Flyers vetical firing arc?

[presto15]

This came up in a game as some troops were within 5 inches of a stormraven. Page 59 of the black reach rulebook states that weapons have a vertical movement of 45 degrees. Vertical movement means "up and down" movement not "up OR down" movement. Meaning that the guns can shoot 22.5 degrees down. This is also reference in hull mounted weapons fir arc. Otherwise it would be describe as 90 degrees They can shoot 22.5 degrees to either side. The guardsmen therefore are not within the firing arc as they are too far underneath the stormraven and not within the vertical fire arc... therefore they can not be hit?

Taking this a bit further, if the multi melta on a storm raven is 8 inches high and using the 22.5 degrees that the rulebook states, that minimum distance the stormraven can shoot is 19 inches (trigonometry), as anything closer is not within the vertical fire arc.

Now lets say the 8 inch high multi melta shoots at a vehicle that is 3 inches high (a land raider) this effectivly means that the multa gun is 5 inches higher than the land raider. Using basic trigonometry the minimum distance the multi melta can shoot is 12.07 inches, meaning that a multi melta can't even get within range to use its melta rule.

This also applies to a lesser extent of all flying vehicles (Dark Eldar, Valks, Vendettas etc.)

I know that RAI is not RAW, but has anyone heard any official wording or FAQ?

If this post is unclear, please let me know and I will try and attach pictures somehow.

[DarkLink]

This is GW. Don't look too closely at their rules and they work just fine. But, yes, off the top of my head that sounds correct.

[Slug]

Logically I would say that makes sense, however it doesn't really make sense in the game as it somewhat breaks fliers with short ranged guns. Just had a look through FAQ and couldn't find anything on this, however, I would just ask an opponent if you can ignore this, you could argue that whilst the guns are stuck in place the vehicle could do a sort of dive bomb, or someone though this through when designing the thing unlike GW. So, yes they obviously didn't do any maths when they wrote this but technically the rules say storm ravens with MM suck.

[Tynskel]

Actually, 45 is total movement. So you could aim 45 up, and zero down. You just gotta be consistent. Announce how your weapons work before you play.

[Denzark]

The fly in the ointment is that there is nothing to state the Storm raven must always assume a flat aspect of travel - helis travel with nose down, etc.



It could possibly vector thrust hover with its nose pointing straight down to allow any of the guns a better angle.

Don't say this is unlikely as what is unlikely is that the bloody thing could fly at all.

[Morgan Darkstar]

45 degrees from the horizontal,

Adjective. Describing the axis oriented normal (perpendicular, at right angles) to the horizontal axis.

"actually if someone pulled this on on me in a game i would throw the model at them!"

[dannyat2460]

Im actualt going to be very picky with this wording now as there is an "assume" it can do it by 45 degrees and to be even more picky it specificaly says tanks so storm ravens could be made imune to this,

But agreed if anyone did try this there would be something launched at them maybe not the £41 storm raven but maybe my old metal dreadnought

[Thornblood]

Sounds like a broken rule to me. Looks like its designed for before flyers were commonplace. It looks like its designed for models shooting at enemy in buildings or on high ledges. In which case nobody has ever disputed that a squad standing on the edge of a low cliff cant shoot the enemy directly beneath it. (Think braveheart when they lob rocks down on the cavalry that pursued bait into the ravine).

I think this is a case of make a house rule thats fair. Either 45 degree down, or, what I would be happy to go for, is Denzarks suggestion that the aircraft dosn't actually have to be horizontal to the ground.

If your play is this pedantic, attach ball and socket joints to your flying bases (like the new smaller flying bases).

[Wildcard]

I dont have rules here with me, so i cant be certain, but if i remember right, skimmers (and most likely flyers) can target any storey (because they can fly low, and near ground)

for excample: we have a 4 storey building (ruins). Stormraven is placed so that its front is 1" away from the wall of the building. Now since the skimmers can choose at which height they are, they can be chosen to "drop their altitude" to match the need for a proper firing arc.

This could have been in cities of death, or 5th ed rulebook, or in some other rules, i cant remember, nor is this word-by-word of the rules in any case.

the size of the base shouldn't be the issue, because all skimmers can go on top of 4 storey buildings, and end their movement in there (imo they are the only vehicle capable of doing so, by the rules). And as we all know, some have none, some have small, large, or extra tall bases, yet there are no rules that differentiate them.

-Cant remember how it works on jump infantry, was it so that they couldnt jump there, or they just took dangerous terrain tests.. in either case this is most likely irrelevant aspect when thinking about the situation at hand.


About flyers (which in terms of ruling are =/= skimmers):
Wasn't it so, that flyers just chose a path, and could unload their weapons along the path to any target they saw, with no limitations to vertical arcs? (i've never had a true flyer in my games, so i cannot say for sure)

[CitizenSoldier]

I don't see what the issue is here.

In standard 40k rules, there is no such thing as "flyers". If you grab a codex with the Storm Raven in, you will see that it's a skimmer. I think we can assume that all skimmers drop to a low hover during combat operations, so height differences are simply not an issue.

Apocalypse rules, on the other hand, do explicitly cover Flyers. The rules greatly simplify the handling of Flyer altitude (by shortening weapon range, for example), and creating a special weapon class ("AA Mount") for weapons that have a realistic chance of hitting Flyers.

Citizen.

[dannyat2460]

I don't see what the issue is here.

In standard 40k rules, there is no such thing as "flyers". If you grab a codex with the Storm Raven in, you will see that it's a skimmer. I think we can assume that all skimmers drop to a low hover during combat operations, so height differences are simply not an issue.

Apocalypse rules, on the other hand, do explicitly cover Flyers. The rules greatly simplify the handling of Flyer altitude (by shortening weapon range, for example), and creating a special weapon class ("AA Mount") for weapons that have a realistic chance of hitting Flyers.

Citizen.

we all know that there not flyers its the way people diferentiate (please forgive spelling) the base and as such hight of it eg land speeders are on the small thin (easy broke) base aka skimmer base where as storm ravens are on the large oval base with + shaped stem aka flyer base

[presto15]

To give some background. The discussion began when the guardsmen were under the storm raven. We knew that hull mounted weapons have a forward firing arc of 45 degrees. And on of the gaurdsmen was directly under the melta with just parts of the rear base in the forward arc. But looking at the model no one knew if it could actually be seen.

Naturally this lead to look at the rulebook and the only thing we saw was the vertical firing arc on page 59.

We have a house rule where if the model is in front it can be seen regardless of vertical firing arc. However we are all big attendees of adepticon and wondered if there was any official wording. We like to play as official as possible as we know house rulings have no weight in tournaments. We emailed adepticon the question.

P.s. Sorry citizen soldier for any confusion. We know there are no such thing as flyers in normal 40k. I just labeled the title as "flyers" in reference to the stem the valk/stormraven is mounted on as it is different than a wave serpent or landspeeder stem.