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FWIWI always thought of the sphere to just rotate clockwise/counter-clockwise with the track to move it sideways but there is no support for that model wise

Until GW FAQs it to a turret like they briefly did to the Helturkey it will be forever hull mounted.

Side not as the only personally I've personally met to own one I find it hilarious that people that have never seen them are arguing about it.

Really just another example of GW's ability to create a good looking model, but doing a horrible job engineering it for actual gameplay because they want to make their models with as few parts as possible to save money.
For all we know, GW's intent was for it to be 360 degrees since they called it a sphere, but GW's poor model design does not support that.

It really doesn't at all man. Not even in potential intent. The backside of the "spheres" is concave with details to emphasis the fact that its concave. The inside of the obelisk is very intricately detailed. It was never even concieved as a ball and socket. What it is, is poorly named. Or people are rather hung up on the sphere part in lieu of what their eyes are actually showing them.

Its better to see it as it is. A dome that generates energy that is focused through a 180° up and down rail mounted traverse aka hull mounted weapon.

I think the purpose is that the Obelisk deep strikes into the center of an army, or moves there, and can hit everything because of the way its weapons are mounted. Not to rotate the spheres accordingly, the weapons fire diagonally and are hull mounted.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
It really doesn't at all man. Not even in potential intent. The backside of the "spheres" is concave with details to emphasis the fact that its concave. The inside of the obelisk is very intricately detailed. It was never even concieved as a ball and socket. What it is, is poorly named. Or people are rather hung up on the sphere part in lieu of what their eyes are actually showing them.

You do realize that you're actually proving my point? The Obelisk has no interior (the Tesseract Vault does), it is an enclosed model. As I said, GW is trying to save as much money as they can by using as few parts/sprues as they can, hence the extensive shortcuts they took to design it as a dual kit, rather than make two separate, fully capable and properly engineered kits. GW does an exceptionally poor job of engineering their kits for actual gameplay. If GW did a better job with model design (or at least wrote the rules better), these problems with LoS arcs for almost every vehicle in the game would never be an issue.

 Kriswall wrote:
I agree. The model is clearly designed such that the weapon can track vertically, but not horizontally. The effect is that you none of the four firing arcs overlap. You can only ever hit one target with one of these weapons.

In case this side ever needed more support:

I have also played against this model and they only move vertically. Which means you can point them down with almost no blind spot. But still no Horizontal movement...

 BlackTalos wrote:
Which means you can point them down with almost no blind spot. But still no Horizontal movement...

Not wanting to start anything but are there any rules to support a hull mounted weapon able to fire with a full arc one way but not another? I'm curious if there is precedence for this.

Fragile wrote:
Spheres make its a ball and socket affair. Not a hull mount.

Um no, spheres make them curved. If they were meant to be ball and socket then they would have made them as such.

Oberron wrote:

 BlackTalos wrote:
Which means you can point them down with almost no blind spot. But still no Horizontal movement...

Not wanting to start anything but are there any rules to support a hull mounted weapon able to fire with a full arc one way but not another? I'm curious if there is precedence for this.

The rules about being able to shoot what you can point the weapon at.

Unless the guy i played had modded his Obelisk and these don't actually swivel up and down?

 BlackTalos wrote:

Oberron wrote:

 BlackTalos wrote:
Which means you can point them down with almost no blind spot. But still no Horizontal movement...

Not wanting to start anything but are there any rules to support a hull mounted weapon able to fire with a full arc one way but not another? I'm curious if there is precedence for this.

The rules about being able to shoot what you can point the weapon at.

Unless the guy i played had modded his Obelisk and these don't actually swivel up and down?

No parts of the obelisk guns move.

the only part that actually matters is if it is classified as hull mounted in it's unit entry.

if they are not then you can assume that they can actually rotate due to the description of sphere and the note that they appear to be a ball and socket joint.

as an example, a glued in place predator side sponson cannot rotate anywhere, that does not mean it cannot rotate in the rules.

the vertical axis track can be explained as a place holder for the turret mouth, this wouldn't prevent the actual sphere from rotating the that track to another point.

 nutty_nutter wrote:
the only part that actually matters is if it is classified as hull mounted in it's unit entry.

if they are not then you can assume that they can actually rotate due to the description of sphere and the note that they appear to be a ball and socket joint.

as an example, a glued in place predator side sponson cannot rotate anywhere, that does not mean it cannot rotate in the rules.

the vertical axis track can be explained as a place holder for the turret mouth, this wouldn't prevent the actual sphere from rotating the that track to another point.

If you look at the picture I linked on the previous page, you'll notice the barrel is on the vertical axis track, which is prevented from moving left and right by the guides at the top and bottom. The guides cover the track completely on all sides, only letting it move straight up and down.

I have seen the model, I also have the apocalypse book in front of me.

and in both instances, that 'track' doesn't leave the orb surface, therefore it is akin to a halo around an spherical surface.

because the orb is a spherical surface and a halo ring is not attached to anything, it is safe to assume that the halo ring can indeed move around freely over the surface of the sphere.

in order to claim that the weapon can only fire like a hull mounted weapon, those orbs would need to be clearly identified in the unit entry in the book as hull mounts. they are not.

therefore you cannot stipulate that they do not have a horizontal axis on the basis of a 'track' that isn't fixed (as far as we know).

 nutty_nutter wrote:
I have seen the model, I also have the apocalypse book in front of me.

and in both instances, that 'track' doesn't leave the orb surface, therefore it is akin to a halo around an spherical surface.

because the orb is a spherical surface and a halo ring is not attached to anything, it is safe to assume that the halo ring can indeed move around freely over the surface of the sphere.

in order to claim that the weapon can only fire like a hull mounted weapon, those orbs would need to be clearly identified in the unit entry in the book as hull mounts. they are not.

therefore you cannot stipulate that they do not have a horizontal axis on the basis of a 'track' that isn't fixed (as far as we know).

If you look closely, the halo ring is prevented from moving left or right by the mounting. With the barrel on the halo it can only move up or down.

 BlackTalos wrote:

Oberron wrote:

 BlackTalos wrote:
Which means you can point them down with almost no blind spot. But still no Horizontal movement...

Not wanting to start anything but are there any rules to support a hull mounted weapon able to fire with a full arc one way but not another? I'm curious if there is precedence for this.

The rules about being able to shoot what you can point the weapon at.

Unless the guy i played had modded his Obelisk and these don't actually swivel up and down?

It doesn't matter if they swivel up and down. The rules for pointing the weapon at its target apply to horizontal traverse. Vertically, all weapons are defined by the rules as having a 45 degree arc.

That's actually not true. Not all weapons are defined by the rules as having a 45 degree arc, just in the rare instance, which I'll point out they make it very clear that this is a rare instance where they are stated to be hull mounted or you physically cannot see how the gun would move.

It's clear to me that they have a basically large cone of light similar to a Flashlight arc.

Yeah so actually look at these it's clear that the "track" you say keeps it in place is meant to move to the side, it's even got little locking grooves on the other mounts.

Basically that thing swings to the left and the right and stops. It doesn't just move the gun up and down.

If the track moves to the left and the right, why didn't they just mount the barrel directly to the sphere/dome?

 nutty_nutter wrote:
the only part that actually matters is if it is classified as hull mounted in it's unit entry.

if they are not then you can assume that they can actually rotate due to the description of sphere and the note that they appear to be a ball and socket joint.

as an example, a glued in place predator side sponson cannot rotate anywhere, that does not mean it cannot rotate in the rules.

the vertical axis track can be explained as a place holder for the turret mouth, this wouldn't prevent the actual sphere from rotating the that track to another point.

Huh so my doomsday cannon is a turret because it isn't written as hull mounted, or gauss flayer arrays, or any tesla destructors?

The ball could move where ever it wanted to...still doesn't change that the barrel is locked up and down.

Here are some pics from mine.

Is it, though? There's nothing saying that rail can't be oscillated left or right. I mean, it is on a ball, after all.

In regards to the "doesn't say hull mounted in unit entry" argument, what do the rules say in regards to this?
It might normally be a good case to make, but if none of the other necron vehicle weapons say "hull mounted" for their weapons, it's not exactly a reliable claim...

Regardless, god, this codex is a mess, as far as rule clarity goes.

I for one can not find a weapon declared in its rules to be hull mounted so I must now assume that all vehicle weapons are in fact turrets.

In all seriousness turret, sponson and hull mounted are not themselves actually rules but descriptions of weapon mounting styles.

The rules say:

"When firing a vehicle's weapons, point them at the target and then trace line of sight from each weapons' mounting and along its barrel to see if the shot is blocked by intervening terrain or models"
The tesla sphere can not be moved so it can not be pointed at a target. The mounting is fixed in place and the barrel are fixed in place.

"...On some models, it will actually be impossible to move the gun and point it towards the target because of the way the model is assembled. In this case, players should assume that the guns on a vehicle are free to rotate or swivel on their mountings."
The T.Sphere is not assembled. It is phyiscally part of the model. As if it were mounted to the hull. The model has no original movement like gluing a turret in place so assembly was not the cause of its immobility.

"...Additionally, assume all hull mounted weapons can swivel horizontally up to 45°."
There is the touchy feelly I think it could move therefore it should rule. T.Spheres are physically, wholly, permanently and originally mounted to the hull of the Obelisk. So because of that were are allowed to assume it has 45° left right movement.

This isn't rocket surgery here. Unless Geedubs steps in we have to follow the rules.

 skoffs wrote:
Is it, though? There's nothing saying that rail can't be oscillated left or right. I mean, it is on a ball, after all.

Going by the pictures in the post directly above yours, the ball is actually inside an exterior cage. Even if the ball can rotate, the rail that the nozzle is on is quite clearly fixed in place above and below the ball.

It says it can move on it's mountings. That to me looks like it can spin IE that bar would be lateral or could be moved laterally.

Ooooooh!
I see what you mean now!
The rail doesn't osollate, the ball/sphere/dome/whathaveyou doesn't move, it's the outside circle that the rail is connected to that rotates AROUND the sphere!
(eg. when shooting up, the circle rotates so the rail runs vertically. When shooting to the left or right, the circle rotates so the rail runs horizontally. It can be assumed that diagonals are also possible, depending on the position of the target)
That's... not a bad reasoning.

Its not a circle though. Look at the pictures I posted. Those are not warped its actually shaped that way. The sphere and rails sit in the middle of a concave oval. It wouldn't spin with that shape. Its kind of like a oval slash wedge shape.

Hollismason wrote:
It says it can move on it's mountings. That to me looks like it can spin IE that bar would be lateral or could be moved laterally.

If you mean the entire cage moves-

When the cage moves horizontally, the upper and lower mountings will catch on the wall of the obelisk, and if you move the entire cage vertically the left and right mountings will catch as well.

The barrel is mounted on a rail- why don't we assume that rail moves up and down? If the barrel was intended to move 360 degrees, it would be mounted on the ball. That seems to me to be the most sensible thing.

Okay, Google.

Why are we assuming that the rail moves at all when the physical model doesn't? Fluff wise I see it as the rail is on the ball and the ball spins and the rail then connects to the sides but how we think it moves and what it can physically do are two different things.