So, it takes me ages to find the distributor for this game in Malaysia and stock is scarce. Imagine my joy when I finally got hold of a core set and all four expansions. i rushed home to setup the game and play with my kids. to my horror, my rare core set is missing the range ruler!

I'm guessing you are referring to the shooting range ruler?

If so - fear not! The range ruler is pretty damned close to 12 inches long (within a few percent by my reckoning - granted that my tape measure may be a little imprecise)

So…

Range band 1 = 4 inches

Range band 2 = 8 inches
Range band 3 = 12 inches

As I said, it's not precisely the same length (each band looks to be about 2mm short of the 4" mark), but close enough for government work…

Hopefully it'll get you by until a replacement ruler arrives
 

 Each range band is equal to 10cm. So range 1 is 10cm, range 2 is 20cm and range 3 is 30cm. Hope this helps until you can get a replacement.  I'm it sure how well FFG customer service is, being new to their games but I'd try to e-mail them.

 From everything I've heard from similar cases (with Talisman and Battlestar Galactica), FFG are absolutely stellar about replacing missing/damaged parts. Shoot 'em an email, and please report back! 

Qapla187 said:

That explains everything. I hadn't considered that they used centimeters instead of inches. I thought they made the range rulers slightly less than 4 inches per range so people couldn't just use a 12 in ruler.

At the top of the page there's a menu bar - News|Catalog|Upcoming etc. If you hover on More… a dropdown menu appears, the top choice being Customer Service, which will reveal a secondary menu with Damaged/Missing components. Clicking will lead to a form you can fill out.  When I've had to use it they were very responsive and replaced my broken component very quickly.

On a side note, though I'm sure you already have, check underneath the plastic tray that holds the models in the box. One of my sets had the range ruler "hiding" underneath there.

 Yep, they are super helpful. Best costumer service I have had.

 Additionally, the border between ranges 2 and 3 is exactly as long as the forward 5 template.  So you could use the forward 5 sort of ad-hoc until you get the real deal.