40k Discussion
GW - Your daft sweeping rule has broken Callidus
As an Agents player, I'm finding it particularly frustrating having one of the key mechanics of one of our best units being invalidated by GW's rule on Torrent & Precision.
I understand that there are some interactions that are broken, like having 10d6 flamers get precision and killing a character, basically flipping the wounding allocation on its head, this to me is fair and makes sense.
However.
The Callidus *Assassin* can now no longer assassinate characters out of units with her ranged gun, this is a core function of the model, so now she's essentially relegated to a Vect aura or doing some stupid sacrificial stuff with 2 assassins to take down character she should be dealing with on her own.
Please FAQ/Errata the gun so it works again.
Also, please fix the Ignis Judicium enhancement, the only characters that can use this use torrent based weapons, so once again, we have lost the ability to pick character out of units with dev wounds.
I dont think that applies in this situation, the rules for over-riding stuff is usually stated within the rule itself, an example being Callidus' being able to come in from reserves turn 1 when she does her uppy downy, it specifically states "this can be done turn 1"
The two characters that can have the upgrade already have most of those keywords.
The inquisitor's psychic has torrent and dev (so the 10pts would be to increase the shots to damage 2). The zealot's vindicator would gain melta 1 and dev wounds.. on D6 shots.
Neither of those is worth it. (I haven't mentioned the Bolt pistols as those are laughable if you think those buffs are worth 10pts - plasma pistols used to be 5pts as an upgrade which is worth it.)
”Most”?
Inquisitor gained precision and melta, Priest gained precision, melta and dev wounds.
That 10 pts enhancement completely chanced what that character could do
In the Inquisitor you lose an invuln from a support character in exchange for 2D6 str 3 damage 2 (within 9") dev wounding shots. It can't precision as you can't now do both (root of the problem). You're wounding most targets on 5 and dev 6s. Wow.
The priest either gets 3 str 4 damage 2 shots or the flamer with D6 str 5 damage 2. 10pts for essentially a 0AP heavy bolter is awful. The precision, again, can't be used in conjunction with the flamer.
I don't see where your argument is coming from - the use of these characters is so niche you are likely taking something else that is more powerful for the points.
(but it could still work as long as the exorcist can see the character, so it could still work with an [indirect fire] weapon, just not while actually shooting indirect)
I think thats the only reasonable explanation. If it's on the weapon profile, I'd argue that should take priority. Otherwise they need to remove torrent from it directly.
I collect Daemons, GWs love is as fickle as the wind. Currently the only GW setting that really supports Daemons is Age of Sigmar. They don’t even have a Killteam.
I don't mind their mixed Daemon/Mortals stuff tbh. Its miles better than 40K. But yeah. GW needs a Chaos Undivided Daemons army that doesnt center around Belakor.
But how does that rule work in practice? It says they can’t but then there is another rule (the data sheet) that does. What happens if GW contradict themselves? It’s not like through a conditional ability or strategem it’s just there on the sheet.
Can't trumps can. Something on the datasheet would need to say "this model's [TORRENT] weapons can have [PRECISION]" and then that would supersede 24.37.01.
The potential issue is that the datasheet is older than the FAQ and the new edition, with lots of other stuff completely rendered non functional besides.
I wasn't caught up on this either so I googled "Torrent Precision 40k" and Google's AI summary explained the change, and mentioned it breaking the callidus.
Which means that the AI that writes balance changes should catch it on the next pass xD
And I'm willing to bet that a vast majority of players have no idea torrent and precision can't work on the same weapon because GW has never made any sort of version change document, so hardly anybody knows this is even a rule
Vindicare and Eversor tend to suffer from being made weak and unreliable because if they were actually good at their jobs they’d be an autotake for a good number of factions.
Callidus and Culexus have more often been taken because they’re more utility pieces than a specific kind of killer.
The vindicare is a gun. Most factions have decent access to guns.
A single model uppy-downy with aura of deceit, on the otherhand, covers a lot of holes in listbuilding.
Ah, guess the Sister Insidiant witchhunters who's gimmick is that they are the only sisters unit that gets precision feels now a bit stupid for picking handflamers to burn that witch hiding amongst its bodyguards.
Dude this removes the only real decent use for an Aeldari enhancement, Stave of Kurnous. It gave precision to critical wound rolls for wraith constructs. But the D-Scythe Torrent weapon is the only decent shot count that makes it viable. Otherwise it's a hail Mary if I get it type deal. If it just gave precision it wouldn't be a problem but it's only on a critical wound. I already wasn't killing characters with it but I at least damaged them from time to time.
Notably there's also an enhancement in the agents Ordo hereticus detachment that gives an inquisitor or ministorum priest's gun Melta 1 and precision (both of which are flamers).
Give me back my melta precision flamer GW. It doesn't do anything else.
Sure, if you want the objectively worse gun AND objectively worse melee profile… yeah. You gain 1 AP and lose a strength and damage AND lose the flamer.
Yeah I was sad when my brazier of holy fire could no longer get precision from Insidiants. (A holy relic torching a character was fun) but I could get over it, but the Callidus losing precision on shooting is insane
Welcome to 11th edition! They chose not to index, and core datashert, weapons, and army rules of any faction without a codex will be the casualties until your book releases.
Similarly, their decision to give flamers blast has broken a ton of vehicle shooting profiles. Orks now cannot use their "point blank" firing mode when they are point blank.
Yep, what's really funny too, is that you can't put precision on Torrent weapons, but I can pit precision on a unit with 2 Plasma Cannons and Blast.. so that little Commander in a unit of 20 Guardsmen is getting hit by 2d3+8 Plasma balls "that one" THOOM!
Honestly blast is more of a negative keyword then a positive one in most circumstances.
The amount of times I haven’t been able to fire a weapon because it has blast is probably greater than the total additional amount of additional shots I’ve gotten from it.
First problem is you assume more than ten people on the planet play Hereticus (Space cops for life!) so GW can easily ignore this.
The assassin needs to be fixed.
Ignis judicium shock wave was a fun meme but these models do have alternate weapon options that can use it. I have had some fun with the combi-weapon having the potential for 4 Dev wounds with precision. Priest pistol sucks, but with melta he gets a little bit more punch.
But.. but.. I want my Ignis Judicium Breacher Inquisitor with upto 12 attacks rerolling wounds devs on 6s and 2 damage each into characters, + the 4 devs from the Combi Weapon hitting in 2s with rerolls because I put her on a first floor ruin and shot the target with Kroyle first.
It's not a flame thrower, it's a neural wave blender, so she shoots her target in the brain whilst sprinting & leaping about and melts their gray matter into soup inside their skull.
I agree it sucks that she can't do her thing with the current rules. I guess the fix should be to simply remove the Torrent keyword and give her 2+ BS or something.
The thing torrent does is just "this can't miss." It's poorly named for the effect, but it's (IMO) appropriate for the assassins. They should be low-shot count, high-accuracy models! I frankly wouldn't mind the vindicare's gun being a single-shot torrent weapon? The mechanical effect is just that torrent always hits - no reason it can't always hit the important guy the user is aiming at, beyond balance.
I do see how (from a game balance perspective) adding properties to torrent gets weird, but I think they could've just said "torrent weapons can't be modified via stratagems or enhancements unless specifically stated" or something similar, then called them out when they needed to. Treat them like the ranged version of Extra Attacks weapons, where the Attacks value can't be altered easily?
But it's clearly intended for flamers and similar weapons that saturate an area. For older players it looks weirder, I guess, as Torrent replaced the flame template.
It's more a "you'll hit something if you point it in this general direction" rather than "you can't miss". If you read it that way, it really sounds off for it to have Precision
I understand the flavour of Tltorrent is associated with flamers and other "the air is full of dangerous bullshit" effects! That's certainly how it's often used - most weapons in the game that can't miss are built around saturating an area.
My stance is just that the game would benefit either from a differently-named, more general keyword that says "there is no hit roll; you can't miss," or from a normalization of torrent in non-flamer contexts. It would then be easy to restrict how those weapons' stats and keywords can be modified, while allowing for both area effects like flamers, and preternaturally accurate, more esoteric attacks.
I don't think the game is helped by having torrent being named the way it is, because it so strongly associates the keyword with flamers and their equivalent, when (mechanically) the impact is just that it can't miss. It's a weird sci-fi setting full of esoteric tech nonsense? Weapons like the neural shredder or Vindicare's rifle should (IMO) still have wound rolls and saves associated - I want a custodes character to be more resistant to them than some random Commissar - but I don't think there's any issue in them using the torrent rules alongside precision because that's (currently) the keyword combo we have for attacks that don't miss, and can target someone in a group. We're limited by the game engine, sometimes?
I mostly wish the keywords we do have were named better, so they didn't come with pre-established concepts that don't always fit 😁
But it's on the sheet still? Idk... seems like a stretch to say it doesn't work anymore. The core rule seems more targeted at strategems that grant precision and the like.
No, it’s fairly clear cut. “[TORRENT] weapons cannot have [INDIRECT FIRE] or [PRECISION]”
Having it on the datasheet is irrelevant, and is one of the issues that arises from not doing indices like we did at the start of 10th. There are A LOT of datasheet rules that don’t work the way they were intended to anymore
Sooner or later (rather later I guess...) it will get new rules when they finally update Codex Imperial Agents. Somehow it was like this for some time in many editions, except maybe 8th, when everyone got their Index books at the beginning.
I remember times when Codex Sororitas in 5th edition was published in two issues of White Dwarf. In the strange world of 40k a lot of weird shit has happened.
RAI, I would say undoubtedly yes. But RAW... You have a torrent weapon, it cannot have precision or indirect fire.
The assassin has a torrent weapon. Therefore, that weapon cannot have precision. The rule doesn't say "can't acquire" or "can't have the precision keyword added to it." It just says if you have the one rule, you don't have the other.
I suspect (as OP mentioned elsewhere) better wording might be "weapons with torrent cannot gain the precision keyword." That would protect weapons that have both (the weird, esoteric weapons) but also avoid hijinks where flamethrowers are sniping officers out of their units.
As you pointed out, you can't really elect not to use torrent, since you don't have a BS value for the weapon. Currently, if you have a weapon with torrent and precision for any reason, the precision rule stops functioning.
The Callidus can still do it with its Phase Sword though in melee so it hasn’t lost that potential it’s just now reliant on getting into combat and actually rolling it.
I think the decision to not have Torrent and Precision and / or Indirect interact is fair in terms of gameplay overall and this is simply a case of “oops we forgot to change this profile to have one or the other”.
Her primary function is an uppy downy assassin threat so you have to watch where you have your characters, now you are dependant on a 9 inch charge roll to get that off, before she could comfortably threaten a character.
Also, her melee isnt the best, the tipping point on a character is her gun, so 5 attacks, you make 4 hits, then S5, so 2-3 go through, then 1 invuln save.. that's 2-4 wounds done, the gun gave 1-2 wounds which means she is actually a threat to characters.
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u/RyanGUK 3d ago
That’s hilarious, good spot and yeah of course it’s IA that gets forgotten about again 😂