Terrain Height Advantages

By davepaulstanley, in Star Wars: Legion

Can anyone see any advantages that height gives for attacks? I can see that positioning on higher terrain might give you line of sight above barriers or walls in certain situations. However, I can't see where you get any extra dice or specific attack advantages (or disadvantages for defensive rolls for those defending against higher attacks, for example).

Anyone see something I didn't notice? Full disclosure, I scanned the rules relatively quickly.

10 minutes ago, davepaulstanley said:

Can anyone see any advantages that height gives for attacks? I can see that positioning on higher terrain might give you line of sight above barriers or walls in certain situations. However, I can't see where you get any extra dice or specific attack advantages (or disadvantages for defensive rolls for those defending against higher attacks, for example).

Anyone see something I didn't notice? Full disclosure, I scanned the rules relatively quickly.

Free from devastating melee attacks, free from some vehicle attacks depending on height, overcome enemies' cover, objective defense are a few that come to mind.

There aren't any specific game mechanics related to height advantage, just tactical advantages and disadvantages that being on higher ground conveys

The good and bad of high ground is tied to basic tactics. It doesn’t need an extra game mechanic to make it better or worse.

15 minutes ago, Big Easy said:

Free from devastating melee attacks, free from some vehicle attacks depending on height, overcome enemies' cover, objective defense are a few that come to mind.

This makes sense. However, it honestly would be nice if they built in a simple dice advantage so that using elevated terrain is 'encouraged.' I'm kind of disappointed by this. Oh well. Can't have it all. :-)

1 minute ago, davepaulstanley said:

This makes sense. However, it honestly would be nice if they built in a simple dice advantage so that using elevated terrain is 'encouraged.' I'm kind of disappointed by this. Oh well. Can't have it all. :-)

I’m actually happy they left it as is. Elevated terrain is already encouraged if you know how to use it wisely.

I suspect many who are playing Legion and only used to flat games like xwing will need to also pick up a copy of Sun Tzu’s “The Art of War”. Loads of content that can be applicable there, even if a lot of it isn’t.

You can dismember people if you have the high ground.

6 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

You can dismember people if you have the high ground.

And leave them to burn to death!*

*only works if they actually die, otherwise they take over the galaxy*

It is a .pdf so I imagine that they will add to it over time. I can imagine a "High Ground" Objective/Deployment/Condition card in a future expansion. It would be cool if they released additional objectives in the future, kind of like the Correllian Conflict in Armada. However, they may not want to do paper expansions. Maybe they would release it with Commanders or with FFG produced terrain.

14 minutes ago, player2801864 said:

It is a .pdf so I imagine that they will add to it over time. I can imagine a "High Ground" Objective/Deployment/Condition card in a future expansion. It would be cool if they released additional objectives in the future, kind of like the Correllian Conflict in Armada. However, they may not want to do paper expansions. Maybe they would release it with Commanders or with FFG produced terrain.

Participation prizes for OP would be another avenue.

18 minutes ago, FSD said:

Participation prizes for OP would be another avenue.

It’s not one they pursue - op is for providing alternates of existing - they essentially have a mandate to not provide anything rules exclusive or bonus giving, or advantage granting in OP that cannot be accessed by everyone outside of O P

Exclusivity bonuses given as Tournament prizes has been considered a big killer of tournament games...

Edited by Drasnighta
1 minute ago, Drasnighta said:

It’s not one they pursue - op is for providing alternates of existing - they essentially have a mandate to not provide anything rules exclusive or bonus giving, or advantage granting in OP that cannot be accessed by everyone outside of O P

I'm not 100% certain but I believe they have included Deployment and Objective cards in the Quarterly Kits for Runewars that are not available elsewhere. They are participation prizes though, not rewards for winning.

1 minute ago, NeonWolf said:

I'm not 100% certain but I believe they have included Deployment and Objective cards in the Quarterly Kits for Runewars that are not available elsewhere. They are participation prizes though, not rewards for winning.

I would be very surprised to hear that... but never a problem with being proven wrong....

Just did some checking and there are indeed a unique deployment and objective card in each of the quarterly kits for Runewars from last year. They seem to be tied together since the deployment and objective from the Q3 kit have the same name and likewise for the Q4 kit cards. This appears to be the only way (other than eBay) to acquire these objectives and deployments.

It's not really a big deal in any OP events since the available deployments and objectives for those are listed in the Tournament Rules document that FFG releases for Runewars. As a side note, the deployment/objectives that are allowed for OP events seem to rotate quarterly in Runewars, makes me think we may see something similar for Legion once the tournament document is released.

36 minutes ago, NeonWolf said:

I'm not 100% certain but I believe they have included Deployment and Objective cards in the Quarterly Kits for Runewars that are not available elsewhere. They are participation prizes though, not rewards for winning.

You are 'correct' there have been deployment and objective cards as part of the quarterly kits for Runewars. The reason for the quotes is they are prizes yes, but it's left to the TO as how to distribute. Given the Runewars crowd sizes type are pretty much participation prizes. We used them as part of the mix of objectives and deployments for organized events. FFG has done a good job with them as they have been quite fun!

[edit]
Disregard (or, please remove this post). I have to learn how comma works. :v

Edited by SirSith

@SirSith Your first quote explains that you have LOS if you can see part of an opponent's mini (the base is included as part of the mini). You don't have to see their base to have LOS. But if you can only see their base, you still have LOS.

Will be interesting to see how it plays, but I'd like to see an extra dice reroll or cover reduction impact of 1, might house rule it and try it out.

The easiest way to make height advantageous on your table is to just put the best cover on the elevated positions. (Either via modeling, or by placing the barricades/etc during terrain setup).

After looking over the rules, I was bummed that there was no explicit advantage to being higher up than your target. But seeing as a model only gains benefit of cover if half of LOS to it is blocked, being elevated allows you to see more of the model which might negate cover, even if the cover crosses the B2B line.

With my awesome MS paint skills you can see in this scenario the elevated blue unit leader can see more than 50% of the red enemy unit so the red unit does not get the benefit of cover even though the black B2B line (barely) goes through the barricade. The blue unit still gets cover from the "lip" around the roof of the building because the red unit cannot see 50% of the blue unit and the B2B line goes through the building as well. The green unit is just there to show that it gets no advantage because it is at the same elevation as the red unit.

I think I am interpreting this correctly, please let me know if you notice any errors.

LOS.png