DA Devastators as Heldrake Hunters

[Berzul]

I have a question of functionality, with the Dark Angel Devastators.

 

I currently play against a lot of CSM, and one particular opponent of mine is a big fan of Heldrakes. They are quite a nuisance, and I've been thinking of using a Devastator Squad to keep them off of me. I haven't had much chance yet to try any configurations, but I've been theorizing a lot.

 

Btw, this is for 1000 point games. I usually face one or two heldrakes per battle.

 

The idea is to deploy a Devastator Squad with a Librarian leading them, equiped with a Power Field Generator. The logic behind this is that the Librarian will give the squad Preferred Enemy, and since I plan on keeping this unit away from close combat, the Power Field Generator improves my chances of the unit lasting the entire game.

 

My question is what weapons to use.

 

Flakk Missiles seems like the logical choice against the Heldrakes, but then again... If I have the Librarian in, and so the entire squad benefits from Inner Circle, do you really depend on Skyfire to hit flyers? What if I went, for example, with 4 Lascannons for maximum damage output?

 

I ran a few simulations on the calculator, and using 4 Lascannons, even at BS1 against flyers, it shows me a 13% chance of damage, over 4 Missile Launchers with Flakk Missiles, which shows me a 8.6%.

 

Does the sheer strength of the Lascannon, when paired with Preferred Enemy, compensate for the high roll needed to land hits? 

[GreyCrow]

Preferred enemy allows to reroll to hit and to would rolls of 1 if I'm correct ?

How about you take divination for the psyker and stack the odds in your favour with prescience ?

 

With Lascannons you get a 20% chance of damage, and with flakk missiles you get a 30% chance of damage

 

By the way, i dont know how you got your 8.6% damage chance got the flakk but witout prescience but Preferred Enemy, i get a 26% chance to inflict glancing or penetrating hits on a Drake.

 

 

If you go with the prescience rule you might have good chances with the Lascannons to cripple the Drake more (ap2) at the expense of 2/3 of the chances with flakk, but you'll also do more damage to non flier vehicles

 

Is the Nephilim an option ? I know it may appear overpriced, but that might be the onmy reliable source of anti air

[Berzul]

So, Flakk Missiles with Presience gives the best chance?

 

How would a varied array of weapons hold out? At one point I thought using 2 Missile Launchers with Flakks, one Plasma Cannon and one Lascannon. 

 

This way, when firing against anything other than flyers, I can make use of the Signum on the Lascannon, and blast away with the rest of the weapons.

[Fatespinner]

As a CSM player with a Heldrake, I fear massed lascannons more than flakk missiles. Doubly so if there's an Icarus Lascannon on the table. Just my two cents.

EDIT: As for the "why" this is true: Heldrakes are daemons. Because of this, they can ignore half the vehicle damage table on a 2+. With an AP2 lascannon, you're more likely to get into the higher values (weapon destroyed, immobilized, explodes!) that I can't ignore than all of the lesser ones I don't particularly care about. Yeah, a hull point is a hull point, but with IWND, I have a decent chance to recoup a couple of those. A destroyed weapon or an immobilized result basically renders the Hellchicken useless (or outright kills it).

Also note what weapon loadout your opponent is using. If they're running a Baleflamer, there is basically no penalty for using Jink. If they're using a Hades, they might actually need to think twice about whether or not the defensive benefit is worth the loss of hitting power. If they're running the flamer, you're going to want to get Perfect Timing on your shooters (or use something that ignores cover by default) in order to maximize your chance of getting a shot to stick.

[Berzul]

I hadn't taken that into consideration. Thanks, I'll keep it in mind. 

 

I'll be running a 2 Missile Launchers w/Flakk Missiles + 2 Lascannons unit for my next few games. See how each side of the unit behaves in real combat.

 

Once I have some real results with which to compare both loadouts, I'll tell you guys how it went down, and what turned out to be the better weapon.

[Axagoras]

why not run 2 mortis dreadnoughts?

[Ishagu]

At 1000 points it's hard to counter Heldrakes from the ground.

Run Termies to negate their flamer, or run the Stormwing formation to troll him.

[Fatespinner]

Also, whoever is running 2 Heldrakes in a 1000 pt list is a cruel, heartless person.  That's just plain wrong.

[Ishagu]

Yeah, certain units are very difficult to deal with at lower point games.

 

I remember an Eldar player challenged me to a quick 500pt game once. He had a Wraithknight in the list! lol

[Hellios]

Yeah, certain units are very difficult to deal with at lower point games.

 

I remember an Eldar player challenged me to a quick 500pt game once. He had a Wraithknight in the list! lol

 

I don't go that far... but my old 500pt go to list for Eldar (3rd edition) was an Avatar, a Wraithlord, a Falcon, and two squads of Guardians. Every unit in my army could take out a Land Raider... Because someone insisted on bringing a Land Raider to every 500pt game... Except in one game; he didn't have enough points for the Land Raider due to the Bloodthirster taking so many.

 

And who could forget the classic 3 Wraithlords list...

 

Eldar have always been nasty at 500pts.