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Howdy all. In a recent game, after the shooting phase was complete, I pointed out to an opponent that while I allowed all his shots, in reality because of the very narrow nature of 45 degree arcs (vehicle was a vendetta) in both the horizontal AND vertical plane, he was not in LOS to my terminators just a few inches from his Vendettas and also offset to one side of them. My opponent got very defensive, and started acting like a jerk about the whole thing. He didnt believe me, and asked to see the vertical part in the rulebook where it says you have 45 degrees of vertical LOS. I pointed him to page 59, where it says 45 degrees vertically. Again he was acting argumentative.

So I open the question to You Make Da Call--how do you measure vertical LOS, and if you are directly underneath say a valkyrie's gun, how far away must your model be before the enemy has a chance to spot you vertically?

I assert that a 45 degree vertical swivel means 22.5 degrees up, and 22.5 degrees down, for the same reason that your hull mounted 45 degree arc has 22.5 degrees left, and 22.5 degrees right, as proven on page 59 with the vindicator.

Is this assertion correct? If it is, then for a valkyrie's weapon mounted 5 inches high to be able to see a model 2 inches tall (a difference of 3 inches of course), the valkyrie's gun needs to be 7.25 inches away due to the vertical distance los rule.

If this assertion is not correct, please explain!

That Assertion is correct; assuming you mean distance from base-to-base.

This means that the nose weapon has an effective min range of 8.5" to a 2" tall model(gun-to-model), and about a 10" min range to a 1.5" model.

The Wing hardpoints have it a little easier but also have a Limited Travers side-to-side not being able to fire both at any targets under somewhere around 15" in front of the plane.

Agree with Kel.

As above.

Which is why most people have the valk tipped forward, as it helps greatly with their ability to shoot at ground level targets.

The Valk/Vendetta does tip foreward slightly, naturally.

Most models I have seen with it tipped further than natural; only doubles the Angle of tip(which is truly not much, end result is generally less than a 10*-15* dip). this can easily be achieved without any sort of alteration to the stock model(it is not even necessary to glue the model to the stand to keep it stable in the higher dips).

As a personal preference I will give a decent amount of wiggle room when figuring firing arcs vertically on a skimmer. This is entirely based on the fluff and how I imagine the vehicle would move if it really existed (ability to tilt the nose up or down in flight etc.).

Again this is a personal preference (house rule)and is of course not what the rules say by any means. The above posters have it spot on.