2 hours ago, jocke01 said:

I agree that this is more of a problem with win at all cost players who I stay away from if I'm not forced to face in a tournament. Sadly some casual-compeditive players can suprise you with some rules lawyering when their back is against the wall. In tournaments there is usually a pretty clear line and the TO can dismiss models that might "Cheat" however in just some normal matches with players you might not be more than acquainted with, it's interesting to hear what people think and how they would handle it.

The tricky thing is I can't consider such persnicketyness about visibility to be 'cheating' when the rules make a point about true line of sight.

Unless the rules or tourney regs change, sniping at the tip of a DLT or lightsaber is totes legal and must be accepted.

1 hour ago, brettspielcafe said:

ASK you opponent: “Is there a spot behind this [object] where I can move where you can’t see me? I’m going to put this I miniature down in this area. Will this work?” Then the opponent might say, “yeah, you are good there.” Or “you;d be fine if you were 2mm to the left.”

We much prefer this form of play because “gotcha’s” are for us a negative play experience.

If I was concerned that my opponent would try to take advantage of Leia’s outstretched arm to get an LOS advantage, I’d simply say before the game: “Can we agree that this model is actually within the cylinder of the base, and the artistic pose is not the actual attackable part of the model?” If they insisted on playing WYSIWYG, then we’d have to both agree to it. Similar to how terrain is ruled before the game.

47 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Yes. I often loudly announce my intention is that the model be out of LOS or in cover, and if they think it's presently visible to say so.

Yeah I hate gotcha moments too, but it's not always possible to declare LOS proactively when because opposing units might move before they fire.

I do like an agreement before the game to treat figures as the intersection of the model and the base with height being equal to the top of the unit head.

10 minutes ago, smickletz said:

The way I justify the lightsaber, rifle, etc. making the target eligible is that the unit is not just standing still as statues. They represent an area that mini may occupy, and if I got lucky and blew Luke’s (non-robotic) hand off with a sharpshooter shot, then he’d be in bad shape!

I don't mind the uncertainty that sniping at peeking bits gives play. I agree that the models are just a general reference for where 'real' space wizards would be chilling.

What bugs me is the aesthetics of playing in a way that accounts for that means that figures with protruding pointy bits... Say sniper rifles, DLTs, Z6s ... You know most guns... Are going to be carefully arranged to be pointing away from the enemy in order to minimize inadvertent exposure.

I know it's silly but it really bugs me to arrange them that way! 🤷‍♀️

I've recently gotten into Wild West Exodus and I'm loving how line of site/profiles works there. While the bases are a quite a bit wider than Legion (1.25 inches/3.175cm for a small base model), the profile of the model is a dome the height and width of the base, not the sculpt itself.

Legion's challenge is that its built around its proprietary measurement tools instead of standard ones. There's not really an option is the current set of measuring tools that accounts for the 1-2" height you'd want from models. Overall, its obnoxious, but it goes both ways. Luke can perisocope to get shots off other things cannot from his lightsaber after all (I like to think he's holding the saber over his head and shooting at it to bounce shots towards his target )

Mostly it comes down the the age old problem of game rules trying to work around terrain that isn't built to make target specifications. One option is to simply make most of your terrain 6" high so that it conforms to the game's concept of "height" and covers models pretty universally. Nobody wants to make custom terrain for each game and most people that like making terrain don't want to make it any sort of standard shape or size either. In any case, there's always going to be some non-intuitive interactions when you're dealing with a ruleset trying to be vague and generic enough to cover an infinite number of bespoke physical arrangements.

2 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

when the rules make a point about

No good comes of trying to turn this into Magic: The Gathering or Settler's of Catan when professional game designers do it, either. If the sculptors and designers were on the same page and carefully crafted it might work but they aren't. It could be ok if you had one pose of blaster per squad that was as neutral as possible. Like the old "at attention" 2nd ed plastic space marines. Very little of those figures protruded over the bases and what did was consistent. Though that wasn't done for reasons of rules but casting.

The real cause I see for this, is not my usual scapegoat of tournaments, but corporate cubicle culture running the companies now.

Quote

and must be accepted.

No people houserule all kinds of stuff. Most people don't play Monopoly as it is actually written. That one in particular is notorious for being different at different people's houses based on rules tweaks that have become handed down by generations.

If my school friends and I hadn't been precisely the type of personality to buck the rules as written if we thought they were un-fun, we'd have just played football and listened to pop music like everyone else.

2 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

I know it's silly but it really bugs me to arrange them that way! 🤷‍♀️

This gets into a lot of the paradoxes of modern rules. They make movement all loosey-goosey but LOS is so hyperfocused yet not really consistent... it's just messy.

Now, in ye olde Star Wars days, LOS was super specific to the base (but few models had anything the crept over the base anyways, thanks scale-creep!)... but we paid an inch of movement for a pivot, every single infantry model had a front arc they had to see the target from, etc.

True LOS from every sculpted cubic nano milimeter of model, combined with "just move the commander..." is a weird way to run things IMO.

3 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

The tricky thing is I can't consider such persnicketyness about visibility to be 'cheating' when the rules make a point about true line of sight.

Unless the rules or tourney regs change, sniping at the tip of a DLT or lightsaber is totes legal and must be accepted.

Yeah I hate gotcha moments too, but it's not always possible to declare LOS proactively when because opposing units might move before they fire.

I do like an agreement before the game to treat figures as the intersection of the model and the base with height being equal to the top of the unit head.

I think you missunderstood. I didnt mention cheating players, just that in tournaments a TO can dismiss models that are modeled for advantage.

7 hours ago, LunarSol said:

Legion's challenge is that its built around its proprietary measurement tools instead of standard ones. There's not really an option is the current set of measuring tools that accounts for the 1-2" height you'd want from models. Overall, its obnoxious, but it goes both ways. Luke can perisocope to get shots off other things cannot from his lightsaber after all (I like to think he's holding the saber over his head and shooting at it to bounce shots towards his target )

Mostly it comes down the the age old problem of game rules trying to work around terrain that isn't built to make target specifications. One option is to simply make most of your terrain 6" high so that it conforms to the game's concept of "height" and covers models pretty universally. Nobody wants to make custom terrain for each game and most people that like making terrain don't want to make it any sort of standard shape or size either. In any case, there's always going to be some non-intuitive interactions when you're dealing with a ruleset trying to be vague and generic enough to cover an infinite number of bespoke physical arrangements.

So, you’re arguing that Luke’s lightsaber constitutes the top of the mini’s sculpt, and not his head? Seems counterintuitive.

RRG pg 43, under Line of Sight: “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.”

10 hours ago, smickletz said:

The way I justify the lightsaber, rifle, etc. making the target eligible is that the unit is not just standing still as statues. They represent an area that mini may occupy, and if I got lucky and blew Luke’s (non-robotic) hand off with a sharpshooter shot, then he’d be in bad shape!

That’s also the exact same way publishers used to justify targeting the base and not the sculpture. Height was measured from the figure’s heads.

Didn't the designers put up an article on this issue? Or make some sort of guide to what is and is not allowed?

9 hours ago, Derrault said:

So, you’re arguing that Luke’s lightsaber constitutes the top of the mini’s sculpt, and not his head? Seems counterintuitive.

RRG pg 43, under Line of Sight: “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.”

So technically you could arrange Luke off to the side of the base such that the highest point above the center is, say, on his thigh?

2 hours ago, aniron said:

So technically you could arrange Luke off to the side of the base such that the highest point above the center is, say, on his thigh?

I think his feet are splayed such that he has to be centered to be on the base.

So, no, I suspect that would be an obvious hack.

2 hours ago, aniron said:

So technically you could arrange Luke off to the side of the base such that the highest point above the center is, say, on his thigh?

And you'd be meeting the very definition of modelling to advantage.

20 hours ago, AlKusanagi said:

I've recently gotten into Wild West Exodus and I'm loving how line of site/profiles works there. While the bases are a quite a bit wider than Legion (1.25 inches/3.175cm for a small base model), the profile of the model is a dome the height and width of the base, not the sculpt itself.

I don't understand why minis keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. No one complained that they were too small. But the manufacturers keep upping the size. So finally, this Wild West game, like W40k, has made the bases bigger to keep up. Guess what happens next? I predict the sculptors will create miniatures which hopelessly overflow THOSE bases with new gribblies and bigger muscles and they'll need wider bases yet again. How long till gaming "miniatures" creep all the way up to the size of articulated action figures? We once used 1" bases for roughly 1" figures and thus the profile was pretty much what you suggest.

@jocke01 an often cited example of modelling to advantage (and how it was handled) is this. In this one edition of 40k, there were fairly predictable deployment zones, you measure vehicles from anywhere on the model, and all the table sizes in the local shop were identical. So, someone playing a "gunline" army in the local shop, lengthened all his tank barrels with plastic pipe. Thus he was able to ensure he could hit anywhere in the enemy deployment zone on turn 1. After a few games where it became obvious what he'd done and why, the other players in the store told him he had to mark the barrels with a gribbly or camo stripe or something at the point where an unmodified kit's barrel would have ended, and measure from that.

I left a Warmahordes group for going too far the other way. I had a fully painted army on scenic bases which were slightly the wrong size. This didn't confer any advantage that wouldn't be met with a comparable disadvantage, and my list was far from minmaxed. I modeled for aesthetics, not advantage. The group lost their minds. They didn't paint their armies, minmaxed the **** out of their lists, and in some cases didn't even use models, but by golly the bases were the right size. I modeled, to no advantage, and they didn't model, to great advantage, but they saw my army as the problem. Never played with those fussbuckets again. No other Warmahordes players ever commented on "wrong" bases except to ask how I made the scenic elements. Now that army is the club loaner army (for a different group) cause try as I might I can't get into that game.

So the question is how much modelling to how much advantage? It's subjective, and some people hate subjectivity.

If you chop Boba Fett's arm off and glue it jankily to his side I have a problem with that. If you actually skillfully resculpt him into a different pose I don't care.

Speaking of WarmaHordes, they have a good way of settling the debate:

Every model has a standard volume it takes up related to the its base size ( p.37 of the rules ). If there is any disagreement about LOS, you have a standard you can measure to.

This does mean that some parts of the model that are visible due to where they are positioned are not actually target-able (like if you stretch out the arms of a model to the sides), but it ends the argument of modeling for advantage. Everyone is a cylinder, period.

23 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

I don't mind the uncertainty that sniping at peeking bits gives play. I agree that the models are just a general reference for where 'real' space wizards would be chilling.

What bugs me is the aesthetics of playing in a way that accounts for that means that figures with protruding pointy bits... Say sniper rifles, DLTs, Z6s ... You know most guns... Are going to be carefully arranged to be pointing away from the enemy in order to minimize inadvertent exposure.

I know it's silly but it really bugs me to arrange them that way! 🤷‍♀️

I hate to bring it up *lie detector goes off*, but pointing towards the enemy presents the narrowest profile of the weapon. The issue of discussion here is shooting at a gun barrel peeked around a corner. In this instance, the gun is not pointed towards the enemy, in fact it's pointed in a position that IRL would give away your position and generally be unfortunate for the wielder of said weapon and the rest of the unit.

I mean, the Galaxy Brain Take here is that TLOS is, was, and always will be a mistake.

It was always dumb that these games that rely so much on abstraction were suddenly utterly insistent that the actual model was exactly accurate of the figure it's supposed to represent. Base size + model size category + terrain size category fixes all the issues - can you see the base? If yes, check what Size the model is, and what Size the terrain is, then compare the two on a table to determine the effect. No ifs, no buts, no interpretations, and no hassle between rules sticklers and modellers since the size, pose, orientation, and general appearance of the miniature on the base no longer has anything to do with the function of the rules.

2 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I hate to bring it up *lie detector goes off*, but pointing towards the enemy presents the narrowest profile of the weapon. The issue of discussion here is shooting at a gun barrel peeked around a corner. In this instance, the gun is not pointed towards the enemy, in fact it's pointed in a position that IRL would give away your position and generally be unfortunate for the wielder of said weapon and the rest of the unit.

True, and if the figures were modeled with the weapon pointed down or up, or the head partially turned it wouldn't look so weird to me. 🤷‍♀️

Problem is also not just corner peeking. When ever you are in a line hiding behind a wall or in a doorway or even behind a barricade it's more advantageous geometry wise to point totally backwards (or into a squadmate). Especially with the DLT or Z6, having you point forward (or out of the group) can allow someone to snipe that mini out of the group by coming from the side and carefully blocking their LOS. 😭

17 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

And you'd be meeting the very definition of modelling to advantage.

Yeah. I'm not saying anyone should , just wondering what the rules say you could .

Is there anything in the rules about overhanging the base?

17 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

I don't understand why minis keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger. No one complained that they were too small. But the manufacturers keep upping the size. So finally, this Wild West game, like W40k, has made the bases bigger to keep up. Guess what happens next? I predict the sculptors will create miniatures which hopelessly overflow THOSE bases with new gribblies and bigger muscles and they'll need wider bases yet again. How long till gaming "miniatures" creep all the way up to the size of articulated action figures? We once used 1" bases for roughly 1" figures and thus the profile was pretty much what you suggest.

GW tried. It didn't take off.

4 hours ago, aniron said:

GW tried. It didn't take off.

Inquisitor didn’t take off. But they’re a huge driver of scale creep.

On 7/1/2019 at 8:36 PM, Derrault said:

So, you’re arguing that Luke’s lightsaber constitutes the top of the mini’s sculpt, and not his head? Seems counterintuitive.

RRG pg 43, under Line of Sight: “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.”

That is technically the top of the minis sculpt, right?

5 minutes ago, LunarSol said:

That is technically the top of the minis sculpt, right?

Probably worth seeking clarification from Alex.

4 hours ago, LunarSol said:

That is technically the top of the minis sculpt, right?

For most models the head is the highest point which “intersects with the center of the base” though.

4 hours ago, LunarSol said:

That is technically the top of the minis sculpt, right?

Maybe it's just me, but I think people like to ignore the first half of that statement (the intent bit), which to me is more important than the second half.

From the perspective of Luke, is he really looking at an enemy from the eyes in his head, or from the tip of his lightsaber?

I also think others have brought up a good point wrt the inconsistency between generalized movement but specificity for LoS.
A turn represents more than an instant in time, so it's a bit ridiculous to treat a static pose as perfectly representative of the space occupied by a person.

I thought there was an article/tournament guide for this?????