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Thanks for the continuing civilized and reasonable discussion, guys!

FAQ wrote:Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures? (p13)
A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don’t roll to hit cannot target them. This includes weapons such as the Necron Doom Scythe’s death ray or the Deathstrike missile of the Imperial Guard, and psychic powers that follow the rule for maelstroms, beams, and novas.

So we have two sentences giving clear and distinct prohibitions/limitations, and three explaining at some length what all kinds of attacks they apply to. There are only four sentences, but the third one fits in both categories.

Sentence two tells us that the only way to cause a "hit" on a ZF/SFMC is a Snap Shot. This rules out a number of things which may or may not be shooting and might be unclear about whether they are "attacks", sometimes because they don't target a unit (as attacks generally do), like Imotekh's lightning or Tesla Arc bounces.

Sentence three tells us that any attack which doesn't roll to hit and uses any sort of mechanism other than rolling to hit to affect a model, is not even allowed to target a ZF/SFMC.

The two of them together seem to pretty comprehensively cover just about any way to damage these units other than Snap Shots.

Sentences 1, 3, and 4 all list out all sorts of possible things and categories and types of weapons and attacks which can normally hit or target a unit, and confirms they're talking about all of them.

The only ambiguity I'm seeing is whether one might consider a Malediction an "attack", which would be forbidden from targeting them by sentence three. This is a bit unclear, but I think I'd come down on the side of "no", especially given that Maledictions are specifically allowed to target units in close combat. We had to have a similar discussion about what constitutes an "attack" on the INAT council in regards to Brotherhood of Psykers, which says that any "attack" which specifically targets psykers is resolved against the Justicar or Knight of the Flame in the squad, not the whole squad. We decided that "attack" in practical terms must be limited to things which cause wounds or damage, because it wouldn't make any sense (for example) for Psyk-Out Grenades to only lower the initiative of the Justicar, as they're all really Psykers.

There does cause an issue if you use this to base all abilities off as vector strike cannot be snap fired and therefor it can never work.

 Gravmyr wrote:
There does cause an issue if you use this to base all abilities off as vector strike cannot be snap fired and therefor it can never work.

Except of course it has explicit permission.

Except vector strikes are given explicit permission to hit flyers.

 madival wrote:
In my area, we always allowed it to happen since it needs a six to hit anything. As I can comfortably say the only flyer hurt by the arc is always the night scythe shooting it.

How would you get a Night scyth close enough to be hit by it's own arc? Any unit able to arc from the table to the flyer would be almost underneath it so well inside the 45% degrees of depression on the gun mounts.

Firing at a Trygon.

 Mannahnin wrote:
Thanks for the continuing civilized and reasonable discussion, guys!

FAQ wrote:Q: How do maelstroms, novas and beams – or indeed any weapon that doesn’t need to roll To Hit or hits automatically – interact with Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures? (p13)
A: Only Snap Shots can hit Zooming Flyers and Swooping Flying Monstrous Creatures. Therefore, any attacks that use blast markers, templates, create a line of/area of effect or otherwise don’t roll to hit cannot target them. This includes weapons such as the Necron Doom Scythe’s death ray or the Deathstrike missile of the Imperial Guard, and psychic powers that follow the rule for maelstroms, beams, and novas.

So we have two sentences giving clear and distinct prohibitions/limitations, and three explaining at some length what all kinds of attacks they apply to. There are only four sentences, but the third one fits in both categories.

Sentence two tells us that the only way to cause a "hit" on a ZF/SFMC is a Snap Shot. This rules out a number of things which may or may not be shooting and might be unclear about whether they are "attacks", sometimes because they don't target a unit (as attacks generally do), like Imotekh's lightning or Tesla Arc bounces.

Sentence three tells us that any attack which doesn't roll to hit and uses any sort of mechanism other than rolling to hit to affect a model, is not even allowed to target a ZF/SFMC.

The two of them together seem to pretty comprehensively cover just about any way to damage these units other than Snap Shots.

Sentences 1, 3, and 4 all list out all sorts of possible things and categories and types of weapons and attacks which can normally hit or target a unit, and confirms they're talking about all of them.

The only ambiguity I'm seeing is whether one might consider a Malediction an "attack", which would be forbidden from targeting them by sentence three. This is a bit unclear, but I think I'd come down on the side of "no", especially given that Maledictions are specifically allowed to target units in close combat. We had to have a similar discussion about what constitutes an "attack" on the INAT council in regards to Brotherhood of Psykers, which says that any "attack" which specifically targets psykers is resolved against the Justicar or Knight of the Flame in the squad, not the whole squad. We decided that "attack" in practical terms must be limited to things which cause wounds or damage, because it wouldn't make any sense (for example) for Psyk-Out Grenades to only lower the initiative of the Justicar, as they're all really Psykers.

Well considering the FAq specifically calls out that only the witchfire, beam, and nova Psychic abilities as affected, then I think it is safe to say blessings and Maledictions do work.