9 minutes ago, Khobai said:

but you can also get cover on the ground without having to climb. climbing is not necessary to get cover. so the advantage is theoretical because the only time it would ever be an advantage over cover on the ground is if there is no cover on the ground.

A lot off this comes down to the type of terrain used and the opponent you're facing.


For instance, in the picture below, my opponent was able to use the terrain to move a set of ARCS up (as seen on the left) to gain LoS on Dooku, who was still hiding in the back, catching him all but unprepared. Moves like this work well with mobile long range units like this. When my army went to return fire, because they were all on the ground, LoS cut through the terrain giving them heavy cover. It made trying to burn the ARCs on the left near impossible.


In situations where people are hiding units out of LoS (which is becoming more and more popular it seems) being able to gain elevation to see the unit at all (or more minis in a unit) can become infinitely more efficient than trying to achieve the same results on even ground.

15 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Can you get Cover 2 from all possible angles without climbing? Unlikely, your opponent will still be able to flank you. If you climb, you will have Cover 2 regardless of the direction of the attack (at least without your opponent also changing elevation).

You can with area terrain. You can also get it from placing your barricades in such a way that they cover the flanks. \__/ shaped barricades for example.

The only time climbing might be worth it is if you construct theoretical terrain setups that have no cover on the ground that heavily favor being on a rooftop or hill. im not saying those terrain setups cant exist, and climbing might be worth it when those terrain setups occur, but most of the time that isnt the case.

actions are a limited resource in this game. climbing is not going to be an optimal way to spend your limited actions most of the time.

Quote

In situations where people are hiding units out of LoS (which is becoming more and more popular it seems) being able to gain elevation to see the unit at all (or more minis in a unit) can become infinitely more efficient than trying to achieve the same results on even ground.

and thats a situation where climbing might be worth it.

but again that makes theoretical assumptions about terrain placement that arnt true with every board setup.

I also think all objectives should require line of sight because it makes for a very boring game when people can hide leaders out of sight and still claim objectives.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

You can with area terrain. You can also get it from placing your barricades in such a way that they cover the flanks.

Most people don't play with area terrain, but yes that is a situation that would allow it assuming it is either Ruins or Dense Woods/Jungle.
Also, barring Fortified Positions being the battlefield condition, terrain is supposed to be set up to the agreement of both players, which means setting up the a circle of barricades on your side of the board is unlikely. And it is completely impossible in tournament play since the TO sets up the boards. Even with the "flanking" barricades, unless you have your unit leader touching multiple pieces of terrain, something is likely to give your opponent heavy cover as well.

The more relevant discussion is how to get cover once the game has already begun . Being on top of the building is significantly better than being next to it.

8 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Most people don't play with area terrain, but yes that is a situation that would allow it assuming it is either Ruins or Dense Woods/Jungle.
Also, barring Fortified Positions being the battlefield condition, terrain is supposed to be set up to the agreement of both players, which means setting up the a circle of barricades on your side of the board is unlikely. And it is completely impossible in tournament play since the TO sets up the boards. Even with the "flanking" barricades, unless you have your unit leader touching multiple pieces of terrain, something is likely to give your opponent heavy cover as well.

The more relevant discussion is how to get cover once the game has already begun . Being on top of the building is significantly better than being next to it.

the way we place terrain is the way it says to do it in the rules reference. players divide the terrain up and take turns placing pieces of terrain. so yes you can place barricades however you want.

allowing players to alternate between placing terrain is the ONLY fair way of doing it. otherwise red player gets screwed because blue player will always pick the best side of the board. that is one advantage blue player should not get in additional to all the advantages they already get.

and I disagree that most people dont play with area terrain. because not playing with area terrain is a huge disadvantage for units like speeder bikes that depend on area terrain to get cover. not playing with area terrain leads to less interesting list construction because you cant take units that depend on area terrain. area terrain makes the game more interesting by expanding the number of viable units.

if all you wanna play is clone blobs then by all means dont use area terrain.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

the way we placed terrain is the way it says to do it in the rules reference. players divide the terrain up and take turns placing pieces of terrain. so yes you can place barricades however you want.

Not quite, even the competitive terrain placement rules have restrictions on terrain placement, requiring terrain to be spaced out at LEAST Range 1 from each other. Even if that is impossible, you still can't place them touching another piece of terrain. With only enough terrain to cover 25% of the battlefield, barring a very particular placement it will likely be awhile before the Range 1 rule gets broken, and by then your opponent may have placed all the barricades.
Again, this does you no good in the course of a game.

requiring every individual barricade to be spaced out range 1 is stupid though. we count multiple barricades as one piece of terrain.

the barricades are so small compared to the other pieces of terrain that counting multiple barricades as one piece of terrain helps equalize how small they are compared to everything else.

also it makes absolutely no sense for someone to construct barricades in spread out random locations. if barricades are constructed its to fortify a specific position. so placing the barricades together makes for a more believable setup.

but were going off on a tangent. the point is climbing is garbage. its not worth 2 actions most of the time. a unit only get 12 actions per game, often less than that before the game is decided, so being forced to spend 2 of those actions climbing is usually pretty debilitating to your action economy. thats why you rarely see people climb if ever.

Just now, Khobai said:

requiring every individual barricade to be spaced out range 1 is stupid though. we count multiple barricades as one piece of terrain.

because it makes absolutely no sense for someone to construct barricades in spread out random locations. if barricades are constructed its to fortify a specific position.

So you are house ruling and not actually following the competitive play rules like you claimed earlier.

Regardless, this is still basing "I can get cover from any angle" on terrain placement, something that is not always in the player's control (using preset tables for tournaments for instance) as opposed to options the player has with a unit during the course of the game.

3 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

So you are house ruling and not actually following the competitive play rules like you claimed earlier.

Regardless, this is still basing "I can get cover from any angle" on terrain placement, something that is not always in the player's control (using preset tables for tournaments for instance) as opposed to options the player has with a unit during the course of the game.

to be honest we dont follow that idiotic rule either

a unit should not get heavy cover just because its on a rooftop. it a dumb rule and everyone knows it.

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7 minutes ago, Khobai said:

to be honest we dont follow that idiotic rule either

a unit should not get heavy cover just because its on a rooftop. it a dumb rule and everyone knows it.

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They definitely should get whatever cover the terrain provides (not necessarily heavy cover) if they meet the requirements (obscuration and center-to-center line crossed). It makes sense both in and out of the game. House ruling that is, frankly, bizarre. I'm not even sure how one would phrase the rule. If you meet every requirement of getting cover but are at a higher elevation, you then DON'T get over? As I said, bizarre.

3 minutes ago, arnoldrew said:

They definitely should get whatever cover the terrain provides (not necessarily heavy cover) if they meet the requirements (obscuration and center-to-center line crossed). It makes sense both in and out of the game. House ruling that is, frankly, bizarre. I'm not even sure how one would phrase the rule. If you meet every requirement of getting cover but are at a higher elevation, you then DON'T get over? As I said, bizarre.

it needs to actually be something that will stop a projectile.

standing on a roof with only your feet obscured is not going to stop a projectile from hitting you or offer any kindve protection.

its a case where the rules simply dont make sense. a lot of youtubers have criticized the cover rules with regards to elevation too. so its not just me that has a problem with it.

Just now, Khobai said:

to be honest we dont follow that idiotic rule either

a unit should not get heavy cover just because its on a rooftop. it a dumb rule and everyone knows it.

I don't think you'll find that even the majority of people agree with you honestly. It works fine and makes sense, people on top of a building are better able to be in cover than people not on a building. It's actually a fairly common rule for the miniatures games I'm familiar with actually.
The rules regarding measuring ranges ignoring vertical distance is a bit of an oddity, and a rule I've seen more gripes about than cover while on top of a terrain piece.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

it needs to actually be something that will stop a projectile.

standing on a roof with only your feet obscured is not going to stop a projectile from hitting you or offer any kindve protection.

its a case where the rules simply dont make sense.

The miniature isn't representational of the exact pose of the individual at the given snapshot in time. In that case then suppression shouldn't provide cover either, when that is representing the unit hugging the ground after taking fire. While on a roof the individual is most likely to be flat on their stomachs.

18 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

I don't think you'll find that even the majority of people agree with you honestly. It works fine and makes sense, people on top of a building are better able to be in cover than people not on a building. It's actually a fairly common rule for the miniatures games I'm familiar with actually.
The rules regarding measuring ranges ignoring vertical distance is a bit of an oddity, and a rule I've seen more gripes about than cover while on top of a terrain piece.

The miniature isn't representational of the exact pose of the individual at the given snapshot in time. In that case then suppression shouldn't provide cover either, when that is representing the unit hugging the ground after taking fire. While on a roof the individual is most likely to be flat on their stomachs.

fortunately i dont care what the majority of people think.

it doesnt make any sense. if you stand on top of a roof and I shoot a laser rifle at you the roof is not going to stop it from hitting you just because your feet are obscured.

And I completely disagree that its not the miniatures' exact pose at that snapshot in time, because thats the pose you use to determine if the model is obscured or not. there are NO other poses.

The way I interpret cover is that the model needs to be in terrain that would actually provide some protection from bodily harm to the model in its current pose. Or if its a unit at least half the unit needs to be protected. that garbage rule where you draw a line from the center of one base to the center of another base is just a lazy way of doing it and the game can do better than that.

and dont even get me started on suppression. suppression definitely should not conjure a light forest out of thin air just because youre suppressed. because if youre caught out in the open, youre caught out in the open. no matter what you do wont change that. unfortunately the suppression rules are less subject to interpretation than the cover rules. so its hard to change them into something that makes more sense.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

fortunately i dont care what the majority of people think.

it doesnt make any sense. if you stand on top of a roof and I shoot a laser rifle at you the roof is not going to stop it from hitting you.

You made the claim that "everybody knows it," that's what I was addressing specifically.

As I said previously, the miniature's posing is not supposed to be representational of the EXACT positioning of the represented individual at any given time. Just because the model is standing doesn't mean that a Stormtrooper on the roof would be. Again, by your logic the suppression rules don't make any sense either because despite being shot at nothing has changed about the positioning of the model, so why does it get cover?

So lemme get this straight: You're whining about the lack of benefits from being on a roof (high ground, whatever) when you also ignore the cover commonly gained from such a move due to restricted LOS from an attacker at a lower elevation targeting a unit up high?

Yeah okay.

31 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

You made the claim that "everybody knows it," that's what I was addressing specifically.

As I said previously, the miniature's posing is not supposed to be representational of the EXACT positioning of the represented individual at any given time. Just because the model is standing doesn't mean that a Stormtrooper on the roof would be. Again, by your logic the suppression rules don't make any sense either because despite being shot at nothing has changed about the positioning of the model, so why does it get cover?

but the miniature's pose is representational because its pose is what you use to determine if it gets cover

you cant say the pose isnt representational and then use its pose to determine whether it gets cover or not. that is contradictory.

17 minutes ago, Khobai said:

but the miniature's pose is representational because its pose is what you use to determine if it gets cover

you cant say the pose isnt representational and then use its pose to determine whether it gets cover or not. that is contradictory.

It's not a contradiction, it's representing a possibility. The entire game is an abstraction and representational, it is by no means a simulation. Using a silhouette completely removes the pose from the abstraction anyway, which is what my group normally does, especially with the release of ARC troopers. It's representative of where the individual COULD be, not their exact posing. So the individual COULD be standing on the roof (representing your ability to shoot them) or they COULD be lying down (represented by the heavy cover). In a real situation, people don't generally wait their turn to move and fire either, all activations should be resolved simultaneously, which is very difficult to represent in a miniature game.

Given your interpretation of the individual always standing up, then what is your justification for Suppression giving cover? For that matter, do you also check range from ever individual model, and check cover from every individual model? Just because my boss is touching an obstacle doesn't make it any less of an obstruction for targeting something on the other side.

6 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Given your interpretation of the individual always standing up, then what is your justification for Suppression giving cover?

there is no justification for suppression giving cover. suppression should not give cover.

again if youre caught out in the open youre caught out in the open. suppression basically says if you lie down out in the open suddenly you get the same protection as if you were in light forest. that is goofy as ****.

in my opinion suppression should work more like low profile. if youre in cover it should improve the cover by 1. but if youre not in cover it shouldnt give you light cover. cover isnt something you can just conjure out of thin air. you either have cover or you dont.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

there is no justification for suppression giving cover. suppression should not give cover.

again if youre caught out in the open youre caught out in the open. suppression basically says if you lie down out in the open suddenly you get the same protection as if you were in light forest. that is goofy as ****.

And yet hugging the dirt is (and has been) used successfully over and over as a smaller target is fundamentally harder to hit, especially while under stress.

hugging the dirt absolutely doesnt protect you from someone shooting at you. bullets bounce along the ground and you still get hit. go play paintball or airsoft and lie down in the middle of the field and see if that stops you from getting hit. it wont stop anything. lmao. thats the whole reason why armies dig entrenchments BEFORE the battle and dont wait until the battle starts to look for cover.

again you either have cover or you dont. if you dont have cover then lying down in the middle of an open field isnt going to suddenly give you cover. there is still nothing in the way to stop the bullets from hitting you.

the suppression rules are absolutely silly in this game. and again it would make more sense if suppression gave low profile instead of cover 1. it makes sense for suppression to improve light cover to heavy cover but you cant turn no cover into light cover.

when I first started playing the game I found suppression to be really bizarre. And I especially disliked the RNG aspect to rolling off suppression tokens since suppression isnt some random thing (youre either suppressed or you arnt, you dont stay suppressed until some random amount of time has passed). Its bad because you can have games where your opponent rolls off every suppression token and you dont roll off any of yours and it just adds a whole RNG aspect I feel is unnecessary. I definitely think the suppression mechanic could be greatly improved in this game by making it non-random.

but that has nothing to do with climbing or clambering.... again to get back on topic: climbing is not efficient use of actions and should only cost 1 action.

5 hours ago, Darth Sanguis said:

A lot off this comes down to the type of terrain used and the opponent you're facing.


For instance, in the picture below, my opponent was able to use the terrain to move a set of ARCS up (as seen on the left) to gain LoS on Dooku, who was still hiding in the back, catching him all but unprepared. Moves like this work well with mobile long range units like this. When my army went to return fire, because they were all on the ground, LoS cut through the terrain giving them heavy cover. It made trying to burn the ARCs on the left near impossible.


In situations where people are hiding units out of LoS (which is becoming more and more popular it seems) being able to gain elevation to see the unit at all (or more minis in a unit) can become infinitely more efficient than trying to achieve the same results on even ground.

Just curious, did your ARCS climb/clamber or use Jump?

if they used jump then I think it helps prove that climbing is not very efficient.

32 minutes ago, Khobai said:

hugging the dirt absolutely doesnt protect you from someone shooting at you. bullets bounce along the ground and you still get hit. go play paintball or airsoft and lie down in the middle of the field and see if that stops you from getting hit. it wont stop anything. lmao.

You're aware Star Wars uses lasers, right?

4 minutes ago, Sekac said:

You're aware Star Wars uses lasers, right?

starwars does not just use lasers. there are grenades, rockets, missiles, mines, bombs, flamethrowers, etc. all of which are in legion and none of which are lasers.

also blaster fire can and commonly does richochet in starwars. blasters do not work completely like lasers and share some of the properties of kinetic weapons.

3 minutes ago, Khobai said:

starwars does not just use lasers

also blaster fire can and does richochet in starwars

Off dirt... Right... So does lead apparently.

Cover in Legion isn't just about something sturdy taking the shot, it is also about being harder to hit. There is no mechanism in the game (currently) to alter the chances to roll a hit other than cancelling some number of hits (the only way would be to downgrade die colors, but I don't think that's super likely anytime soon as that is "more complicated"). Which is why Smoke improves Cover. It isn't some shielding smoke that blocks blaster bolts and bullets, it's representing the unit being harder to hit. Same with Cover 1 on the Airspeeder. Making yourself a smaller target does reduce the odds of being hit. Not to zero, but it is definitely less likely for a smaller target to get hit than a larger target.

Regardless, carefully climbing taking two actions makes perfect sense, the requirement to start in base contact is the annoyance I have with it, but even there I kind of get what is intended there. The vertical movement can be greater than the normal movement of the squad, so it's to hinder a huge movement upwards (not that vertical distance matters to grenades, flamethrowers, or blasters).

5 minutes ago, Khobai said:

starwars does not just use lasers

also blaster fire can and does richochet in starwars

Okay, since bullets, lasers, paintballs, and airsoft pellets are exactly the same thing in every way, we can agree that they are capable of ricocheting off the ground whether they are shooting at someone prone or standing, right?

If someone is standing, they are easier to shoot because they are a larger target.

If someone is standing, they are also more likely to be hit by bouncing lasers because it would have to bounce a couple meters off the ground to have a chance of going over their head.

So, standing upright makes you a larger targer for both direct, and indirect hits.

Next time you watch a Star Wars movie, pay close attention to one of those famous scenes where lasers are bouncing off the ground all the time. You'll see the guys standing up getting hit more often by all the bouncing lasers, I swear.

What you definitely won't see in Star Wars, or any war movie for that matter, is soldiers going prone when being shot at. They know, just as you do, how foolish it is to bother, and will remain completely upright until they get to solid cover.

Or do I have that all messed up?

23 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Same with Cover 1 on the Airspeeder.

I also dont think the airspeeder should have cover. The airspeeder should have agile 1 and outmaneuver instead.

Cover absolutely sucks for the airspeeder because it only helps vs impact attacks.

So youre wrong about cover being the only mechanism to reduce hits. Dodge is another mechanism and one that makes far more sense on the airspeeder than cover.

Smoke should also not give cover. Smoke should instead completely block LoS. But there should be units and gear that can see through smoke so its not abusive. Units like snowtroopers for example could have the ability to see through smoke since their helmets are designed to be able to see in blizzards and other adverse conditions.

The game designers using cover for everything instead of being more creative is simple laziness.