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Hi all, let me preface this post by saying that I only own 1 flyer and play it infrequently. That being said when I do play it (Storm Eagle) I want to a) play it properly and b) hopefully do some damage with it. And I'd like to point out also that to date I have never had a dispute with an opponent regarding fire arcs. I just want to have it clear in my head.

When I first started playing I'm pretty sure that I violated the 45° horizontal fire arc rule for hull mounted weapons and also pretty sure that when firing at targets to either my left or right with both my wing mounted weapons I've shot through my own hull with one. I'm still a bit nooby. I understand these rules now and am able to play properly but whilst seeking clarification online I stumbled across the old vertical fire arc debate. I mean it seems pretty simple to me that given that Adepticon rule 180° vertical fire arc and the sheer notion that a flyer fitted with thrusters or anti gravity devices can't tilt downwards to shoot an enemy is absurd, that no one would be daft enough to contest the point.

I was wrong it seems as the RAW brigade are always more than prepared to argue the toss, citing that 45° fire arc means 22.5° up or down. What's mentioned is that a hull mounted weapon can move up to 45° and these RAW guys assume that the starting position is -22.5° on the horizontal plane, allowing the gun to aim up to +22.5° on the horizontal plane. Somebody please answer me this - why would a flyer need to aim up?? It doesn't therefore the logical range would be -45° on the plane to 0.0°.

However my point doesn't stop there. As you can see from the images (forgive the crappiness, it's late ) if you stand the flyer parallel to the plane and measure off a 22.5° template, it takes around 20" before you hit the deck. Meaning a multi melta would have a 4" field of range completely negating the melta rule. Ridiculous.

I think your viewpoint on this will be biased towards wether you play flyers or not but the door swings both ways.

How do you pay it? I've heard people say that playing anything other than RAW is like just making up your own rules but this rule seems so fundamentally broken that if someone was so adamant to see common sense and play the way flyers were clearly meant to work I would just have to refrain from playing them as I can only imagine how anal other aspects of their play might be.

i always assumed the 45° thing was just for side gaks not downwards

45° horizontal and vertical it says in the book. The perfect, never ambiguously worded and closed to interpretation book.

Really not liking your very biased title. Its extremely presumptuous that wanting to play RAW must mean that you've got to be a WAAC players. Playing RAW affects both players, not just the RAW player's opponent. Just because I think the rules work one way doesn't automatically mean I only think so because I gain a benefit as a result.

As such in this situation the rules are clear. We have diagrams showing how the 45 arc of vision works for vehicles (22.5 to each side). We don't have a in book reason to assume its anything different when looking vertically.

And before you keep jumping to conclusions yes I do use flyers. I've got Hellblades and a Fire Raptor.

So there is nothing in your local meta that you house rule? Despite all the points I raised above you failed to comment on their validity. The obvious solution is that we don't play together. FYI the title was intended to be racey as so to attract the kind of people that would leave a comment. Your input has been noted.

I'm still going to alter the title, this is a volatile enough subforum without adding fuel like that.

Good luck getting your answer

The fact that your flyer isn't as good as you want it to be isn't a good reason to change the rules. Thats the kind of logic actual WAAC players use.

I don't think its "logical" that I can't have bezerkers assault out of a rhino. Does that give me the right to charge out of a non-assault transport?

Also again I ask, where does it say that the starting point for the 45° is -22.5° that's an assumption. Likewise assuming that the the horizontal 45° starts at left 22.5° and ends right 22.5° means a forward facing weapon side mounted on the hull only has 22.5° arc as the other half would be firing into its own hull.



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Also refusing to acknowledge the broken melta scenario. I maintain these are valid arguments that require an answer.

 andywalker07 wrote:
Also again I ask, where does it say that the starting point for the 45° is -22.5° that's an assumption. .

The book doesn't say anything about vetical arcs. But we have a precedent set by horizontal arc(which is very clear because of diargams and such).

Oh so it's OK to not have a rule as long as there's a precedent? That's the same as not having a rule as far as I'm concerned. And as mentioned in the post the door swings both ways, and I don't feel it's just my flyer that suffers from this poor wording but all flyers for me and opponents.

 andywalker07 wrote:
Oh so it's OK to not have a rule as long as there's a precedent? That's the same as not having a rule as far as I'm concerned.

And you don't even have a precedent, so what's your point?

 andywalker07 wrote:
Oh so it's OK to not have a rule as long as there's a precedent? That's the same as not having a rule as far as I'm concerned. And as mentioned in the post the door swings both ways, and I don't feel it's just my flyer that suffers from this poor wording but all flyers for me and opponents.

Actually upon rechecking the rule book the rules do say guns swivel vertically up to 45 degree. So now the rules are crystal clear that that's how it works

And so what if it sucks? Those are the rules

Again, I ask is there nothing that you house rule? Given that 22.5° from 6" up means targets need to be circa 20" away, consider how difficult that makes it just to move around the board to get a shot off with leaving the table every other turn. Does that seem logical to you? What about a bale flamer, I understand that to be a template weapon, given that range I'm not sure it should be able to hit anything in the deck? Makes no sense to me and I hate Heldrakes.


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And again where does it say the start point for 45° is? It does not say that it's split evenly either side of the gun. That's an assumption.

 andywalker07 wrote:
Again, I ask is there nothing that you house rule? Given that 22.5° from 6" up means targets need to be circa 20" away, consider how difficult that makes it just to move around the board to get a shot off with leaving the table every other turn. Does that seem logical to you? What about a bale flamer, I understand that to be a template weapon, given that range I'm not sure it should be able to hit anything in the deck? Makes no sense to me and I hate Heldrakes.

It doesn't matter if its logical those are the rules and you're suppose to follow the rules. You keep complaing about "how is it suppose to hit the deck" why does it have to be able to hit the deck? The baleflamer can still hit units on top of ruins fine so it still works, melta still works agaisnt other flyers. If that makes them less effect then you'd like then oh well
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And again where does it say the start point for 45° is? It does not say that it's split evenly either side of the gun. That's an assumption.

No, its not an assumption, the diagrams shown tell us that's how fixed gun works (see the diagram of the leman russ with the hull pointed weapon?)

I'm well aware of the pictures you refer to... The ones where a predator can shoot backwards with side sponsons but the leman Russ with the same side sponsons cannot. And where the rhino with a plinth mounted on the right of the vehicle can shoot to the immediate left... Even though that would be firing trough it's own hull. Yeah those pictures make loads of sense and clear everything up.

 andywalker07 wrote:
I'm well aware of the pictures you refer to... The ones where a predator can shoot backwards with side sponsons but the leman Russ with the same side sponsons cannot. And where the rhino with a plinth mounted on the right of the vehicle can shoot to the immediate left... Even though that would be firing trough it's own hull. Yeah those pictures make loads of sense and clear everything up.

You realize all the guns you pointed out are the ones that physically move right? If you read the rules its say guns can see what they can physically see but in the case of fixed guns have 45 degree of vision. It then has an example in the second graph of a gun with a arc of vision labeled 45 degrees (it being a arc that is totaled 45 degrees). Is it that hard to read a diagram?

Taking a diagram relating to the horizontal gun swivel of a tank which can already pivot sideways and the assuming the same to be true for the vertical swivel on a flyer gun which cannot pivot up and down is not what I feel constitutes a concrete analysis of how the rule should work. I sense you're getting bent out of shape unnecessarily and if it's because I don't see things the way you do then you may want to stop replying because without any new arguments from you, I can't see my stance changing.

We know that fixed guns swivel horizontally 45 degrees
We know that fixed guns swivel vertically 45 degrees
They both use the exact same wording to say the exact same thing for both situations
We are given an example on how horizontal 45 degrees works

Why would vertically (a rule worded the exact same way) work any differently?

The more logical thing is as tanks can swing up 45 that flyers guns swing down 45 after all there's nothing higher

 andywalker07 wrote:
Again, I ask is there nothing that you house rule? Given that 22.5° from 6" up means targets need to be circa 20" away, consider how difficult that makes it just to move around the board to get a shot off with leaving the table every other turn. Does that seem logical to you? What about a bale flamer, I understand that to be a template weapon, given that range I'm not sure it should be able to hit anything in the deck? Makes no sense to me and I hate Heldrakes.

A pointless question on a forum board dedicated to determining how Rules Are Written. Where rules are ambiguous we can Make Da Call, but that is the limit.

Fixed Weapon Mounts are not ambiguous. Annoying? Sure, but not ambiguous.

If you want to talk about how rules SHOULD be, go here to Propose Rules for 40K.

 Charistoph wrote:

A pointless question on a forum board dedicated to determining how Rules Are Written. Where rules are ambiguous we can Make Da Call, but that is the limit.

Fixed Weapon Mounts are not ambiguous. Annoying? Sure, but not ambiguous.

If you want to talk about how rules SHOULD be, go ="http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/forums/show/16.page"]here to Propose Rules for 40K.

Or not. Asking how people actually play a given rule is perfectly acceptable in YMDC. We just ask that posts about HYWPI are clear about what they are, where they differ from RAW.


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 andywalker07 wrote:
I'm well aware of the pictures you refer to... The ones where a predator can shoot backwards with side sponsons but the leman Russ with the same side sponsons cannot.

The Leman Russ doesn't have the same side sponsons as a Predator. They have different arcs because they're different.

Just looked at ITC rules and they use a 180 which shocked me I wonder if this was asked in the new FAQ thread

It's quite common, at least from my experience, to go with the 180 (which is effectively just ignoring the vertical arc) as many players agree that the 45 degrees is absurd.

Yeah, the rulebook is pretty explicit in terms of the stated 45º firing arc. I think it's not unreasonable to negotiate an alternative if your opponent/group/store/etc. is open to it.

Also I don't think playing by the rules as they're fairly clearly stated makes you WAAC or somehow "anal" as the OP suggests.

Rather I think showing up to a game (or an internet forum) and expecting your opponent/others to be aware of and okay with your made up rules rather than the rules they showed up reasonably expecting to play is... rude, being charitable.

If someone wants to do less the 45 down and they don't have a flyer then I will note never to play them as they just want to make flyers useless.

I see 180 as to much but using any of the 45 to point up is flat out dumb

Oldmike wrote:
If someone wants to do less the 45 down and they don't have a flyer then I will note never to play them as they just want to make flyers useless.

I see 180 as to much but using any of the 45 to point up is flat out dumb

"They" may want to do nothing more than play by the rules.

Yes, people (in my experience) are often willing to let things like this slide, but expecting to be able to play by your own rules and refusing to play anyone who doesn't let you does not make them the unreasonable ones

TBH, whilst I'm more than happy to pick over rules on the web with strangers till we're both blue in the face, IRL I'm always prepared to make reasonable concessions against opponents to reduce friction and try to ensure we both have a good game. And IMO most problems can be solved by rolling off.

I would prefer to play like many tournies do with 180° arc (essentially negating) the rule but would be happy to play 45° down if the frame of movement started from 0.0° to -45°. If my group tried to enforce the 22.5 thing I would probably either model the gun or the whole flyer so it was pointed down and if that wasn't good enough, I just wouldn't play.

For me, the reason debating this rule is necessary is because i don't think it's meant for flyers at all. The pictures used are all tanks and I don't think it's unreasonable to think that given GWs
propensity to be careless and sloppy with rules, that the writer was't even thinking about flyers when they wrote it. I mean after all, flyers were new to 6th weren't they? And I could be wrong (as I don't have 5th) but did the wording change from 5th to 6th? If not I would say that adds weight to my argument.

The wording didn't change much, but 5th.had situations even before flowers where the 45 degree vertical arc for vehicles was stupid (dreadnoughts, or anything involving elevated terrain, for example). They chose not to correct that for 6th. I suspect because the studio guys don't use that rule anyway, and so it just never occured to them that it doesn't actually work.

With that in mind I assert that the rule was never intended to be used by flyers and should be house ruled.

It was wrong of me say that anyone pushing the RAW was anal. Some people prefer to play RAW to simplify the game and reduce rule debates, which is understandable. Some are so obsessed with rules that they are mentally incapable of interpreting something other than the book contents verbatim. Kinda reminds me of my autistic cousin, he needs rules to make sense of absolutely everything in life.

But then there are some people that stand nothing to lose or gain for compromising on rules, and acknowledge the impact it will have on their opponents enjoyment but refuse to budge any way.

If my opponent wants to model his super killy assault character on a much bigger base than is supplied because his conversion is massive, its fine by me, even if it means more models will be in base contact with more models giving an advantage in the assault phase. Because you know what? It probably doesn't make sense to them that a huge character should fit on a 40mm base, and I'm not going to tell them they can't field the model they've so lovingly converted.

If someone wants to claim they have LOS to my model because a hand/weapon is sticking out, and in they're mind they're visualising movies where an enemy has its weapon shot out of its hand, that's fine too. Doesn't really matter to me and what's the point in playing if all we're going to do is knit pick semantics.

It doesn't make any sense to me that a storm talon can't shoot a ground target 12" away, it would ruin any cinematic I could conceive for these futuristic war machines to be so inflexible and restrictive. And if my opponent realises this and wants to play RAW regardless, then that's their prerogative but they won't be playing against me. And that is not unreasonable, we are all free to play whoever.

Not sure how the Storm Talon is but I know my Dakkajets can be "flying" upward or downward depending on which way you turn the flyer base. Considering that I can change my firing arc of my jet purely with how I put my flyer on the removable base and how far deep I push the flyer stand into the hull of the jet sorta makes the firing arch for vertical shooting seem irrelevant. The RAW is clear but its silly to think a flyer (especially one that can hover) is unable to pitch forward or back to shoot at aerial or ground targets. Its not like a Land Raider that would need to pop a wheelie or ski to shoot a flyer right in front of it with its sponson mounted lascannon. 40k in general isn't very good at vertical gameplay when a jet is flying at the same height as an Imperial Knight.