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Hi!
When i have units in 3 floors in a ruin and the two points are on the ground floor will the beam also hits the units on the first and second floor? Imo no because i have to draw a line and not a wall.
Thx

Graccus wrote:
Hi!
When i have units in 3 floors in a ruin and the two points are on the ground floor will the beam also hits the units on the first and second floor? Imo no because i have to draw a line and not a wall.
Thx

Only the units that are actually between the two points (AKA in the beam) will be hit. units on the 2nd or 3rd floors would not be hit if both points were on the ground level of the terrain.

Orbital wrote:(This may not be an exact quote, but it is paraphrased) Use theStratagem in the Shooting phase. If a Tau Empire commander did not move or use its Manta Strike ability in the preceding Movement phase. Pick two points on the battlefield 2D6 inches apart. Draw an imaginary line between them. On a 4+, any enemy unit in the beam suffers D3 mortal wounds.

I would have thought any units between the two points would be hit, regardless of elevation. The wording doesn't say to take into account vertical distances when measuring the 2d6" just two points on the board.

We're imagining this giant laser being shot from space downwards so I'd say everything underneath is hit. But for 3CP and everyone taking 2W models these days, better stratagems to spend your points on

And this is why exact quotes are important. It does not say "Any enemy unit in the beam", it says "Pick two points on the battlefield 2D6" apart. Draw an imaginary straight line 1mm wide between these two points and roll a dice for each unit (friend or foe) that has models under this line."

Ignoring that a line by definition cannot have a thickness (it is a one dimensional object) and instead pretend that it actually means "plane" instead of "line", it comes down to whether or not you can select a point in the air, because otherwise models that are on the battlefield cannot be under it, since a line has no depth and so models cannot be under it if you draw it along the top of the battlefield.

Edit: Alternatively you could draw your plane vertically instead of horizontally, which could indeed cause models to be "under" the "line".

I mean, leaving aside the above and it’s attempt to muddy things, we know that distances in 40K are measured in three dimensions. This tells us all we need.

If you pick two points on the ground the line goes between them and would ignore models on e.g. a first floor of a Ruin. It’s not a curtain, or wall, it’s a line.

If you picked a ground point and one on the first floor of the Ruin models along that ‘diagonal’ line would be hit. You have the right instinct, OP.

If you picked one point on the ground floor and one on the second floor, and that line touched models on each floor you could hit them that way, provided your line length roll is enough.

(It’s also perfectly fine to state a line is 1mm wide, as outside of the most tedious pedantry it’s understood what that means. Artists draw lines with a width and don’t refer to them as ‘planes’. I recall the width was added precisely to stop people claiming the line had no width specified so could be the width of the battlefield and encompass anything... silly attempted RAW manipulators necessitated this dimension being added.)

so yes, units on the 2nd and 3rd floor of a building can be hit