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I posted this as a FAQ question but maybe I missed something and there's a simple answer.

Anyway, Gaze of the Emperor asks us to draw a 2D6" line in one direction and make a check for each model under the center of it, but how thick is the line supposed to be? More specifically, how wide is the "center"?

The line can be as wide as you like. The centre is a perfect 1-dimensional geometric construct. Which is why the line can be as wide as you like; because it's irrelevant.

As above, it is usually simplified to be a 0.1mm line, because it is then quite clear where the centre (0.05mm) is.

Very thin line does the trick usually.

Yup. it's the center of your line. It has no real thickness, so for practical purposes, the thinner the better.

But how many licks does it take to get to the center of the line?

Lines in the last edition were defined as 1mm thick. I realize this isn't that edition, but still, that's probably a decent guide. You'd probably be looking at line about the thickness of the tip of a sharpie.

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The line can be as wide as you like. The centre is a perfect 1-dimensional geometric construct. Which is why the line can be as wide as you like; because it's irrelevant.

This is a cute answer, but then what is the exact size of this center? What are the dimensions?

Maybe there's a math answer, but I'm gonna need someone to give it if it is because I'm an attorney and we'd run away with this in a myriad of different ways. If you asked three of us to tell you the "center"" of a line, one would cut the line into equal thirds and pronounce the middle third the 'center' (which would grow with the size of the line). The second would tell you the 'center' is a core circle within the middle of the line and thus wouldn't reach any of the edges in any direction. The third would say the 'center' is unknown unless drawn by an independent source.

Obviously, none of those are gonna work without consent so I need something objective.


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 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Lines in the last edition were defined as 1mm thick. I realize this isn't that edition, but still, that's probably a decent guide. You'd probably be looking at line about the thickness of the tip of a sharpie.

Okay, so that's a physical size at least. Thanks! They could probably stand to define it again I think or change how Gaze of the Emperor works since that's literally the only time it seems to come up.


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Audustum wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The line can be as wide as you like. The centre is a perfect 1-dimensional geometric construct. Which is why the line can be as wide as you like; because it's irrelevant.

This is a cute answer, but then what is the exact size of this center? What are the dimensions?

Maybe there's a math answer, but I'm gonna need someone to give it if it is because I'm an attorney and we'd run away with this in a myriad of different ways. If you asked three of us to tell you the "center"" of a line, one would cut the line into equal thirds and pronounce the middle third the 'center' (which would grow with the size of the line). The second would tell you the 'center' is a core circle within the middle of the line and thus wouldn't reach any of the edges in any direction. The third would say the 'center' is unknown unless drawn by an independent source.

Obviously, none of those are gonna work without consent so I need something objective.


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 Kap'n Krump wrote:
Lines in the last edition were defined as 1mm thick. I realize this isn't that edition, but still, that's probably a decent guide. You'd probably be looking at line about the thickness of the tip of a sharpie.

Okay, so that's a physical size at least. Thanks! They could probably stand to define it again I think or change how Gaze of the Emperor works since that's literally the only time it seems to come up.

 BlackTalos wrote:
As above, it is usually simplified to be a 0.1mm line, because it is then quite clear where the centre (0.05mm) is.

Very thin line does the trick usually.

 daedalus wrote:
Yup. it's the center of your line. It has no real thickness, so for practical purposes, the thinner the better.

But how many licks does it take to get to the center of the line?

"Does the trick" is the kind of thing I don't like because then I inevitably run into an opponent who wants to argue the line should be as wide as a school bus or as narrow as a single strand of hair.

Audustum wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The line can be as wide as you like. The centre is a perfect 1-dimensional geometric construct. Which is why the line can be as wide as you like; because it's irrelevant.

This is a cute answer, but then what is the exact size of this center? What are the dimensions?

Maybe there's a math answer, but I'm gonna need someone to give it if it is because I'm an attorney and we'd run away with this in a myriad of different ways. If you asked three of us to tell you the "center"" of a line, one would cut the line into equal thirds and pronounce the middle third the 'center' (which would grow with the size of the line). The second would tell you the 'center' is a core circle within the middle of the line and thus wouldn't reach any of the edges in any direction. The third would say the 'center' is unknown unless drawn by an independent source.

No, this is the right answer.

The thickness does not matter when finding the centre. You can use any size of line, you'd always find the halfway point which is 1 Dimension, i.e "has no thickness".

Try it for yourself:

Draw 3 Lines between points A and B, one that is "pen sized", one that is 10 cm wide and one that is 1 meter wide.
Find the centres:
5cm away from the side of the 10cm line, and 500mm away from the edge of the 1m "line".
The answer will always be "the pen sized line".

Even if your pen works at the nano-scale (0.000001mm).

The line has no width, only length and direction/location. Since such a thing can't physically exist, you can use something narrow to approximate, like the edge of your tape measure turned on it's side.

 BlackTalos wrote:

Audustum wrote:

 Mr_Rose wrote:
The line can be as wide as you like. The centre is a perfect 1-dimensional geometric construct. Which is why the line can be as wide as you like; because it's irrelevant.

This is a cute answer, but then what is the exact size of this center? What are the dimensions?

Maybe there's a math answer, but I'm gonna need someone to give it if it is because I'm an attorney and we'd run away with this in a myriad of different ways. If you asked three of us to tell you the "center"" of a line, one would cut the line into equal thirds and pronounce the middle third the 'center' (which would grow with the size of the line). The second would tell you the 'center' is a core circle within the middle of the line and thus wouldn't reach any of the edges in any direction. The third would say the 'center' is unknown unless drawn by an independent source.

No, this is the right answer.

The thickness does not matter when finding the centre. You can use any size of line, you'd always find the halfway point which is 1 Dimension, i.e "has no thickness".

Try it for yourself:

Draw 3 Lines between points A and B, one that is "pen sized", one that is 10 cm wide and one that is 1 meter wide.
Find the centres:
5cm away from the side of the 10cm line, and 500mm away from the edge of the 1m "line".
The answer will always be "the pen sized line".

Even if your pen works at the nano-scale (0.000001mm).

I'm going to reiterate the simple question then: if the center is always the same, what are the exact dimensions of the center?

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
The line has no width, only length and direction/location. Since such a thing can't physically exist, you can use something narrow to approximate, like the edge of your tape measure turned on it's side.

Which is what a lot of us probably do, but what happens when the players disagree about what an appropriate object to approximate? How can you really plan a tactic if the size of your line can't be known in advance?

Fundamentally, per RAW, how big is this thing supposed to be?

Audustum wrote:
I'm going to reiterate the simple question then: if the center is always the same, what are the exact dimensions of the center?

Audustum wrote:
Fundamentally, per RAW, how big is this thing supposed to be?

Please find the wikipedia page for "Infinitesimal".

It will explain it to you rather well.

Alternatively, you can settle for 1/∞ ?
0.00000000000......(add infinity here)...0001mm

I can't imagine anyone trying to use anything other than an infinitesimally thin line; the thickness question boggles the mind.

The thickness could be described as forever approaching, but never reaching 0mm.

What you are asking for is the dimensions of a point. Points have no dimensions, only position. Points are used to refer to a location - NOT an area. They have NO length or width or thickness.

When you have two points - you can then draw a line. This line is only a concept used to measure distance between the two points. It ONLY has a length. It has NO width or thickness.

In order for something to have an area, it must be made up of at least 3 points. The lines drawn between these three points can then contain an "area". This is where your idea of "width" comes into play. Since the Gaze of the Emperor only gives you 2 points, you can only draw a line. There is no width or thickness.

Do people actually try and argue this stuff?

The whole point of the 'centre of the line' wording is surely so you can use any width of item to use as your line, then disregard it all and use only the centreline of your object. Which itself has no thickness, but passes over stuff.

Please let me never play anyone who tries to overcomplicate this.

 BlackTalos wrote:

Audustum wrote:
I'm going to reiterate the simple question then: if the center is always the same, what are the exact dimensions of the center?

Audustum wrote:
Fundamentally, per RAW, how big is this thing supposed to be?

Please find the wikipedia page for "Infinitesimal".

It will explain it to you rather well.

Alternatively, you can settle for 1/∞ ?
0.00000000000......(add infinity here)...0001mm

Alright, so we at least have a size now, but my follow-up question is where in the RAW are we told to use this particular definition from mathematics? As I illustrated above, to non-mathematicians, there are a lot of other possible answers. We're still a permissive rule set, right? (I see 7 definitions when I look in a dictionary, for example).

What do we do in a competitive environment if we have conflicting definitions? Just let a TO decide (essentially, have no preset answer)?

I'm not trying to be a pain so sorry if I am. I want to have a rock solid RAW basis for this for when I run into someone who wants to argue this (which I have and likely will continue to do).


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 MasterSlowPoke wrote:
I can't imagine anyone trying to use anything other than an infinitesimally thin line; the thickness question boggles the mind.

Out of the 3 times its come up in my games so far, not a single person raised or advocated the infinitesimally thin line solution being advocated in this thread. So I'd imagine it's not an uncommon argument.


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Bojazz wrote:
The thickness could be described as forever approaching, but never reaching 0mm.

What you are asking for is the dimensions of a point. Points have no dimensions, only position. Points are used to refer to a location - NOT an area. They have NO length or width or thickness.

When you have two points - you can then draw a line. This line is only a concept used to measure distance between the two points. It ONLY has a length. It has NO width or thickness.

In order for something to have an area, it must be made up of at least 3 points. The lines drawn between these three points can then contain an "area". This is where your idea of "width" comes into play. Since the Gaze of the Emperor only gives you 2 points, you can only draw a line. There is no width or thickness.

But for practical purposes, we do need to determine what models fall under the center. We've gotta have something and it should be something in RAW otherwise we need an errata.


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 JohnnyHell wrote:
Do people actually try and argue this stuff?

Yyyyyyyep. Apparently, last edition it was preset. They should probably do that again.

To put it in lawyer terms: many laws and standards call for a hypothetical "reasolable peraon". You're asking the equivalent of "How tall/old/heavy is the 'reasonable person'?" There is no answer, because the thing you're asking about doesn't have the attribute you're asking about. The best you're going to get is an approximation appropriate to the current situation. Having an argument about the width of the line is as pedantic and useful as arguing with a judge how tall the "reasonable person" is in a contract dispute.

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
To put it in lawyer terms: many laws and standards call for a hypothetical "reasolable peraon". You're asking the equivalent of "How tall/old/heavy is the 'reasonable person'?" There is no answer, because the thing you're asking about doesn't have the attribute you're asking about. The best you're going to get is an approximation appropriate to the current situation. Having an argument about the width of the line is as pedantic and useful as arguing with a judge how tall the "reasonable person" is in a contract dispute.

How reasonable is the "reasonable person"?

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
To put it in lawyer terms: many laws and standards call for a hypothetical "reasolable peraon". You're asking the equivalent of "How tall/old/heavy is the 'reasonable person'?" There is no answer, because the thing you're asking about doesn't have the attribute you're asking about. The best you're going to get is an approximation appropriate to the current situation. Having an argument about the width of the line is as pedantic and useful as arguing with a judge how tall the "reasonable person" is in a contract dispute.

Actually, he does have a height, weight, e.t.c. It's the common range of height/weight to average people as established by expert testimony. It's expensive and a pain to figure out and we only do it when it's relevant.

I'd say this is more like a statute saying we are to decide a matter by a coin toss, but it doesn't specify what kind of coin to use (penny, nickle, dime, yen, euro) or how it is to be tossed.

I'm gonna guess that there isn't a RAW basis anywhere I'm missing for how we pick a definition of 'center' judging from the replies though. :(


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 daedalus wrote:

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
To put it in lawyer terms: many laws and standards call for a hypothetical "reasolable peraon". You're asking the equivalent of "How tall/old/heavy is the 'reasonable person'?" There is no answer, because the thing you're asking about doesn't have the attribute you're asking about. The best you're going to get is an approximation appropriate to the current situation. Having an argument about the width of the line is as pedantic and useful as arguing with a judge how tall the "reasonable person" is in a contract dispute.

How reasonable is the "reasonable person"?

Depends on whether the judge had his/her morning coffee or not.

The thing is, in previous editions they just had powers that were a 'line' and then they had to go out of their way to clarify in a FAQ that what they meant by a 'line' was something .0001mm think (or something close to that). So then when they come to the next edition, that is super-slim rules, totally cutting out the fat and trying to make it easy for new players to read and understand, they're not going to put something silly like that in the rules, so they went out of their way to clarify now that it is the 'center' of the line.

To anyone who has been playing for several editions and is aware of how this rule worked/works, the fact that they say the 'center' of the line, this is a giant flag telling us all it is exactly what it sounds like: an infinitesimally thin line that cannot possibly cover more than one model with just the 'width' of the line. So any established player who is actually arguing this point with you is willfully being ignorant of the past editions and FAQs which has led us up to GW being more clear on this matter than they ever have been in actual rules text.

And as for a new player/common layman reading that rule, I think you'd find that if you did a poll with those types of players you'd have 90%+ that would instantly understand what is being said by the rule without giving it a second thought.

 yakface wrote:
The thing is, in previous editions they just had powers that were a 'line' and then they had to go out of their way to clarify in a FAQ that what they meant by a 'line' was something .0001mm think (or something close to that). So then when they come to the next edition, that is super-slim rules, totally cutting out the fat and trying to make it easy for new players to read and understand, they're not going to put something silly like that in the rules, so they went out of their way to clarify now that it is the 'center' of the line.

To anyone who has been playing for several editions and is aware of how this rule worked/works, the fact that they say the 'center' of the line, this is a giant flag telling us all it is exactly what it sounds like: an infinitesimally thin line that cannot possibly cover more than one model with just the 'width' of the line. So any established player who is actually arguing this point with you is willfully being ignorant of the past editions and FAQs which has led us up to GW being more clear on this matter than they ever have been in actual rules text.

And as for a new player/common layman reading that rule, I think you'd find that if you did a poll with those types of players you'd have 90%+ that would instantly understand what is being said by the rule without giving it a second thought.

I'll admit, I'm a newer player myself (started last year) so I missed out a lot of the history and tradition. That said, it seemed like a logical discussion since other tabletop games do sometimes bother to specify (and apparently 40k did in the past, though I didn't know that). Just as a design perspective, 8th's rules should be self-contained and you shouldn't need to reference a history to get them.

I dunno the experience level of most the folks I played against where this came up. One was as new as me. The rest were just random opponents in a tournament. EDIT: This sounds like they were confrontational. They weren't. More we were all just left scratching our head and trying to figure out a band-aid solution.

Thanks for the input!

If the rulebook of 40k required the mathematical foundations of what a line is, we'd never have a rulebook because every single description would require a scientific dissertation with multiple backed sources to meet an acceptable level of proof. If someone at a tournament tries to bull you into some quasi pseudo argument about the intracacies of whether or not you are or are not something in the rules that doesn't make practical sense, call a.judge.

I'm going to agree with the people who said a line is a line and has no width. This is a very basic mathematical concept that I believe is commonly first taught in elementary school.

I realize that this is a game and not a math class... but it's also not a court of law. To the OP... you and your friends can come up with whatever resolution you deem fair. You should be aware that the greater community consensus is that lines have no real width (or a width so small as to have no practical effect). I've seen people use the edge of a tape measure or a piece of fishing wire (seriously) to approximate this lack of width. When playing with strangers, this is what you should reasonably expect. Given that we live in the real world, there will always be outliers and you'll inevitably run into someone willing to fight you over the smallest detail. Given that this is a game and not a court of law, you can just flip a coin to decide or just give it to the person and never play them again.

But yeah... you're asking a question that has no real answer. How wide is a line? Lines don't have width. How loud is my table's singing voice? My table doesn't have a singing voice. Same idea.

Thanks everyone for the replies, I did want to just clarify quick that I wasn't proposing to hold the 40k rulebook to legal standards. I was only illustrating that we have no basis, RAW, for using one definition over another (mathematical vs. colloquial vs. abstract).

If we were going to hold the 40k book to legal standards the entire thing gets struck down as overbroad and void for vagueness pursuant to Board of Trustees v. Fox (just as your odd trivia of the day).