Goatboy’s Warhammer 40K Hot Mess: Chaos Heldrake
Goatboy here with another Warhammer 40K Hot Mess to look at. Let’s make the Chaos Marine Heldrake better. It NEEDS it!
The Heldrake is a hot mess that hits a ton of CSM armies. It is one of those older, yet flashy models that Chaos players have, suffer to paint, and then never set foot on the tabletop. The Heldrake is a unit that feels like it has been paying for its sins when it first came out, flew over models, and farted warpfire over anything it flew over. Right now the model just doesn’t feel right for how expensive it is. Sure, it is fast as heck, but does it even do that much? Does its flamer feel like raining hellfire on the enemy? Is your opponent only amazed by how much trim this dang model has? The Heldrake just doesn’t feel right at all.
Up the Heldrake’s Offense
First, it is good. It is fast, but it needs to do more damage. I think it really needs a form of Tank Shock on Charge or some other kind of action it does as it flies fast, crashes in, and wrecks what it hits. A free Tank Shock-like option could be neat or something similar where it comes in with double attacks, increased AP, and more damage as it flies in ready to pounce.
Let the Heldrake do Fly-Overs
I miss the old Fly-over rules from the past and this model could easily have it now. Let it fly over a unit and target one with some kind of damaging attack. This could be Mortal Wounds, could just be X amount of hits on the unit, or even a blast-like attack. Just let it do something. It needs to screech across the sky, do damage to things, and be scary as heck! CAW CAW WHOOOSH!
Give It Back Daemonforge
I love the idea of overcharging the Daemon Engine’s guns and creating the Hazardous-like effect we see on the Forgefiends. Why not do that for all the Daemon engines? GW could do things like up the Heldrake’s attacks, give it exploding hits, or just amp up its damage. I like the idea of Daemon engines doing more thinks in battle. Having the Heldrake be better would help amp up something different in Chaos armies and highlight their creepy use of Daemons in their machines.
Look, the Heldrake is one of units that is a great example of a cool Chaos miniature that need to be awesome. It would be simple just to amp it up, make it worth its points, and be neat again. I know I used it pretty well when it first came out to wreck things, burn enemies, and just murder my way to victory.
For the Warmaster!
