Death Ray !

So, i had my first encounter against the death ray yesterday.. Ack.

I was using two raiders and a predator so i was making special arrangements to make sure i didnt keep them to close together.

What i failed to realize was the death ray can hit units in combat? It came in.. Hit my chaos lord and two spawn.. And lyckily was a couple inches short of getting a landraider as well. They didnt faq that part of thw ray so can understand the ability tk do so.. But it just seems so odd. My lord was able to shuck it off.. Luckily.. But was scary for a moment.

A couple turns later it attempted to free some necron warriors from combat that were locked in with a termie lord. With line placement.. Tom could get the lord and no necrons.. But i made my invul.

Seems so odd to be picking out units in CC.. Or being to hit them in general. Scary stuff..

Ya, Tom did that to kill a locked-in-combat Ahriman. Hit 4 members of the squad, Ahriman was the third closest to the Scythe, and I failed 4 4+ invul saves and a 2+ look out sir roll.

It's up there with Ordinance with the level of sniping it can do!

Ordinance has to target a unit though, to snipe, you need to scatter. Even with Barrage, you have to pick a unit, if I remember correctly.

Deathray allows you to put a point on a dude's head and draw a line.

No stopping it either. as its based on a flyer. you have zero chance of defending against its alpha strike/snipe.

it just shows up wherever it wants on a table and ruins your day.

I used to kind of snigger at folks fielding FW dreads. But really, there needs to be a ton more models in the game with interceptor.

Rhaevyn wrote:I used to kind of snigger at folks fielding FW dreads. But really, there needs to be a ton more models in the game with interceptor.

Yessir!

Some trivia from last night's game: Both the Hell Drake and Doom Scythe went down within a turn of each other, to non-flier, non-skyfire shooting. I think a Land Raider took down the Scythe if I remember right, and a pair of twin linked multi-meltas downed the Drake.

Rhaevyn wrote:No stopping it either. as its based on a flyer. you have zero chance of defending against its alpha strike/snipe.

it just shows up wherever it wants on a table and ruins your day.

I used to kind of snigger at folks fielding FW dreads. But really, there needs to be a ton more models in the game with interceptor.

Yeah, screw those guys....

I got a pen and a glance with the landraider on turn 2.. But inly stunned.

The heldrake came on from reserve on turn 5 i think and vector striked the scythe for 4 hits which gave me a glance and three pens.

The doom scythe tried to take him out a turn earlier.. But as he was pretty much exactly half in the and half in the back.. We rolled off to see whixh arc he was in and luckily you rolled side.

Both flyers did their job that game.. Thats for sure.

Yeah, the Hell Drake is a great model. I don't see why people hate on it so much, it's good at what it does.

I realize I missed this convo, but I would like to post an interesting fact about the Death ray that came up in my game with Tom.

The Death Ray can shoot backwards, since you pick a point anywhere within 12" (which can be behind teh death ray), and a direction, and roll some dice.

You however can only wound models in LOS of the weapon. This is true of every gun in this edition that required LOS.

So given the enormous size of the Doom Scythe, you can block it by forcing to be unable to be a foot in front of its target. For example my greater daemon was tall enough to push it around with the 1" bubble of no touching enemies this game has as well as the fact that it couldn't clip over the edge of the table

That is all

Where is it that they define LOS for flyers in the rulebook? Iirc, it's actually a quite narrow cone (45 degree cone centered on the weapon in question.) That's pretty narrow.

Yea with how narrow the LOS is for flyers a lot of their damage is mitigated. The same goes for the baleflamer on the Helldrake (only blast templates are allowed to go outside of LOS). So while you might end up with a good placement from torrent or the doom scythe your LOS determines how many/who you can hit.

Looked thru the BRB. I may be thinking of last ed. Nothing on flyers having a different LOS than reg vehicles (45 degrees up down left right)

iirc, someone on either beasts of war or one of those discussion Vlogs about 40k determined the 45 degree LOS on a flyer's weapons usually results in anything within the first 3" of the flyer's base is considered out of the flyer's firing arc and cannot be targeted. im assuming this measurement was determined using the average height the standardized flyer's base supports most of the flyers.

thinking about the general way GW works out their rules, and any unit/weapon's rule usually builds on existing rules/restrictions in the 6th BRB, maybe the death ray is supposed to be pick a point anywhere within 12" of the model within the 45 degree firing arc of it's fixed-mounted weapon.?

its been long established in the editions that if the weapon has a greater than 45 degree firing arc, they make the gun able to swivel when attached to the model. every doom scythe death ray i've seen so far seems to be very much not able to pivot, swivel, spin, or rotate; i'd say it's a fixed weapon and the reading of it having a 360 degree 12" radius is incorrect.

that's how i read it and would play it if i owned the model.

Its a bizarre weapon.. With rules that overide the core book rules.

The most irritating thing about it.. Gw put out a necron faq and glossed over it.

System Commander wrote:Its a bizarre weapon.. With rules that overide the core book rules.

The most irritating thing about it.. Gw put out a necron faq and glossed over it.

I will admit in all the years I've played fantasy/40k the fact that GW is incredibly slow/uncommunicative about their FAQs is hands down what makes me hesitate playing. I love the models, I like the lore, I will accept the beating my wallet takes. But please let us get rule updates in a reasonable amount of time.

They have been getting better though, the Necron FAQ, rulebook update, and Chaos FAQ came out rather fast.

canadin wrote:They have been getting better though, the Necron FAQ, rulebook update, and Chaos FAQ came out rather fast.

True. But better does not equal good. If I had the cash I would really like to play another system that is supposed to have very tight rules just to have a comparison.

Aegwymourn wrote:

canadin wrote:They have been getting better though, the Necron FAQ, rulebook update, and Chaos FAQ came out rather fast.

True. But better does not equal good. If I had the cash I would really like to play another system that is supposed to have very tight rules just to have a comparison.

pickup infinity and use your GW models as proxies; their entire BRB, minus fluff and paint schemes, can be downloaded for free on their website, infinity if you like it enough to buy the book for the fluff, its still $20 cheaper than a GW BRB.

Also. WArmachine/Hordes does extensive play testing and very seldom is there ever a conflict between Rules as Written and Rules as Intended, and if there is they make a quick update.

Even with questionable I still love 40k for the fluff and the size of battles you get to have

Death Ray re-hash.

Theres just something fundamentally wrong with being to target a unit locked in combat that really bugs me

I dont think the intention is there that it can.. And while the rules.are still vague and theres no faq.. We should come up with a ruling of some sort.

I know the arguments for and against.. with examples out there for both regarding.somewhat of a precedence. Jaws and vibrocannons.for.example.

Thats beong said.. I dont think the ray would stop if it hit.a.cc.. Or would be a wasted one if it did. Im thinkingalong the lines of some arguments that say if there is a cc happening anywhere in between where you choose your first pont and last point within 18" (max range) its not.a legal shot.

Thats my opinion. Nothing else can shoot into cc..
what do you guys think?

i'm for it.

combat is a swirling melee. and positions ebb and flow, which is why you dont shoot into combat, you can hit your friends. the current use of the weapon to "sever" models from combat and end said combat is just a little out of line.

Shooting in melee is shooting in melee regardless of weapon used. Shouldn't fly.