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im pretty new to wh40k and i was playing a game the other day where my opponent's unit was on a hill and my unit was below on level terrain, my opponent fired on my unit and the range would have reached had we have both been on level terrain, however the height of the hill caused him to be about an inch short. he brought up a good point tho that the range should have been enough as a unit on a hill would have an advantage, hence only straight, flat distances should be measured and vertical distance should be ignored, we checked the rulebook of course and couldnt find anything, so whats the deal? how does the rule work?

Generally 40K doesn't have vertical distances. Insaniak will probably have several arguements that blow that statement out of the water...

Cityfight makes more use of vertical distance then regular 40K. Generally in my own games, I usually ignore height for purposes of movement (including assualts) and shooting as it brings up more problems then not.

For example: you have a unit in ruins which have more then one level. If you have a couple models on the 2nd floor and they are the ones in front, does the assualting unit have to roll high enough to get the extra 3" up? As ruins are generally considered area terrain where I play, it is easier to play as if there are no levels (and yes, I hold to that for drawing LOS from my models in ruins, so don't think I'm gaining some advantage by doint this - sometimes with the terrain it's easier to have them on multiple levels so they aren't falling over all the time).

So generally, I'd recommend measuring horizontally and don't worry about the vertical distance.

In 40K you measure from the base of the firing unit to the base of the target. There is no rule in the BGB that states to ignore any dimension when measuring.

If the hill made this distance greater than the range of the weapon, then the weapon can't shoot.

except for vehicles - which measure from the gun barrel for range...

Democratus is correct of course.

yep firing distance is measured from the base of a model to the base/hull of another model. gaining the advantage of height has its disadvantages, i.e. being farther away due to the increased height, but it gives them better LOS to other models.

What they said. You measure from base to base (or weapon barrel to hull when dealing with vehicles). If that includes some vertical distance then it includes that distance for both shooting up and shooting down.