Shooting/arcs

[AJCHVY]

Hey there, hopefully someone can clear up a few things for me.

Under normal firing circumstances, most ships seems to have either port/starboard weapons, or forward facing or even some that are multiple arcs. In most cases there is no issue, but with some fleets, they have guns on front as well as both sides. In my gaming group, up until about a year ago, I had always played it so that if an enemy ship lies in multiple arcs, a ship could fire each arc at the target, combining weapons batteries as per the rules.

Only in the last year or so I have had people tell me you only get to fire one facing at a ship, but again I don't see it in the rules stating that this is the case. Here's a copy of the shooting sequence.

1.Choose a ship to fire.
2.Check the ship has targets within range.
3.Check the ship has weapons within fire arc of the
target.
4.Resolve firing.
5.Choose another ship to fire.

Unless I am missing something, nothing here stated that you pick one facing. If this is the case someone please inform me as to where it states this, as currently my main fleet (orks as some may have guessed) are severely hampered by being able to use only one facing as I relied on having more dice at a much shorter range than the other fleets.

[horizon]

Hey,

Okay easy example: Chaos Murder cruiser. It has lances at the prow who fire FRONT only. It has batteries on port and batteries on the right.

In a turn when shooting it can fire its prow lance in the FRONT arc only when there is an enemy ship in that arc.
It can fire its port batteries (strength 10) at an enemy ship "A" at its port side.
It can fire its starboard batteries (strength 10) at an enemy ship "B" at its starboard side.

The port batteries and lances cannot fire at target B.
The starboard batteries and lances cannot fire at target A.

Clear?

Now if a vessel, Tau have this, has batteries with the option of L/F in their stats. Then that weapon may fire in either left OR front.

A L/F/R weapon thus also needs to pick ONE arc in which it will fire.

If an enemy ship lies in two arcs then the attacker must pick one arc. The enemy ship cannot be in two arcs at the same time.

It seems this last bit will answer your question. I'll add the reference later into this post.

[Bozeman]

OK, so from what I'm reading, you're thinking that a rules ambiguity means that if a weapon, say Str 2 dorsal lances with L/F/R arc could, in theory, fire two shots to the left, two forward, and two to the right.

By an incredibly loose interpretation you could be correct.

However, here is a direct quote from the BFG main rulebook, Page 19, central column, bottom paragraph:

For example, many cruisers have weaponry in a dorsal mount (ie along the top of the vessel) and dorsal mounts can fire left, front, or right.

Bold above mine.  If you interpret that as a HARD "or" that means you have to pick one.  You can also interpret it as being able to fire in these arcs, but limited to the firepower of the weapon. (i.e. If the above dorsal lances fire, you can split the fire between arcs as explained in the rules for splitting fire, but you wouldn't get three sets of two shots, because the firepower is only 2)

[AJCHVY]

Hey,

Okay easy example: Chaos Murder cruiser. It has lances at the prow who fire FRONT only. It has batteries on port and batteries on the right.

In a turn when shooting it can fire its prow lance in the FRONT arc only when there is an enemy ship in that arc.
It can fire its port batteries (strength 10) at an enemy ship "A" at its port side.
It can fire its starboard batteries (strength 10) at an enemy ship "B" at its starboard side.

The port batteries and lances cannot fire at target B.
The starboard batteries and lances cannot fire at target A.

Clear?

Now if a vessel, Tau have this, has batteries with the option of L/F in their stats. Then that weapon may fire in either left OR front.

A L/F/R weapon thus also needs to pick ONE arc in which it will fire.

If an enemy ship lies in two arcs then the attacker must pick one arc. The enemy ship cannot be in two arcs at the same time.

Hey there, hopefully someone can clear up a few things for me.

Under normal firing circumstances, most ships seems to have either port/starboard weapons, or forward facing or even some that are multiple arcs. In most cases there is no issue, but with some fleets, they have guns on front as well as both sides. In my gaming group, up until about a year ago, I had always played it so that if an enemy ship lies in multiple arcs, a ship could fire each arc at the target, combining weapons batteries as per the rules.

Only in the last year or so I have had people tell me you only get to fire one facing at a ship, but again I don't see it in the rules stating that this is the case. Here's a copy of the shooting sequence.

1.Choose a ship to fire.
2.Check the ship has targets within range.
3.Check the ship has weapons within fire arc of the
target.
4.Resolve firing.
5.Choose another ship to fire.

Unless I am missing something, nothing here stated that you pick one facing. If this is the case someone please inform me as to where it states this, as currently my main fleet (orks as some may have guessed) are severely hampered by being able to use only one facing as I relied on having more dice at a much shorter range than the other fleets.

It seems this last bit will answer your question. I'll add the reference later into this post.

OK, so from what I'm reading, you're thinking that a rules ambiguity means that if a weapon, say Str 2 dorsal lances with L/F/R arc could, in theory, fire two shots to the left, two forward, and two to the right.

By an incredibly loose interpretation you could be correct.

However, here is a direct quote from the BFG main rulebook, Page 19, central column, bottom paragraph:

For example, many cruisers have weaponry in a dorsal mount (ie along the top of the vessel) and dorsal mounts can fire left, front, or right.

Bold above mine.  If you interpret that as a HARD "or" that means you have to pick one.  You can also interpret it as being able to fire in these arcs, but limited to the firepower of the weapon. (i.e. If the above dorsal lances fire, you can split the fire between arcs as explained in the rules for splitting fire, but you wouldn't get three sets of two shots, because the firepower is only 2)

I understand the idea that a weapon must pick an arc that it will fire in, so an L/F/R weapon can't fire in all 3 and must pick one. My issue is where does it say a ship can only be in one arc at a target.

For example, an ork kill kroozer has normal and heavy weapons on 3 sides. If a target lies in lets say port and prow, I should be able to target them with both. They will be separate attacks so modifiers from blast markers or range will apply of course to the second shot.

As per the rules, when I pick a ship to fire, I first check range to see if there are targets in range, then declare which arc I am using to fire. It does not say anywhere that I can only fire one arc at a ship.

Can I not continue shooting with that ship, choosing a different arc, and target the ship I just fired at if the enemy ship lies on the line or even clearly in multiple arcs?

Again I know that a gun can only fire in one arc, so I'm not asking if a weapon that is L/F or R/F can fire in multiple.

[Xca|iber]

A target ship cannot ever be in more than one firing arc of an attacking vessel. (In the BFG:XR Rulebook, the explanation of this on p16 is not as clear as it should be - I will fix this shortly). It works like this:

a) If a target is on the line between firing arcs, the shooting player chooses which arc the target is in, and must abide by that choice during the shooting phase.

b) If a firer is on the line between a target's facings, the shooting player chooses which arc to use for target orientation, and must abide by that choice during the shooting phase.

Normally however, determining firing arc is trivial, since you always measure based only on the position of the target's stem, which is effectively a one-dimensional point in space. There is no such thing as "True Line of Sight" in BFG, which seems like what you're doing.

[AJCHVY]

Cool thanks, I've always felt it needed a slight re-wording. This should clear up any confusion.