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Ok. Here's my crude drawing. A flying base is about 5" tall. The typical heldrake gun barrel is probably 5-6 inches off the ground, let's say 5 to keep it simple. Range on a torrent is 12". With 2 sides of the triangle we don't even need trig to see that the 3rd side would be 13" (5^2 + 12^2 = 169, so 13" for 'c'). That means heldrake can maybe see the heads of infantry models that are 11" away (ie in range of torrent), probably can't see models 10" away unless they are tall.

Is this right? Can the drake only hurt stuff in this narrow area?

I'm not sure I understand. What exactly are you asking?

Torrent allows you to place the template anywhere up to 12" from the firing model, provided the small end is closer than the large end. The flamer rules also say that anything 'under' the template is hit.

Unless I missed an important part of what you're asking, the Helldrake has no restriction on hitting models vertically anywhere from 1" to approx 19" (flamer template is about 7" long, iirc) away from it, provided they are within the restricted 45 degree horizontal arc (due to hull mounted).

DoW

I will re-read the torrent rules but I guess I thought the entire template had to be within 12". Also I thought the heldrake needs LOS in order to allocate wounds. I'm trying to visualize the "kill zone" for the baleflamer.

Its actually only 22.5 degrees off center, but the official GW pose has the gun and head pointing at a significant downward angle which means that the Helldrake can see most of what it could possibly hit. Being a flamer, it can only allocate wounds to models that it can see, but counts hits for any model the template can be over.

I don't think it matters how the drake is modeled, it can pivot 22.5 up and 22.5 down. More importantly I did not understand how torrent works. Now that I do, is it fair to say the heldrake can allocate wounds to models 11-19 inches away from its base? The targets would of course also need to be in the 45 front arc which I think is about 9 inches wide at a distance of 11". I'm scared to show my work for this one as I did need to look up trig.

Hey at least you did the work for it as the last time calculations where required, concerning the vertical arc and fliers, I simply shrugged and refused to do so.
Still despise that Rule, I believe the Authors never had Flyers in mind with that Rule but as Fliers are Vehicles....

Hey Yendii, I did some maths on this one and its just vertical height x 2.41 will gove you the horizontal distance.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/598827.page

Have a look to see if it helps you do less math hammering in future.

As for your question, I believe you can place the template as per torrent rules to count how many hits you get. Then roll for wounding based on the number of hits you got. And when it comes to allocating the wounds, only those in the cone of visibility can be allocated wounds.