Just now, Chucknuckle said:

So what's the purpose of the 50% check?

It’s a guideline for determining which units benefit from cover from which terrain during the pre-game discussion.

Just now, nashjaee said:

It’s a guideline for determining which units benefit from cover from which terrain during the pre-game discussion.

But isn't cover all or nothing? If any part of the model is obscured at all, then cover is granted. They don't have to be 50% obscured.

Just now, Chucknuckle said:

But isn't cover all or nothing? If any part of the model is obscured at all, then cover is granted. They don't have to be 50% obscured.

Cover is all or nothing, provided that the thing that is blocking your LOS is something that was determined to provide cover for that unit. You use the 50% check to make that determination.

Take an AT-ST as an example. Before the game, it is determined terrain piece A is less than 50% its height, and B is taller than 50%. During the game, if A obscures your LOS to the AT-ST, it does not get cover. If B obscure your LOS, the AT-ST does get cover.

4 hours ago, Chucknuckle said:

So what's the purpose of the 50% check?

At the start of the game, to determine and agree on what piece of terrain A provides as cover to unit X, Y, Z.

On 6/15/2018 at 9:37 AM, chriscook said:

No, im just so confused by this. Are the diagrams on LOS and cover correct that someone posted about a week ago with all the different situations? So again, does a trooper unit that is far awy from a barricade get cover from and ATST??

To the best of my knowledge they are correct.

On 6/15/2018 at 9:44 AM, Deuzerre said:

By current "RAW" without those "patch notes", then yes. With the "patch notes", it depends if you see the whole mini or not.

The diagrams have been updated to reflect both the most current patches and also the Rules Reference 1.0.

On 6/15/2018 at 9:51 AM, chriscook said:

Nice drawing!!! Not the situation I was thinking about. All the troops I am shooting at are 2feet behind a barricade, and I am shooting from up high. The LOS goes through the barricade but I can see all the troops and their bases.

If you can see the troops and bases then that is the LOS check and they are not blocked.

There is no need to check center base to center base with the Official Rules updates, (no cover) but if you play with the older 1.0 rules they will get cover.

If my minis are walking single file and and enemy is straight in front of me and shoots, I will have cover. Cool suppession benefit without retrictions. In this case the minis block each other.

21 minutes ago, Funny Defcon said:

If my minis are walking single file and and enemy is straight in front of me and shoots, I will have cover. Cool suppession benefit without retrictions. In this case the minis block each other.

p31: Trooper minis do not block line of sight. When determining line of sight, if a player cannot see a mini because it is concealed by one or more troopers on the battlefield, and that player could otherwise see the mini, that player’s mini has line of sight to the mini that is concealed by one or more troopers.

It still amazes me FFG, a company with numerous employees that have probably encountered these situations countless times, didn't use a more elegant and quick system for determining Range+LOS+Cover. They over-complicated this in Armada and they repeated the same mistakes for Legion. The entire process of determining Range+LOS+Cover can be determined with one extremely simple measurement, with simple to use and understand rules, without affecting playability and immersion, and yet they made it cumbersome to execute and even more obtuse to understand.

Games don't need ultra-complex systems to create fun when modeling battles. This isn't a simulation! Make it fun, easy to use and learn, and plausible enough to be convincing during play. I hope for their RRG update they are considering one easy-to-use and easy-to-understand measurement for Range+LOS+Cover. It's doesn't sound like they are, which is unfortunate. ?

18 minutes ago, Thraug said:

The entire process of determining Range+LOS+Cover can be determined with one extremely simple measurement, with simple to use and understand rules, without affecting playability and immersion

Care to elaborate?

39 minutes ago, Thraug said:

It still amazes me FFG, a company with numerous employees that have probably encountered these situations countless times, didn't use a more elegant and quick system for determining Range+LOS+Cover. They over-complicated this in Armada and they repeated the same mistakes for Legion. The entire process of determining Range+LOS+Cover can be determined with one extremely simple measurement, with simple to use and understand rules, without affecting playability and immersion, and yet they made it cumbersome to execute and even more obtuse to understand.

Games don't need ultra-complex systems to create fun when modeling battles. This isn't a simulation! Make it fun, easy to use and learn, and plausible enough to be convincing during play. I hope for their RRG update they are considering one easy-to-use and easy-to-understand measurement for Range+LOS+Cover. It's doesn't sound like they are, which is unfortunate. ?

Can I see your whole model?

If yes, no cover

If no, does the line directly between us cross a terrain piece that would provide cover?

if yes, cover

if no, no cover

This is literally the entire process. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

47 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Can I see your whole model?

If yes, no cover

If no, does the line directly between us cross a terrain piece that would provide cover?

if yes, cover

if no, no cover

This is literally the entire process. It doesn't get much simpler than that.

It has to be the piece of Terrain/Vehicle that blocks line of site to provide them with cover.

1 minute ago, Matt3412 said:

It has to be the piece of terrain that blocks line of site to provide them with cover.

Or a ground vehicle.

1 hour ago, Thraug said:

Games don't need ultra-complex systems to create fun when modeling battles. This isn't a simulation! Make it fun, easy to use and learn, and plausible enough to be convincing during play. I hope for their RRG update they are considering one easy-to-use and easy-to-understand measurement for Range+LOS+Cover. It's doesn't sound like they are, which is unfortunate. ?

I've only played a handful of ground combat mini games and Legion seems to me to be both quite simple, and also very precise for competitive play.

Do you have other systems in mind that are simpler? As a casual student of game design I am quite curious to learn about different ways designers approach the intertwined and often competing priorities of, nuanced enough to make a plausible approximation of combat, easy to learn, easy to play, and precise for competitive play.

On 6/17/2018 at 2:06 AM, Deuzerre said:

At the start of the game, to determine and agree on what piece of terrain A provides as cover to unit X, Y, Z.

An example would be, the common styrofoam "contour map" style hills. Most people make up rules for these rather than using actual sight lines.

When you agree before the game that all single level hills block LOS to troops but not vehicles. Even if some of the hills are made of styrofoam that is not as thick as a humanoid model is tall. Two levels of hill might be declared to block LOS to smaller vehicles whether it covers X percent of it or not.

Likewise you might declare that a bunch of model railroad crates are so small they only cover 25% of an infantryman, and therefore grant no cover, but look cool so you leave them on the table. Whereas big oil drums that cover over half the guys chest do grant cover. Or whatever. Terrain collections are extremely varied so terrain rules are usually just guidelines in all miniatures games.

Remember that the rules state "more or less" as in "not really that accurate".

To me, crates are not meant to be individual cover, but a bunch of crates that wuld represent a storage area can be a good area terrain which provides light cover to troopers in it even if it doesn't cover 50% of the minis, just like a crater doesn't cover half a mini and still provides cover to minis in it.

As for hills, just make up your own rules. Mine would be that it's open terrain all over but provides elevation advantages and can sometimes block LoS.

The rules specifically state "do whatever you want" and as long as everyone agrees, it's all cool.

6 hours ago, Thraug said:

The entire process of determining Range+LOS+Cover can be determined with one extremely simple measurement, with simple to use and understand rules, without affecting playability and immersion, and yet they made it cumbersome to execute and even more obtuse to understand.

Most other systems simply use the 50% line of site rule all the time, instead of having different percentages apply before and/or during the game and using a multi-step process.

50% or more of mini is blocked at time of firing, or infantry unit on base of area terrain = cover

Otherwise, no cover.

The counter-argument to that is "well, 50% line of sight is objective... how does every shooting attack not devolve into arguments?" In practice, its usually pretty obvious. I've never had any problems in 40k, FoW, or any other system that uses a common sense approach like this.

What makes the Legion system un-intuitive is the 50% check is done when the model is in a specific position before the game; directly behind the terrain in question. But the model may not be there at all during the game, but still blocked by some (potentially much smaller) part of that same terrain piece. This creates immersion breaking scenarios where you can see 99.9% of the model (like when it is standing on top of the terrain piece), but the model technically still gets cover, as demonstrated by CaptainRocket. It could create other scenarios also where the model appears mostly blocked by the terrain, but doesn't get cover because the base-to-base line doesn't cross the terrain piece. It just feels inconsistent to the eye as you are applying it in game from one scenario to the next.

4 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

I've only played a handful of ground combat mini games and Legion seems to me to be both quite simple, and also very precise for competitive play.

Do you have other systems in mind that are simpler? As a casual student of game design I am quite curious to learn about different ways designers approach the intertwined and often competing priorities of, nuanced enough to make a plausible approximation of combat, easy to learn, easy to play, and precise for competitive play.

Try playing DBA some time. It's alien to most modern gamers so it seems far more complicated than it is. It's a historical game where everyone gets 12 bases of troops, plus a camp and a base of camp followers. One of the troop bases is nominated to be your general and gets a bonus to rolls. You lose if 1/3 of your army is destroyed. Getting your camp raided or your general killed counts for extra.

Bases of troops usually consist of four, 15mm figures but that can vary according to troop type, and to taste: some folks play it with 25mm figures. So when you move a unit you really feel like you're wheeling a shield wall or whatever. It's not a perfect game, nothing ever is, but you should check it out.

Also look into the American Civil War boardgame Battlecry.

20 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Try playing DBA some time. It's alien to most modern gamers so it seems far more complicated than it is. It's a historical game where everyone gets 12 bases of troops, plus a camp and a base of camp followers. One of the troop bases is nominated to be your general and gets a bonus to rolls. You lose if 1/3 of your army is destroyed. Getting your camp raided or your general killed counts for extra.

Thanks! I've looked at DBA, but not Battlecry.

I was looking not just at general simplicity, but specifically simplicity around LOS since that was the concern, and specifically in the context of squad level or individual trooper minis in the eras of automatic weapons.

For overall simplicity in that genre Crossfire is something I think everyone should look at, but it doesn't do anything novel with LOS.

Now, the games I've played with the true 50% rule I would describe as 'not cutthroat', and I like to agree to this rule of thumb with my opponent:

"When in doubt, allow attacks since they are more exciting and feels better for the attacker. Also when in doubt grant cover since it feels better to the defender."

My experience with competitive X-Wing, Armada, Attack-Wing, leads me to suspect however that this 'optimize for fun' attitude would not get very far. Maybe the "paint your mini's" gamers are just less aggro than the refugees from Magic and Euro gaming "pre-painted minis" crowd, and I'm just overly sensitive about it.

Legion is novel with regards to LOS, and at first I could not wrap my head around it. I've grown to be a bit of an apologist for it however, because I can see how it could avoid that nitpicky grumpiness with the aggro set. *shrugs*

It seems, from reading it, haven't played yet, that LOS in this game would only be complicated if I was really looking to bend the rules in my favor. We play a lot of differnet miniatures games. We rarely if ever need to consult the definition of LOS within a particular game. I can't remember it ever coming up with traditional miniature wargames, just hybrid miniature-boardgames like IA or the old hasbro games and stuff.

11 hours ago, Contrapulator said:

Care to elaborate?

Get down and look!