, not so much because they were "OP" or whatever but mostly because they would force my opponents to react in certain ways that I could exploit with a CC army. That option is basically gone now, the Vector Strike change was okay because it was not a big deal vs ground units anyhow as any CSM army worth its salt was CC oriented anyhow, but vs Flyers it is our primary AA. Removing the +1 from the D3 was fine as we got the AP2 instead.

 

I am now forced to look at something else, why take a 170pt Baledrake when I could run a 100pt Flame Chariot of Tzeentch that does almost the same thing (albeit far less survivable, but you should have enough threats to make it a tough choice for your opponent). Str5, AP3, Torrent or Str9, AP2, Heavy D3. . . With that you have the added bonus of busting out some vehicles at range.

 

Have only played two games in 7th so far, won one and lost one. Lost the one on Torrent of Fire stream last Friday night due to Objective Secured Drop Pods (I completely forgot they scored :P), the second I won but ran my normal tournament CSM list (six total Warp Charge). The change to Daemons may be coming unfortunately, I have resisted it for a long long time and the hardcores in the area give me a ton of credit for sticking it out, but I am not sure I would be able to compete currently at NOVA Open if I do not. Will see in a few weeks as the META starts to shake out and we get the NOVA FAQ/Rules.

[brother_contagion]

What I'm thinking of doing is buying another Heldrake and trying out this strategy:

 

Give one a Baleflamer and one a Hades Autocannon (or Baleflamer if there's no other air units), have both Heldrakes follow each other, the Hades being the leader and the Baleflamer behind his tail (about 12" or so). Have the lead Drake pop transports with vector strikes and Hades shots, and the following Drake will burnanate the contents (and possibly vector strike other units). You now need two to do the work of one, essentially, however they still are an effective air unit.

[Deadman Wade]

Wow, at last! It took only two years to fix this damn thing, could be worse. Maybe now I'll won't hear questions like "Where are your dragons?" when playing my CSM.

Great change, I really hope that it stays that way.

[Hellrender]

What I'm thinking of doing is buying another Heldrake and trying out this strategy:

 

Give one a Baleflamer and one a Hades Autocannon (or Baleflamer if there's no other air units), have both Heldrakes follow each other, the Hades being the leader and the Baleflamer behind his tail (about 12" or so). Have the lead Drake pop transports with vector strikes and Hades shots, and the following Drake will burnanate the contents (and possibly vector strike other units). You now need two to do the work of one, essentially, however they still are an effective air unit.

 

It rarely lines up perfectly like that tho. It's hard enough to get 1 flyer properly positioned , especialy since the wings are easily off the board, which at my meta means, you cant place it there.

 

Nah, i might keep my 1 heldrake. I might just have fun with orks in 7th XD

[totgeboren]

Well, this change made me consider buying a Heldrake. I never bought one because I win about 50/50 with my basic CSM with their Land Raiders, Dark Apostles, Forgefiends and Helbrutes, so I sort of assumed a Baledrake would leave me friendless.

In this new harder-to-use version, it seems to have a point cost that is pretty balanced with the rest of the codex. It improves the internal balance of the book, which is good. The problem I guess is that the csm book is pretty underpowered compared to most other new codices (except DA I guess, out eternal brother in nerfdom), but better internal balance is nice. Makes it more interesting to create army lists when 'the best' isn't as obvious.

[Sn4k30r]

BAleflamer, drake was the problem and baleflamer is  the only drake to be considerating as problem (hades is just funny no way to see it on a list....only for fun or fluff maybe)

 

3x drakes not to mention 4x(allies drakes)  could fit in a list.....

 

That means ANY FOOT marine even with rhinos (blown apart after 4x d3+1 vectors)  was doomed  against flamers x4... what was the Imbalanced about helldrake? 0 line of sight anything that flies over it, takes VS, and 360^ flamer with torrent  (i must remind you than FLAMERS IGNORES COVER SAVES) 

 

Required 0 skill play, flies everywhere , burn everything kill marines on 2+ rerrol (deamonforge ha funny when you want something 100% killed)  

 

When something is Nurfed like Baledrake means is balanced.... unless you are blind....not to see the overpowered helldrake, against 1 drake you say i can play, against 2 is nightmare, 3x no way to deal with so many 4x  means all my scoring die on t2.....t3 easy game....

 

 

So after after FAQ   you got Line of sight...? no nurf i see all vehicles do...have LoS

 

Flamer still has ap3 , and burns requires skill to place helldrake to correct positioning and not just throw them into table burn 360 around almost 20 inches...

 

You have still your ANTI-air craft ap2 d3 VS against FMC -fliers 

 

So they nurfed your ground VS only 1 hit AP2....  i see it nice , (still can open vehicles harder of course...) but if you look better you could see Helldrake was 1 of the best Air units (still is cause of flamer against infantry) cause the time it was entering was giving you 2 units for targets, 1 VS, the other die to flamer, so a helldrake always could be seen like 2x targets split.... imagine that 3x or 4x drakes.... 

 

So Nurf it is a more balanced unit? 

 

You as CSMarines you can ¨¨whine¨¨ about other units of your codex have or lacks, but please dont cry about Helldrake.... 

 

P.s i love Chaos too i am about starting an IW army.. so no offence!

[TheDevourer]

The problem is that the drake carried all the other terrible picks and choices in the codex.

 

Now we are just all going to have to play even more daemons than before if we want to stay competetive.

 

Sure drakes were good. But they had diminishing returns. More than 2 baleflamers is/was bad.

 

Don't know why so many people refused to play vs 4 drakes. I've never lost to drake spam... Sure 4 drake lists were one of the more scary csm lists. But lets be realistic it didn't win you a tournie, nor would it win you many games (unless your opponent feels he has to field rhinos and tacticals for the larger part of his army O.o)

 

Edit: We should be allowed to whine about losing that when we look at the rest of the codex. 

 

Still the drake is still more than playable it just won't be able to carry us as hard and it will be easier to outplay and outposition it.

[Sn4k30r]

Carrying all the other bad stuff means that i can´t enjoy downloading a troop touching table cause even a 10man squad dies to a swap and flame? I used to play always mech lists cause of drakes and still was op, even if i tried to stay away of vectors,

A veteran player still can win with helldrakes, no matter the nurfs , now has ~specific~ role against Infantry or enemy flyers,

Its just no more i got HElldrakes! wow! i can do all open vehicles with VS and kill people inside,!!

i am still with chaos marines thats why i say other ¨bad¨ choices of codex, should be fixed, but having a game-breaker unit is just bad for the enemy player.... as everyone whine about serpent spam etc...cron flyers etc....

But helldrake gave you no chance to counter it when even a marine with a 3+save die by hundreds in a turn! (joking about hundreds!)

[TheDevourer]

If thats your experience versus heldrakes then you are right. In my experience it was fairly easy to minimize casualties against drakes considering that they only had drakes. Yes it was a game breaker. But they took our one kit and gave us nothing for it is what I'm trying to say ;). We've lost power and gained nothing which is Imo a reason to complain :D.

 

There were ways of countering drakes ;). It's still a flyer after all and interceptor would take them down quite well. Ofc this is mainly in regards to tau, eldar and taudar. They weren't really affected by drakes 

[Sn4k30r]

+1 to what you said! but air was the main problem after deathstars in 6th, not to much AA or lack and you cant rely on your air units againt enemys cause its who enters his flying units into game 1st, the 2nd player has more chances to destroy yours many factors occur on that,

and Devourer i dont think 3x helldrake was too many points to stop you from adding other hard units like DP with mace or Skarbrand hehe extra helldrake there? oblits and other cool stuff ,

Of course i am with you you lost power and gain nothing, except some psyckic boost divination which is nurfed somehow with WP too there..

But i dont believe we will stop seeing Helldrakes on tabletop, maybe we will not see them as necron-CSM allies anymore 10x flyers! and helldrakes! for sure i think...

Did you watch Blood angels FAQ? i feel they ruined more from all other codexes... (as i play BTs BA and i want to start IW CSM) imagine all named nurfed and lose FAST Rule om your vehicles and paying more points for regular rhino! you pay the ´red´ paint that gentlemen! i call it THE NurF!

[Chaeron]

I've got six - feel my pain.

 

Lucky I actually really like how they look!

[Zhukov]

I think most people have no clue whatsoever regarding balance, at least not for higher level play. No offense, but this is just the case. In competitive play you didn't need more than 1 Baleflamer. You could run 2 though, pretty fine as well. 3+? That was bad, real bad.

 

Not only that, some don't even understand the rules well: Ap2 doesn't matter against flying targets, compared to 6th. Why? Because the vehicle damage charge shifted up 1 result as well. Ap3 in 6th is the same as Ap2 in 7th. So against Fliers you simple lost 1 sure hit as well (as against FMC's, cause ap3 or ap2 doesn't matter here, no 2+ save FMC's normally). Do you guys even realise how much of a nerf that alone is? Going from 1 + d3 to d3? The vector strike was about half the Heldrake's damage ouput. You go from 3 hits on average to 2 hits. That's 33%. Not only that, the minimum went from 2 to 1. Which is a straight 50% drop in reliable hitting power.

 

People thinking the Heldrake did only damage with it's baleflamer must have been playing in their clubs against badly designed lists, especially when they speak about 3+ Heldrakes with Baleflamer. It's complete overkill and made the rest of your list suffer.

 

Calling the Hades a fluff choice (pre-nerf) also makes me laugh. The Hades Drake was near mandatory near the end for Chaos Primary. CSM had no issues (and still doesn't) with killing infantry, it was the Barges, other Fliers, Wave Serpents, Stalkers and IG arty which needed to be killed as well and that was harder. The Hades drake had a purpose there. The kill count of my Hades Drake over more than 10 games, competitive game, was huge. Without the 360 degrees though? Well that's gonna be hard, I want a permanent Daemonforge as compensation for that, but no way you gonna get that. 

 

How are you gonna kill vehicles, fliers and FMC's now as CSM? Hint: You won't. You can't anymore, not on a competitive level at least, not sufficiently. People who say you can don't even realise how much CSM relied on it's Drakes. I hope I don't sound angry, because I'm not, I honestly don't really care, I'm done with 40k tournament play (which has nothing to do with this FAQ), GW just can't write rules, it's pitty. I'm.... I dunno, I laughed out loud (a real LOL), when I saw the FAQ. GW answered the same question differently! This was a conscious balance decision, while they never do so! They straight-up murder CSM with this, while giving nothing in return. Why? They sold enough Heldrakes maybe? Could be. It's ridiculous, if they are apparantly capable of nerfing units, then why not nerf Wave Serpents and their ridiculous shields as well?

 

Meh, really, meh. It's not about having a win button, Heldrakes weren't a win button, they were the only damn reason we could compete.

[TheDevourer]

Zhukov you just really hit what I was trying to say with your post. Exactly my sentiment concerning the drake nerf and the level of play. I also ran alot of hades drake paired with a single baledrake towards the end and it performed really well. Guess it's time to go run a daemon list again now. Thank god I have enough daemon princes and hounds. Just need to buy a lot of horrors now I guess.

[Tenebris]

Indeed, Zhukov pointed exactly, and more elaborated, what I was saying in the first place. The Heldrake was THE only reason why Chaos Space Marines were part of competitive gameplay, sad as it may be, it was, it is the truth. You not only took the Heldrake for its damage, you took Heldrake in order to play Chaos Space Marines...

[Sn4k30r]

ZHukov  where exactly does a list with 3x drakes suffer? i speak for 6th not now ... not tested yet..

 

How can a list suffer when with 3x drakes you have all your problems solved? enough VS anti tanks or AA, and kill anything not inside transports as ¨primary shooting¨ target after VS (even after transport destroyed the passengers?)

 

You said how you gonna open vehicles? with oblits-suicidal termies squads meltas (try to play marines special weapons not spam zombie lists...as 75% players CSM do)  DPs., etc..

 

about wave serpents got nurfed a bit somehow with jinks saves snap fire after, try to get them melee,... or hull points as always...

 

As i said a torrent 12¨ and another 8¨ + fly  do it x3 drakes (as i said no allies) and tell me what points of terrain cannot be touched by flame of death....

 

I feel the disappoiment but the fact whine about ¨¨op model¨¨  the ap2 from ap3 almost remains the same so the nurf was the hits on the ground... from d3+1 is now 1,  

 

Any army with not a specifil AA unit like tau-eldar-even necrons 6s army, was already in problems  playing with CSM against Wolves would be funny i think? enjoyable the only AA could be only an ADL and all others 99% dead by t2 when dragon enters.... and i speak with facts from many communities,. if wasnt so overpowered we wouldnt see so many lists with allies , chaos 10xcultists and helldrake.... ALL needed in 6th is Ignore cover, what is better than a flamer ap3 that burns everywhere and behind it?  

 

As i said i feel bad too cause i want to start Iron warriors with 2x helldrakes, but ok we are not need to be blind about the helldrake spam was the ultra-competitve list with a DP skarbrrand an CSM could bring and it wasnt funny playing against it even with flyers cause they get invu ¨5¨ save....not even jink cause of flamer...template...

[the jeske]

ZHukov  where exactly does a list with 3x drakes suffer? i speak for 6th not now ... not tested yet..

 

 

at how many points . because at 1500 , if you took 3 then fun began . First pre CS [which was like 2/3 of the edition] taking 3 ment you suddenly had no place to put a lord/sorc , because all FA slots were taken [this also ment that chaos suddenly no longer had access to two important utility units spawn and bikers] . Post CS it was better , becuase we had 4 FA slots[we technicly had those under BL too , but BL was lukewarm at best as an expansion], but if we took 3 drakes then slots were not our only problem we also were losing points[and before someone says that helldrakes were cheap , they weren't . cultists were cheap]. So we may end up without the bikers or the spawn just , because we lack the points for it . When Belfegors DLC came around christmas  a lot of people switched to him. He was more or less our only anwser to D weapon carriers and had ok stats . Problem with him was the points cost. If someone took 3 drakes and him half the army was gone[and if someone tried to add tool box units like spawn/oblits then he would have had to take CS and spend even more points].

 

 

about wave serpents got nurfed a bit somehow with jinks saves snap fire after, try to get them melee,... or hull points as always...

 

 

If the serpent was a LR class tank transporter[[max 2-3 in a list] then maybe melee[which still is very limited in 7th] with luck could try to take one or two out. But they are a troop transport , a fast one and long range one[comperable in arment to a dakka pred] . They got a huge buff in form of +7 to explode rule and we don't have enough shoting treat to make jink a serious problem for eldar[now if we could make them jink all serpents in 1-3 turns of the game it would be different. making them jink 1-3 serpents per turn does lower their shoting , but not enough to make the army not out shot us].

 

 

As i said a torrent 12¨ and another 8¨ + fly  do it x3 drakes (as i said no allies) and tell me what points of terrain cannot be touched by flame of death....

 

All it takes is 2 pices of terrain higher then 6" and suddenly using drakes with a 45 degree LoS , becomes realy hard. Even with one with proper deployment it could be hard for the chaos player. And let us also not forget that helldrakes were not 5th vendettas .they come in from reservs

 

 

Any army with not a specifil AA unit like tau-eldar-even necrons 6s army, was already in problems  playing with CSM against Wolves would be funny i think

 

 Ah and that is why GW buffed those weak/old armies in their FAQs/7th ed right . They did exactly the opposit , they buffed eldar and chaos demons which were the two top tier armies at the end of 6th. While costing more points for same stuff  I might add.

All marine armies could take tau as ally and the tau formation. Buffmanders were a core units in centstar builds.

 

  playing with CSM against Wolves would be funny i think?

 

Playing with chaos vs wolfs or GK in 5th was also fun . all powers stoped , SW/GK shot more , out melee you etc. Besides the fact that GW doesn't know how to make rules , how is that an argument for chaos sm losing the only model that was carrying them.

 

Zhukov said it . How are chaos marines suppose to deal with fliers , FMC and vehicles in 7th ?

[Nehekhare]

the end for Chaos Primary

 

;)

 

 

How are chaos marines suppose to deal with fliers , FMC and vehicles in 7th ?

 

typhus + 210 zombies, second detachment tzeentch heralds + horrors summoning more: drown the board in minis, flyers can't move and crash. win either by objective secured or making your opponent quit from boredom.

[Dallas Drake]

Well I for one am going to spam the hell out of telepathy for invisibility... I just don't care. I'm up against a Nid list with 3 Tyrants with TL-Devourers on Saturday & I really don't know what I'm going to do to wound them when  I can barely even hit them!! Anyone who dares tell me invisibility is broken will unleash my CSM nurf rant.

 

Although, don't Baledrakes get to baleflame FMCs in the sky now? Nothing in the new book saying they can't.

[Sception]

Nids aren't in great shape these days, either, and hardly got anything of value out of the edition change (we at least got more forgiving challenge rules and daemon summoning - even if actual daemons do it better) so no need to vent your frustration at your opponent.

 

As for dealing with flying tyrants, try vector striking drakes and princes (vector strike still works fine against flying targets), quad guns on bastions or ADLs, and just praying for sixes with autohavocs, hadesfiends, oblits, or predators. If your down for forgeworld options, consider a fire raptor with reaper autocannons.

 

FMC devourers are a pain, but with the new ruling against changing flying mode and charging in the same turn, one of the important offensive tools of dakka tyrants has been cut right out from under them, and unlike our own princes they have no nurgle shrouded 2+ jink saves to fall back on.

 

Other then that, hammer the rest of his army, and weather the storm from above.

[Dallas Drake]

Haha, nah he's a friend & he has been through plenty of disappointment himself with his Nids so I won't be too harsh.

 

I'm using 2 Baledrakes & Belakor so I have 3 Vector Strikes there, I also have Oblits so I'll maybe throw them at them too.

 

We'll have to see how they get on! Thanks for the breakdown!