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Had an issue come up that sparked a bit of a debate, not only about this specific incident, but in  general.

Specifically, what is the firing arc of the various weapons on an Ork Battlewagon?  360 degrees?  However the vehicle is modelled?  Does the open-topped-ness have anything to do with it?

What about a Dark Eldar Ravager?  Theoretically, the skimmer could roll slightly to allow the port weapon to fire across the vehicle to the starboard (and vice-versa).  I doubt anyone would go for that (we didn't), despite the logical fluff argument, but maybe there is something that I'm missing.

What about custom vehicles in general?

There are no rules covering custom vehicles. You'll have to sort it out with your opponent.

In general, I would think it only fair that custom vehicles should have the same fire arcs as the official model, where one exists.

In the case of the battlewagon, you're on your own, since there IS no official model.


For the Ravager, I'd treat it as being horizontal for determining fire arcs, but only because that's what seems sensible to me, not because it's actually backed up by rules.

See my sig below.

It's just a fact about 40k. The rules have been left open to allow abuses through modeling. If someone wishes to do so, they can.

Ok, thanks.

So, two somewhat different answers... It appears that one *could* make some crazy tank with all the weapons on segmented stalks that allowed all its guns to target something in any direction, but you wouldn't be making any friends in a comp environment.

I like what GW has done in some Codices like Tau. For example, they specify that the Hammerhead has a turret mounted primary weapon and a hull mounted secondary. At least that ensures that the vehicle follows some sort of pattern.

Except that the hull mounted secondary weapons on a 'head basically have a 360 deg firing arc...

Yeah, until they define that "hull mounted"="fixed" then "hull mounted" means just about nothing. You can easily mount a weapon on the top of the hull that can have a 360 degree arc of fire.

Yeah, Hammerhead was a bad example. And even then, Yakface makes a good point. From playing other games with a more fully defined ruleset, I automatically equated "hull mounted" with "fixed." Darn fully defined games...