I am having trouble figuring out how cover would work for the air speeder. From what I can gather it seems that as long as the base is obscured, the air speeder will gain more cover. Am I interpreting this wrong? I noticed under the additional terrain rules in the RRG that "as a general rule" a mini only gains cover if half of the mini is behind cover, but the specifics of how this works is not spelled out anywhere. Does that include the flight stand or just the sculpt itself? It just seems weird that something low on the ground would affect LOS for something that is flying around at height two. What am I missing?

Rules Reference has LOS based on the model and includes the base, best solution is to explain what you want to achieve when you move your unit "I want to move to have this unit in cover, what do you think?" at that point he says OK or highlights where he feels there is a problem.

As far as the units height goes while it may be able to traverse height 2 terrain it ends up where it ends up. So LOS is taken by looking over the model shooting at its' target, as is. If you can see half of it it isn't in cover, if you can see less thank half of it it is in cover. The unit is not an imaginary distance off the ground, they are where they are.

5 hours ago, Amanal said:

Rules Reference has LOS based on the model and includes the base, best solution is to explain what you want to achieve when you move your unit "I want to move to have this unit in cover, what do you think?" at that point he says OK or highlights where he feels there is a problem.

As far as the units height goes while it may be able to traverse height 2 terrain it ends up where it ends up. So LOS is taken by looking over the model shooting at its' target, as is. If you can see half of it it isn't in cover, if you can see less thank half of it it is in cover. The unit is not an imaginary distance off the ground, they are where they are.

Ooooh! That may be bad for conversion rules......

I think for conversions if it keeps the general silhouette it’ll be fine. Can’t go adding another wing or sth.

Im just wondering about atst since it’s posable. Would it be better to make it as tall as possible so you’ll have better los to more things, or smaller, so you’ll get cover if you stand behind small buildings

9 minutes ago, tieren said:

I think for conversions if it keeps the general silhouette it’ll be fine. Can’t go adding another wing or sth.

Im just wondering about atst since it’s posable. Would it be better to make it as tall as possible so you’ll have better los to more things, or smaller, so you’ll get cover if you stand behind small buildings

Magnetize so you can choose depending on the terrain your near! Have him crouch and stand as you play!*The kind of garbage we’ll need OP rules to prevent*

The cover rules require drawing from the centre of the attacking leader to the centre of the defending mini to check if the defender is obscured. It then goes on to say if the defender is obscured then it has cover. The type of cover it has is then determine by the terrain:

"If the obscured minis are obscured by a barricade, and
the defender is a trooper unit, that unit has heavy cover.
» If the obscured minis are obscured by custom terrain,
that unit has the cover that the custom terrain provides."

This means for the Airspeeder we would have to use the custom terrain rules, which state:

"As a general rule, terrain that blocks
line of sight to half or more of a mini provides cover."

The line of sight rules say that the base is include as part of the mini.

Therefore half of the actual plastic Airspeeder mini (which does include the base) would have to be behind the cover when checking line of sight for a benefit to be gained. I'd argue that the base and the majority of the stem would not be sufficient to be half of the volume of the mini, but I suppose this would come down to individual players and discussions with their opponents.

Interestingly, if the imaginary line between the attacking Leader's base and the Airspeeder's base crosses an AT-RT's base, the Airspeeder would get light cover regardless of line of sight:

"If the obscured minis are obscured by a ground vehicle,
that unit has light cover"

A mini is obscured simply if the line crosses a base or piece of terrain.

2 hours ago, kjpw_88 said:

The cover rules require drawing from the centre of the attacking leader to the centre of the defending mini to check if the defender is obscured. It then goes on to say if the defender is obscured then it has cover. The type of cover it has is then determine by the terrain:

"If the obscured minis are obscured by a barricade, and
the defender is a trooper unit, that unit has heavy cover.
» If the obscured minis are obscured by custom terrain,
that unit has the cover that the custom terrain provides."

This means for the Airspeeder we would have to use the custom terrain rules, which state:

"As a general rule, terrain that blocks
line of sight to half or more of a mini provides cover."

The line of sight rules say that the base is include as part of the mini.

Therefore half of the actual plastic Airspeeder mini (which does include the base) would have to be behind the cover when checking line of sight for a benefit to be gained. I'd argue that the base and the majority of the stem would not be sufficient to be half of the volume of the mini, but I suppose this would come down to individual players and discussions with their opponents.

I really hope thats not the rule

Quote

The player traces an imaginary line from the center of the base of the attacker’s unit leader to the center of the base of a mini in the defending unit. If the imaginary line crosses either a piece of terrain or another unit’s base, that mini is obscured.

Quote

If at least half of all of the defender’s minis are obscured, that unit has cover. The type of cover that unit has is determined by the object that is obscuring the minis, as follows:
» If the obscured minis are obscured by a ground vehicle, that unit has light cover.
» If the obscured minis are obscured by a barricade, and the defender is a trooper unit, that unit has heavy cover.
» If the obscured minis are obscured by custom terrain, that unit has the cover that the custom terrain provides.

Quote

Whether or not a piece of terrain provides cover varies from miniature to miniature. As a general rule, terrain that blocks line of sight to half or more of a mini provides cover, while terrain that blocks less than half of a mini does not. This means that trooper minis will frequently enjoy the benefits of cover, while vehicles often will not.

Terrain either provides no cover, light cover, or heavy cover, depending on its characteristics. Terrain that completely blocks line of sight always provides heavy cover.

Quote

A player determines line of sight from the perspective of a mini, using a viewpoint where the center of the mini’s base meets the top of the mini’s sculpt. If a player can see part of an opponent’s mini, which includes that mini’s base, from that viewpoint, that player’s mini has line of sight to that opponent’s mini.

Basically, it works mostly how you think it would - if terrain covers more than half of the Airspeeder from the "eyes" of the attacking mini, it gets cover. The only non-intuitive thing is that the base counts as part of the model for cover purposes - but the stand doesn't, RAW. So that's not a huge difference, and I think given the inherent inaccuracy in determining whether "half the mini" is blocked from line of sight, it's not a difference players are going to actively adhere to.

(The only difference being, if the mini is 48% blocked, it wouldn't have cover - but if the base is also blocked, that might push you over 50%. It's probably too minor to come up.)

IMO, the big loss here is that if LoS to your base is unobstructed, you don't gain cover even if you would otherwise (for example, flying behind an arch, or a walkway), which is kind of a shame.

43 minutes ago, svelok said:

The only non-intuitive thing is that the base counts as part of the model for cover purposes - but the stand doesn't, RAW.

Where does it specifically state that? As I read it you take the entire miniature, like so:

50% of the gross weight of the mini, 50% of the volume? 50% of the height? What the heck is 50% of the airspeeder/AT-ST mini lol

I think for Repulsor vehicles, the base should not count for LoS. It is counter-intuitive and opens up too much possibility for argument and disagreement.

Just now, Lord Tareq said:

Where does it specifically state that? As I read it you take the entire miniature, like so:

It just doesn't specifically state otherwise. The only time the RRG mentions stands is in reference to bases:

Quote

Repulsor vehicle minis are affixed to medium, large, or huge notched bases by clear plastic stands.

Otherwise, it only ever refers to the mini, specifically including the base.

10 hours ago, Thoras said:

Magnetize so you can choose depending on the terrain your near! Have him crouch and stand as you play!*The kind of garbage we’ll need OP rules to prevent*

Actually no game company should need to make rules for this. Its called don't be a ****!

19 minutes ago, DarkTrooperZero said:

Its called don't be a ****!

Aka, "Rule 0" or the DBAD rule.

24 minutes ago, DarkTrooperZero said:

Actually no game company should need to make rules for this. Its called don't be a ****!

I took it to an extreme to illustrate the point. If you have rules based on the look/size/position of the model, you need to limit conversion or you’ll potentially have people taking advantage.

even less extreme conversions could be an issue.

I assume its 50% of the silhouette of the models facing your are looking at.

Fairly simple really besides a few line ball very close ones where it may require a dice off.

I played 40k for about 12-15 years before I went on to Play Flames of War for about another 8-10 years. As such I have been playing miniatures games for about 25 years.

In all that time I have witnessed 1 silly person argue the 50% hidden rule and do so for long enough as a friend and I set up, played and took down a game before they had finished. Our suggested solution was to roll a dice and see if it mattered, in Flames being in terrain made a d6 roll one hard to hit, so if you normally needed a 4+ you now needed a 5+, roll a 4 and the argument mattered, anything else and it didn't. Now, these guys had laser levels and all sorts of crazy on their side.

Something to remember with LOS here, it gives you one or two saves, you are not going to care one way or the other in the grand scheme of things. Get down eye ball it, I usually like to just have my opponent tell me what he thinks, and roll the dice. Usually I find most reasonable people give you some benefit for doubt, so you could just roll a White Defense Dice and on a shield icon call it in cover and save, or not.

8 hours ago, imlost19 said:

50% of the gross weight of the mini, 50% of the volume? 50% of the height? What the heck is 50% of the airspeeder/AT-ST mini lol

Don't over think the problem, just look at the model and guess is that about 50% covered by the terrain in the way.

Even should you lose a game where that save or two mattered, it should still have been fun, because a game that would come down to a hit or two would seem to be quite close.

9 hours ago, NeonWolf said:

I think for Repulsor vehicles, the base should not count for LoS. It is counter-intuitive and opens up too much possibility for argument and disagreement.

This is my main issue. It just makes no sense that the base has anything to do with line of sight or calculating cover for a flying model. I can sort of understand it for speeder bikes since they are relatively low to the ground, but the not for t47s.

1 hour ago, dukncuver said:

This is my main issue. It just makes no sense that the base has anything to do with line of sight or calculating cover for a flying model. I can sort of understand it for speeder bikes since they are relatively low to the ground, but the not for t47s.

It's an ease of use thing. Going base-to-base works because they are like mule holes, everyone has one. When you start defining "the model" or "the tip of the weapon" then things get even weirder. "Oh the wingtip can see you, so I'm launching all the missiles." "Oh, the vehicle is in front of yours, but the tip of the super long barrel is actually behind your vehicle, so I am attacking the rear armor!"

This is where you end up.

Add a special rule for everything, and you catch the details, but you're always looking stuff up so the game last forever, and you still forget stuff.

Make the rules too simplified and you end up arguing if the airplane cgets cover because it's base is hidden.

Please don't argue this point. FFG will look at this and say "We need to go back and make Clear Acrylic bases for the T-47" (Which is what they should have done in the first place) and push back the release date to the end of the second quarter 2018 and we will be able to buy all "12" expansions at launch.

As I see it if your LOS is obstructed of the T-47 speeder (just the speeder) it has cover. Who would argue for the base of an air vehicle anyway? Are you shooting the base or the air speeder? Well they are Original Trilogy Stormtroopers after all, so I really wouldn't worry they are not gonna hit it anyway.

This product has been on the boat since early/mid December. They have stretched this to the end of first quarter 2018. Please don't give anyone ANY reason to "alter the deal any further".

On 3/1/2018 at 11:40 AM, C3POFETT said:

Please don't argue this point. FFG will look at this and say "We need to go back and make Clear Acrylic bases for the T-47" (Which is what they should have done in the first place) and push back the release date to the end of the second quarter 2018 and we will be able to buy all "12" expansions at launch.

As I see it if your LOS is obstructed of the T-47 speeder (just the speeder) it has cover. Who would argue for the base of an air vehicle anyway? Are you shooting the base or the air speeder? Well they are Original Trilogy Stormtroopers after all, so I really wouldn't worry they are not gonna hit it anyway.

This product has been on the boat since early/mid December. They have stretched this to the end of first quarter 2018. Please don't give anyone ANY reason to "alter the deal any further".

Nothing needs to be changed physically, just a detailed explanation for the blurb about "a mini only gets cover if half of it is obscured." If they mentioned that the base is not included for determining LOS when attacking speeders that that would solve everything.