If you're standing on a building and shooting at mini's below can the building provide cover to the mini's below since it obstructs loS or does that building not provide cover because you're standing on it and thus in base contact with it? Does the answer change if the building has a railing around it? Sorry for crude drawing...

I’ve always played it as no cover when shooting at the unit on the ground, for the reason you cited (base contact with the building). Shouldn’t matter if there’s a railing or not, unless for some reason you and your opponent decided that the railing and building are technically 2 different pieces of terrain. Typically you wouldn’t, but there might be some strange designs where that makes sense, perhaps.

Typically I try to work this out with the other player ahead of the game.

Personally, I think this particular situation would give them cover. I think it's difficult to use the "in base contact" ruling for terrain that blocks LoS on multiple axis. For example, if the portion of horizontal roof that is blocking LoS in this image was removed, the vertical wall would maintain the obstruction of LoS entirely. In this imagine your mini can literally only see half his opponent, if you can't shoot through walls and roofs, it's safe to say those are "covering" the opponent.

As a rule of thumb, I work out with my opponent ahead of time that minis within distance 1 of an edge taller than their target cannot have their LoS obstructed unless the target is touching the vertical plane of that terrain.

I like working it out with your opponent and that's a good place to start. I'm not sure I can fully buy the idea that cover is granted due to the vertical element to the edge of the building. What if its an outcropping and there isn't multiple axes obstructed? The horizontal axis is clearly in base contact and also clearly obstructs.

I like the idea of a distance restriction because some multi-leveled terrain and buildings clearly would stretch the "base contact" idea to ridiculousness. If the black in the picture below is a building with multiple levels for most purposes in the game I'd consider it one piece of terrain (Key positions, etc). The guy on top is in base contact... but not giving cover to the guy below seems wrong.

Yeah we play it as no cover for the unit below, and basically rationalize it as, the unit above can scooch up to the edge and control their visibility a lot more than the one before.

I know this is not entirely rational, but I consider it kinda "design for effect" as Legion has no rules for elevation benefits/penalties. Overhangs and other weird shapes seem to me to mostly take care of themselves because after a certain amount of angular movement you are either entirely clear or entirely in cover.

One thing I do like to do though is treat multi level terrain (like the last example) as pieces of discrete terrain, one for each level.

We usually play it as case by case basis. Usually an overhang will outright block LOS or not, I can only think of one time we gave cover for this. It was indeed because of a heavy railing. It was as if a barricade was placed between the two models on the overhang. "Base contact" starts getting to be a nonsensical abstraction with the many angles and shapes and protuberances that a single building can have. Saying "Oh that would be cover if you put a popsicle stick fence on a foam hill but because you 3D printed a hill with a fence, no cover" just falls flat to me.

I agree it is best to work it out with your opponent before the game on a case by case basis. A building with a guard rail, I would be inclined to treat the guard rail as a separate wall, as I would for any walls secured to large bases for stability. A flat roofed building I would treat as unobscured in keeping with the "in base contact" rule.

With the recent clarification of all range measurements discounting the height difference, I think giving the elevated model a clear line of sight to something only blocked by the building corner is a minor benefit for action cost of getting a unit elevated in the first place.

On 12/6/2018 at 5:44 PM, KUPiranha said:

I like working it out with your opponent and that's a good place to start. I'm not sure I can fully buy the idea that cover is granted due to the vertical element to the edge of the building. What if its an outcropping and there isn't multiple axes obstructed? The horizontal axis is clearly in base contact and also clearly obstructs.

On 12/6/2018 at 5:14 PM, Darth Sanguis said:

I think it's difficult to use the "in base contact" ruling for terrain that blocks LoS on multiple axis .

On 12/6/2018 at 12:09 PM, KUPiranha said:

On 12/6/2018 at 5:14 PM, Darth Sanguis said:

Personally, I think this particular situation would give them cover.

The idea that there's going to be a blanket ruling that makes sense for each an every terrain piece, considering the lack of limitations of terrain is a little nuts. I provided guidelines I use and a the ruling I'd make based on the original picture.


Above all else I work it out with the opponent , but I use guidelines to help keep those rulings sane. With the over hang I would likely try to rule that LoS wouldn't be obstructed by the terrain so long as the mini on top is within distance 1 of the edge and the mini below isn't completely under the terrain's outcropping. As for multi-tier terrain, I would probably keep the distance 1 ruling and just add that it applies when targeting a mini on the next lowest plane so long as the space between those two planes is at least as tall as a mini. As pictured, I would definitely grant cover to the lower mini as part of the mini is definitely obstructed by the lower edge.

For most of these cover rulings it really should be as simple as a logic gate.

Can your unit see the enemy mini? [y/n]

-[n] No shot

-[y] Can your unit see the whole mini? [y/n]

--[n] Shot is obstructed, determine cover granted based on rules

--[y] Shot is not obstructed, no cover granted.


At least in my mind. The in base contact ruling seems to be for vertical surfaces, like walls, barricades, crashed vehicles, anything where a unit could stack up against a surface and peak in and out of cover. That is of course subjective, but if thought about from a 1st person perspective, it makes a ton of sense.

20 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

At least in my mind. The in base contact ruling seems to be for vertical surfaces, like walls, barricades, crashed vehicles, anything where a unit could stack up against a surface and peak in and out of cover. That is of course subjective, but if thought about from a 1st person perspective, it makes a ton of sense.

For something like that yes. We have a lot of ewok village things. A raised platform with fences around the edge and a few big LOS-blocking buildings on it. Get's weird fast.

Would it change this assuming no railing if the terrain piece was considered area terrain?