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Did they change the baleflamer back from a turret weopon? I thought old FAQ said it was turret and measure anywhere from the base...The new FAQ says treat the weapon as hull mounted, and measure line of site and distance from the weapon. 90degree now?

Yep.

And now we can see the return of footbased armies that the friggen' previous FAQ all scared off.

Torrent rule still helps with that. But that drake needed a nerf IMHO.

Now when I torch units off the board, its not so bad.... You shouldn't have been standing right there. The ass-fire move, though loved by some, was hated by all.

It's a reasonable nerf, it's still good, just not auto-take/spam it to win good.

with 90 degree arc and torrent you can still do a lot with it, especially burning away that pesky units in the backfield behind an ADL.

I'm all for the nerf (sorta) and clearly understand the firing cone however my beef is (perhaps covered in a different thread) is really with Torrent, of course with the baleflamer. The USR states only that it has to be within 12" from the weapon but doesn't quite clearly state that it has to be within said firing arc. Is that an assumed? Am I being ultra anal? After being fed the line that "7th ed is clearer" so much... Thoughts?


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also... Isn't the arc 45 degrees...?

The Template may be placed outside of the firing arc, however Wounds can only be Allocated within the arc.

Thaaaaaat's how we get around that... gotcha... so putting it sideways within the arc is equally mostly useless...

...so I'll start wishlisting bombs or something then I guess...

 More Dakka wrote:
It's a reasonable nerf, it's still good, just not auto-take/spam it to win good.

with 90 degree arc and torrent you can still do a lot with it, especially burning away that pesky units in the backfield behind an ADL.

The arc is 45 degrees total, not either side. You have 22.5 degrees to the left and to the right.

DoW

I used a drake last night and it went exactly as I expected.. He came in and torched a squad of marines. then next turn he went into hover mode and torched more marines. then got blown out of the sky. all in all he was still effective on the battle field. it was the new missions so the two squads he burned were unable to secure their objectives and never collected the cards for said objectives. so tactically he was well worth his points.

Agreed, still worth the points and now no one can complain when you use more then one that it is 'cheese.'
It's a Marine Popper that ignores cover, the minor inconvenience of having to point it at the enemy is not worth complaining about!

 DogOfWar wrote:

 More Dakka wrote:
It's a reasonable nerf, it's still good, just not auto-take/spam it to win good.

with 90 degree arc and torrent you can still do a lot with it, especially burning away that pesky units in the backfield behind an ADL.

The arc is 45 degrees total, not either side. You have 22.5 degrees to the left and to the right.

DoW

While I'm not for a second suggesting anyone would play it that way, nowhere is it written that a firing arc has to be equally distributed around a central line, RAW I believe you could have a left or right handed Heldrake.

More interestingly, and I've suggested this in other threads, you could have a vertical firing arc that was only 45 degrees down, with no ability to fire up, a useful thing with a flier toting an anti infant weapon....

broo wrote:
I used a drake last night and it went exactly as I expected.. He came in and torched a squad of marines. then next turn he went into hover mode and torched more marines. then got blown out of the sky. all in all he was still effective on the battle field. it was the new missions so the two squads he burned were unable to secure their objectives and never collected the cards for said objectives. so tactically he was well worth his points.

You know he just had to be on the Objectives at the end of his turn right so killing them in your turn has no bearing on if he gets the VPs. So I don't really understand your point?

Helldrakes were strong but had a very specific role. Now they are weaker but still just as tactically limited. An unnecessary and unfluffy nerf in my opinion (why can't the Helldrake use its neck just like anything real could). But hey there is a reason the Imperium has stood for 10,000 years and the weakness of the Chaos army must be it.

 azreal13 wrote:
nowhere is it written that a firing arc has to be equally distributed around a central line, RAW I believe you could have a left or right handed Heldrake

What about all those pesky arc of sight diagrams that show it is in fact equally distributed?

.. they were on their way to the objectives and would have capped em next turn.. didnt think I needed to write a book about it. Just trying to give people that have given up on the helldrake new light.



- Edited by insaniak. Please see Dakka's rule #1 -

 grendel083 wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:
nowhere is it written that a firing arc has to be equally distributed around a central line, RAW I believe you could have a left or right handed Heldrake

What about all those pesky arc of sight diagrams that show it is in fact equally distributed?

Assuming you take them as the only ways arcs can be configured, and not as illustrative examples, then of course, but then I wasn't arguing that it would be any different anyway.

There's no illustration of vertical arcs though, and I still don't see any benefit to a flyer being able to target higher than itself, and in the case of the Heldrake, it has been said that it cannot conform to it's vertical arc and be in range of a Baleflamer at the same time, not tested it myself, but yeah, wouldn't try and argue any different in game. (Well, in game, I'd expect a reasonable opponent to cut some slack on the vertical arc to allow the unit to function at all)

 FlingitNow wrote:
(why can't the Helldrake use its neck just like anything real could)

We now have two consecutive rulings, neither of which bear any resemblance to the capabilities suggested by the model. First it had an Inspector Gadget neck, now it's got a serious case of locked joints.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

Pyrian wrote:

 FlingitNow wrote:
(why can't the Helldrake use its neck just like anything real could)

We now have two consecutive rulings, neither of which bear any resemblance to the capabilities suggested by the model. First it had an Inspector Gadget neck, now it's got a serious case of locked joints.

The first ruling was relevatively believable when you consider the swing on the neck and made it simple to use. But why they just can't say 360° measure from the weapon I have no idea. It also made the Autocannon semi viable as you could fire S8 into a flyers rear. But hey at least GW are still not as reactionary as the average TO seems to be trying to turn 7th back into 6th...

Something people need to keep in mind about the 45 Degree rule:
If the weapon can be physically pointed at the target without pivoting the Model, then it does not need to evoke this Rule.

JinxDragon wrote:
Something people need to keep in mind about the 45 Degree rule:
If the weapon can be physically pointed at the target without pivoting the Model, then it does not need to evoke this Rule.

That's not exactly true, as hull mounted has it's own set of rules that force up to 45 degrees, meaning that if your model can physically go over 45 degrees your still not allowed to do so.

EDIT: See vehicle weapons and line of sight BRB

How does a weapon mounted straight into the Hull have the ability to physically rotate independently of the Model?
Such a weapon would likely fall under one of the other Mounting Types.

There's the confusion.
The diagram on Arcs of Fire shows a Leman Russ's lascannon as being Hull Mounted. Really it shouldn't be as it is on a moveable mounting.

They have simplified the system so that weapons have arcs of fire rather than true arcs of fire. In the case of the leman russ, you can easily shave down either side of the lascannon mounting to get more movement from the gun. in the case of a vindicator, there's no way it can physically move to either side, but it still can, as it's hull mounted.

In the case of the heldrake, it's far too powerful if it can fire in any direction it wants, and they couldn't be bothered to make a new rule for it so they shoehorned it into "hull mounted weapon" and told you all to stop taking it so seriously.

That, or heldrake sales have gone down now everyone has all they want, and so they decided to make them worse, go buy some daemons instead.

here's the interesting one though.

Unless otherwise specified, assume a weapon has the ability to pivot 45 degrees vertically. that's what the rulebook says (roughly), so can a heldrake only position the small end of the template in a position the gun can point at, and so be limited to 8-12" range or so? I know this ruling prevents stormbudgies and dakkajets from moving to 1" away from infantry and still shooting them.

Does the Torrent Special Rule state anything about requiring the Template to be placed within Line of Sight?
Just keep in mind, Wounds can only be allocated to Models within Line of Sight....

Also I can see nothing that requires the template be placed at table level.

 grendel083 wrote:
Also I can see nothing that requires the template be placed at table level.

I believe you're correct.

This situation just gets more daft.

The FAQ just confirmed the RAW, it can't pivot as designed by GW, therefore it follows the rules for Hull Mounted Weapon. The old FAQ was in direct contradiction the the RAW and created a vastly powerful unit.

Don't forget that as designed, it points forward towards the ground which makes the admittedly over-limited 45 degree arc usable for close targets.

Of course, me with the disorder of not wanting 2 identically assembled models, raised the neck of heldrake number 2 and turned it more towards its left. I could try and snap its neck off and reglue it, but I definitely remember using some Green stuff to keep it in place so I rather not risk ruining it...

So now I have it flying in from a 10 o'clock angle nose first toward the enemy. Surprisingly makes it much more sinister IMO.

 Nightlord1987 wrote:
Of course, me with the disorder of not wanting 2 identically assembled models, raised the neck of heldrake number 2 and turned it more towards its left. I could try and snap its neck off and reglue it, but I definitely remember using some Green stuff to keep it in place so I rather not risk ruining it...

So now I have it flying in from a 10 o'clock angle nose first toward the enemy. Surprisingly makes it much more sinister IMO.

Nope, you request to play the model as designed, ie a normal model of that type. You have one as designed for reference. No problem.

 grendel083 wrote:
Also I can see nothing that requires the template be placed at table level.

The wording has been bothering me. "Narrow end is touching the base of the firing model".

Does this mean for Infantry models carrying flamers I have to physically place the template at the models feet, on its base and point it up?

Also so far as i've been looking this edition doesn't mention Ruins and Template weapons like the old BRB did on pg. 101. In that section they state that a Template Weapon can hit on the same level as the firer, or one level higher or lower. In this book, they only barely describe a ruin... Maybe i'm missing it?

Does torrent overrule Line of Sight restrictions and Out of Sight? Or do we operate under the tight 45 degree blinders?