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I proposed this question on the WarmaHordes forums and realized I didn't know the answer regarding 40k either, so here it is:

I couldn't find this rule while scimming through the book during a game, so pardon my laziness.

When I'm measuring for movement up a hill, do I measure with the tap flat, not incorporating the slope into the distance, or do I slant the tape to include the ascending / descending distance?

I'd reckon it would have to be a pretty big hill to make any significant difference but if it came to it I'm pretty sure 40K distances are overground not horizontal.

At 45 degrees the hypotenuse is going to be 1.414 inches for 1 inch horizontal but on a 45 degree hill we'd be lucky to have our top heavy models stand up ?.

Drop that to 30 degrees which is still a fairly steep hill in reality but probably pretty close to wargame hills at a guess and it is 1.154 inches on the hypotenuse to cover an inch horizontally.
Not sure if we measure that accurately, I know we don't in my games, we are too eager to throw down the tape and shoot the sh..... out of each other.

The rules don't explicitly cover it, but in the absence of any rule saying that you measure horizontally, you'd have to measure the actual distance.

They kind of do, by not telling you to just measure in one dimension. All measurement is from the base edge to whatever it is you are measuring to... so if whatever you are measuring to is higher up, you're going to be measuring at an angle.

Yep - you measure from the starting position of the base to the ending postion of the base, and by definition that is a 3D space

It is all covered on page 83 of the BRB. There is even a picture.

Yeh don't think Page 83 is really what the OP means, that is for moving in a building where the movement is separated into moving on a level and changing levels.

I think the OP is talking about if you run over a hill do you measure from start to finish horizontally or bend the tape over the rise and fall of the hill.

In that instance the measuring from the start to the finish position of the base does not necessarily dictate that you bend the tape but like I said before the difference isn't going to be huge.

AH, you are correct I don't fully read the question.


We measure from start position to end poistion using the same point on the base. We do not bend the tape at any time.

Yeh and that is where the confusion comes in I think.

Sure, perhaps measuring from start to finish means a slope measurement but is it only the slope between start point and end point? or is it the crenulations in between?

HYWPI for my group depends on the slope itself. If the slope is a low enough grade that a model can sit on it without a problem, we bend the ruler. If however the angle is very steep, we determine (before game) how high the next level is and subtract it from movement. So (for example), if the next level is 1" up, you can only move 5".

insaniak wrote:They kind of do, by not telling you to just measure in one dimension. All measurement is from the base edge to whatever it is you are measuring to... so if whatever you are measuring to is higher up, you're going to be measuring at an angle.

That's basically what I meant, sorry if that wasn't clear