Hi

I have played with different rules on area terrain and I want a final answer to how it works.

»» If the attacking unit leader’s base is touching a piece of terrain, that piece of terrain cannot cause a mini in the defender to be obscured, unless line of sight from the unit leader to that mini is completely blocked.

So when a mini is completly blocked they can't be target of attacks or recieve wounds. However this rule talks about being obstructed.

So if a unit leader touches a barricade then that barricade can't provide cover even though it obstructs the defender.

If a unit leader is touching an area terrain and attacks a unit on the other side through the area terrain wich is treated as a tall cylinder. The defender is completly blocked and should be treated as obstructed.

An I understanding this wrong and have there been an official ruiling on area terrain?

It depends on how you defined the area terrain. Typically area terrain is not an LOS-blocking cylinder. I.e., you're allowed to see through it. But sometimes people define it as very dense forest that you can see into and out of, but not all the way through.

In the typical case, the defender would not receive cover because you are the touching the terrain that otherwise would have given them cover.

On another note, there is also sometimes confusion around the term "obscure" because it has both a common dictionary meaning and an in-game meaning. In-game, "obscured" basically just means that a mini is in a position such that it gets cover because the centerline crosses terrain. If enough minis are in such a position, then the unit overall gets cover.

Quote

Page 28:

If the imaginary line crosses the piece of
terrain that blocked line of sight, the defending mini is
obscured . The player repeats this process for each mini
in the defender to determine how many of those minis
are obscured.

I think there's also some confusion about when the unit leader is touching a piece of terrain. In that case, the terrain cannot obstruct that unit's attacks. It still provides cover to the leader's unit.

Example: Unit A is behind a baricade, and the leader of Unit A is touching the barricade, When Unit A attacks Unit B (on the other side of the barricade, but far enough away that there is no contact with the barricade), the barricade is not considered. When Unit B attacks Unit A, the barricade provides cover to Unit A so long as the usual conditions are met.

Just because it's " tr eated as a tall cylinder" does not mean that cylinder entirely blocks line of sight. It just provides cover. Units in Legion can see what they can see, period. Anything else (such as saying area terrain blocks LoS) is a house rule.

2 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

Just because it's " tr eated as a tall cylinder" does not mean that cylinder entirely blocks line of sight. It just provides cover. Units in Legion can see what they can see, period. Anything else (such as saying area terrain blocks LoS) is a house rule.

So as Long as my unit leader touches an area terrain, it can't provide cover for enemy units?

This makes area terrains, espechially large ones really powerful.

16 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

So as Long as my unit leader touches an area terrain, it can't provide cover for enemy units?

This makes area terrains, espechially large ones really powerful.

Yes, your units want to be crouching in the bushes shooting out of them, not shooting through the bushes. It's the same as for any terrain, and I can't really see any reason why it's that much more powerful. In my experience area terrain is unfortunately pretty rare anyway since all the really cool 3d printed stuff is just regular old LoS blocking terrain (buildings, wrecked vehicles).

4 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

Yes, you're units want to be crouching in the bushes shooting out of them. In my experience area terrain is unfortunately pretty rare since all the really cool 3d printed stuff is just regualr old LoS blocking terrain.

For me it's opposite, most terrain is old fashioned homemade and area terrain is easy to make 😋 . Think I prefer the old 40k rules for it. Will prob go with houserules for casual games, but good to know what the tournament rules will be.