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Hi everyone, just wanted to check if the firing arc of flyers is interpreted with any grey areas or is it very clear with RAW.

According to the rule book, weapons that are hull mounted have only a limited firing arc and are allowed a certain amount of swivel to target.

1. So if the flyer was too close to a ground unit, it would be unable to fire at it? An example would be the multimelta from the storm raven when the unit is about 1 or 2 inches in front of the flyer base.

2. For weapons which can swivel left and right, are they still limited by this vertical arc? An example could be missiles on the wings of a flyer. (I'm not sure if they can swivel horizontally though as I do not have a flyer) Will they be able to target a a unit close to it? To a model standing 1 to 2 inches in front of the missile, horizontal distance.

strictly RAW, the 45degree firing arc of a hull mounted weapon means 22.5 degrees up, down, left, and right from the guns position, so yes you cant fire at models directly in front of it unless they are tall.

However many people play it differently, as some flyer models can be modeled tilting forward to increase their arc.

turret mounted weapons are however 360 degree firing arcs so can shoot at stuff even if its directly underneath.

Eihnlazer wrote:
turret mounted weapons are however 360 degree firing arcs so can shoot at stuff even if its directly underneath.

Turret mounted weapons are still bound by the same 45 degree vertical arc as all other vehicle weapons.

All Flyers have a 'dead zone' in front of them, regardless of the Weapon Type.

The Rule Book contains only one set of instructions when it comes to Vehicle Weapons and drawing vertical arcs, that we treat them as having 45 degree's even if they are unable to point in that direction. It is found within the same section that informs us how to calculate the horizontal arc of Hull Weapons, so it must follow the same format of 22.5 Up and Down arcs. There is no exception for vehicles found within their Rules or within this section of the Rule Book, so we must conclude that Flyers are just as bound by these restrictions as a Tank would be.

It is just interesting that these Rules state that players will rarely encounter having to fire vertical, but with a flyer in your army it will be 100% of the games encountered.

Especially if the arc is 45 degrees total, there would be a lot of times flyers have restricted targets they can fire at.

I must admit when I first read it, I interpreted it to be 45 up and 45 down. If it is 22.5, the dead zone seems pretty big, considering the flyer is so high up.

I have to wonder if that Rule had considered flyers at all, some of them are even further restricted thanks to poor gun placement.
Then there is the tank from the Sisterhood, the one with most of it's weapons pointed upwards....

That's true. Oh my, RAW means I can only shoot at that overhead lamp in my FLGS. :p

Edit: derp derp
yeah i derped...

It used the same format as Hull Mounted Weapon.