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From the rulebook:
"When firing a walker's weapons, pivot the walker on the spot so that its guns are aimed at the target (assume that all weapons mounted on a walker can swivel 45 degrees, like hull mounted weapons)... keep in mind however that the walker will probably remain facing in this direction until its next movement phase, so its facing will determine where its rear armor is going to be when the enemy returns fire"

Does this mean a walker always has to directly face its target straight on? Or does it just mean they get a free optional swivel? It's a pretty huge distinction. By raw I'm inclined to go with the former; consider a dreadnought. To 'aim' its guns it needs to directly face its target. The parenthetical note gives me pause, but it doesn't seem to override the original statement-- at least as far as raw is concerned.

For rai, I have no idea what they intended. Again, it would be hard to aim a dreadnought without facing straight on, but then why mention the 45 degree arc?

Thoughts?

-Leo037

It seems straight forward to me because it says to pivot the walker so that "its guns are aimed at the target", not the walker itself, it then goes to explain that regardless of what the model may actually be capable of we are meant to treat the guns as though they had a 45 degree arc of fire.

This means the guns can "aim" anywhere within that 45 degree arc and as such the target unit merely has to fall within that to satisfy the pivot. They have to do this rotation if they want to fire though.

Not disagreeing, but what about when it says "...and then measure the range from the mounting point of the weapon and along its barrel."

-Leo037

"assume that all weapons mounted on a walker can swivel 45 degrees"

means you are pretending the barrel is pointed along a direction that it isn't necessarily, including for measuring. Measure from the mounting point along the length of the line the barrel would be pointed along to the target.