October 9, 2012 in Chaos Space Marine Week, SCI FI Wargaming, Warhammer 40K by beerogre
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The guys take a look at the new Chaos Marine Flyer… the Heldrake!
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While it seems terrible vs other fliers, if you give it the flame weapon it has the potential to be fairly nasty. S6 AP3 torrent means that you’ll be flying around torching marines off of objectives and burning scouts, pathfinders, scarabs and the like out of cover. The problem isn’t that it’s a bad flier, the problem is that vendettas are just broken.
IDK, 74$ for it. Thats a little more than a Forge World Hydra Flak tank, And for 10 to 20 more you could get a Hellblade. IMO it looks like a toy my 6yo nephew would play with. I’m sorry I just dont like it.
I agree regarding the aesthetics of the model – that has to be the most important thing for me. First the Storm Raven, then Dreadknight and now this model confirm to me that I am certainly not the target demographic of GW any more. Like you say, I can imagine kids running around with this making their own ‘wizz’ ‘BOOM’ sound effects.
Nyeeeooowmmm…. BOOM………. die you worthless pawn of the false emporer……. BOOM……
sorry, what was your point again?
That it looks like the kind of thing I used to find under the Xmas tree when I was 8 (i.e. a toy).
As opposed to a miniature representation of something that might exist, or a more ‘serious’ model (although I realise that is a bit of a ridiculous thing to say!). Not a criticism of the model per se, other than to point out it’s not my cup of tea, and I also wonder if it’s a mistake in that a lot of kids coming into wargaming no doubt want more ‘mature/adult’ style models, and not things that look like they should make sound effects and fire plastic torpedoes!
Most of the new Chaos stuff from GW is really ugly. Not ugly in a “awesome badass evil demon” sort of way, but ugly in a “Fischer Price My First Evil Guy” sort of way. This thing is by far the ugliest of them though. It just looks ridiculous, like it flew right off the screen of a late 70s saturday morning cartoon. The new(ish) Necron stuff is pretty silly-looking too. It’s enough to make one wonder if GW has already milked the dark gothic darkness aesthetic for all it’s worth at this point.
Pretty much what I thought when I first saw the leaked pictures.
If someone had just shown the model and asked which faction it belonged to, my response would have been, the baddies in Transformers.
Instead the image was on a page about Chaos Marines.
Am glad I turned my back on GW because the overarching design brief seems to confirm the 80′s cartoon vibe. There is obviously a market for it from the die hard fan who will buy as long as the Citadel stamp is on the box, to the young starters.
There is a lack of sophistication and style in much of what is being released and I cannot reconcile my aesthetic with GW’s oeuvre.
Costs too many points, doesn’t do enough, its 40 points more than a dakkajet with the extra gun and pilot upgrade that’s pretty much guaranteed to shred the damned thing in one round of shooting.
I have to say that I really like this model. Not viewed the video yet though….. I agree with the above cost issue though, but I hate Forge world stuff as I have had a few things from there and they all was warped except my Ogre Rynox’s……. They had HUGE chunks missing out of the legs!!! got fed up of returning them time after time, so I gave up, took ages to re sculpt the legs and that was the last I will deal with them tbh other companies resins are far superior so I wouldn’t go near the hellion if I hated this model.
/Clicks to watch vid…
Drake. noun. A male duck. In this case a lame one
Hel. exclamation. as in WTF!
Now, now Chibi that isn’t strictly fair – ‘Drake’ also means the following:
1. a small cannon, used esp. in the 17th and 18th centuries.
2. drake fly (mayfly)
3. Archaic for ‘dragon’ – you see what they did there!
Add ‘Hel’ on the front and you get the Norse Queen of the Underworld’s pet male duck/dragon – along with the common association of Hel/Hell as in bad/badass, you see?!
Heldrake’s, Helbrute’s – it’s any wonder we haven’t had Helspawn, Helfiends, Helfists, special limited edition Heldice that you can set on fire before you roll them…which I’d actually buy BTW…
Aesthetically speaking it’s a pig of a model, so now we know pigs can fly…Heldrake? No, I dub thee Helswine! It’s a shame as the background concept is sound enough. There’s so much potential to be had from daemon engines but they’ve made them too cartoon-like for me, which is okay as it opens up options for scratch-builds/heavy conversions – I can see a lot of Nurgle flies potentially buzzing around, or slaaneshi chinese-style flying serpents of doom. I’d like to have seen other concepts they must have had though…
lol
I know what they intended with the name,
Confess to being a tad perplexed by the design. For all my criticism of the trend of GW to go the way of ‘toons, I am pretty sure that the collective creative potential is more than capable of producing a more interesting and Chaotic flying machine.
Chaos, from what I understand, suggests mutations, growths and polymorphism.
This is none of those things.
You raise an interesting question. What were the other concepts like?
For those of us in the UK of a certain age will remember a comedian Drake, a proper Charlie.
Which automatically makes me think of his daughter Gabrielle who was in UFO.
*sighs* Ah Gabrielle Drake *wub*
.
Don’t you mean haven’t had “yet”? If i were you i would copyright those as intellectual properties be for they do. JK
Ok. WHY IS IT SOOO SMALL?!! Thought it would have been a lot bigger than this
or maybe Darrell has man hands? nah that can’t be it 
If it costs that much it must be good, no it isn’t
Looks like this will be added to the pile of models that just don’t cut it in the game.
so, from my limited look around at other flyers (trying to find something flying to give me a chance against my mates… guard valks and castus thingy for an others wolves) this seems to be the most expensive flyer? and from the unboxing vid, it looks like one of the smallest?!!!
not that I play the game that much now… Go Warmachine!!!
I have to say though, the DV chosen and cultists LOOK awesome! just these new bigguns I’m not keen on
I second “Go Warmachine!”. Since the porn mag that is the new White Dwarf and the RIDICULOUS digital offerings, I’m glad to be playing Warmahordes
I think everyone is looking at this model the wrong way. This is perhaps one of the biggest game winners of 40K. You see it’s all comes down to how you build it. If you turn the left wings upside down the point will be facing the opposite direction. With this “new” configuration you can effectively through it like a ninja star. From now on you will win every game or ninja star them
CAREFUL! You could have someone’s eye out!
I think that was his (razor sharp and probably coated in some sort of toxin) point.
….Toxin
Eventually, or pretty much always models and toys have influenced each other. So the similarities can be done with every model on every game. I wish the fluff on the dragon was a little better sounding. Personally, I think they should have made a mutated demon monster that more resembled an aerodynamic hell brute but storm raven size. Possible have extra bits to make it god specific.
What I’m mostly disappointed is the same old static poses the new models have. I would like to see more dynamic posable figures like the Dark Eldar models. Something in a running, aiming, or charging with its melee weapon right about to swing.
The str 6 ap 3 template sounds great. Gives the willies to most troop choices. The size of the flyer actually might be beneficial for avoiding line of sight behind taller terrain.
Top tip: Leave it on the shelf with the other crappy looking stuff like the forgefiend and the daemon prince.
It looks like a Christmas turkey.
Cynicism is obviously alive and well with the 40k community. It’s not OP or broken, but it seems like something that can reliably get its points back with a few turns of vector strikes and flaming. I think that most people complaining about the new Chaos release are ignoring the fact that GW might finally be fixing this broken power creep that the last few books have supported–I for one am happy to have an army that doesn’t get called broken or cheating every time I play a game, but also an army that I can win with if I bring a solid list and play well. Balance is the thing missing from 40k right now, and it seems like chaos 6th ed is a step in the right direction.
As for the aesthetic of the model, I am neither a 10 year old nor do I fawn over every GW release, but I quite like it. Not much to say other than that, but I think it’s worth pointing out that not everyone hates the new chaos models.
personly i still think space wolves riding thunderwolves is the most stupid looking thing gw made oh and tau
mind you in the end i got 2 boxes of them about a 2 months ago but havnt made them up as i know i little bit of the russ inside of me will die
While I don’t like the model, it might be a case of a bad choice of paints/ stupid pose. When looking at the artwork the model doesn’t seem as awkward. However, by far the biggest problem I have with it is that it doesn’t need to exist in the first place! Chaos already has flyers available to them that has existed for ages! Why oh why couldn’t they have made a plastic kit of one of the Forge World flyers?
Depending on how it looks when I eventually get receipt of it from Total Wargamer, I may Orkyfi it
Was thinking of a surfing Ork on top with reigns in the dragons mouth steering it.
I wasn’t that big a fan of this model but I admit seeing it built on a video elsewhere did make it look a lot better. Not sure I’d say I like it, as despite the new chaos ‘warped’ look it still looks a little bit out of place but it did look better than I thought it would.
I have used the Heldrake is several games now and it has preformed very well. It took out 2 Dakka Jets in it’s first game with it’s Vector Strikes in combination with Havoc Flakk Missiles, took out a few War Walkers and a Wraith Lord while flaming some Pathfinders in it’s second game. And in it’s last game it took out 2 squads of Long Fangs and did a Vector stike against a Vendetta taking off 2 hull points and causing a Locked Velocity, and did another Vector strike on a rune priest.
They are not ment for AA but rather to help support ground units while the Havocs deal with AA. A 56″ treat range with that Flamer will really put the hurt on any back of the board unit like devastators or long fangs in a hurry.
One of the best options for hte heldrake is using a baleflamer and vector striking infantry. The main advantage of the flamer over the hades autocannon is it is able to shoot around corners of a building because of the torrent special rule which means you move the flame template upto 12 inchs from the source of the flame to the target, you’d be able to roast 4-7 marines/ tau/ or eldar easily and gurantee kills forcing a panic test and maybe finishing them off with some bolter fire. The heldrake is deadly with the flamer the hades autocannon is a good gun but I field my forgefiend with it because it can fire both that s 12 shots a turn while the heldrake only has 6 shots and then armoursaves the flamer most marines. tau and eldar arent surviving it and you can make them run away or soften them up for another unit to assault.