6 minutes ago, Sekac said:

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?

Its a well known fact that blasters bolts richochet in starwars. No amount of denial on your part will change that.

4 minutes ago, Khobai said:

Its a well known fact that blasters bolts richochet in starwars. No amount of denial on your part will change that.

No part of ignoring how nonsensical your overall argument is will change that either.

The "fact" that they ricochet off the dirt constantly is irrelevant if going prone makes you less likely to be hit by them whether or not they richochet.

Just now, Khobai said:

Its a well known fact that blasters bolts richochet in starwars. No amount of denial on your part will change that.

Off what? Lightsabers? Which are "plasma blades?" Or do you mean magnetically sealed doors?

When do they ever ricochet off dirt?

1 minute ago, Sekac said:

No part of ignoring how nonsensical your overall argument will change that either.

The "fact" that they ricochet off the dirt constantly is irrelevant if going prone makes you less likely to be hit by them whether or not they richochet.

going prone doesnt substantially make you less likely to hit though. whether you stand up or lie down out in the open you are going to get hit.

2 minutes ago, Khobai said:

going prone doesnt substantially make you less likely to hit though. whether you stand up or lie down out in the open you are going to get hit.

Can you agree that maybe it would make the difference of say, exactly 1 hit?

6 minutes ago, Sekac said:

Can you agree that maybe it would make the difference of say, exactly 1 hit?

I cant agree that lying down has the same effect as being in a light forest.

37 minutes ago, Khobai said:

I cant agree that lying down has the same effect as being in a light forest.

Why not? Whether you stand in the open, slightly behind a tree, or on the other side of a bush, you're going to get hit. So why have Cover at all?

8 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Why not? Whether you stand in the open, slightly behind a tree, or on the other side of a bush, you're going to get hit. So why have Cover at all?

theres a big difference between lying on the ground in the open and hiding behind a tree inside a light forest. at least foliage can help conceal you and a tree can conceivably stop a blaster bolt. being in the open offers no protection at all. even if youre lying down in the open it definitely doesnt protect you nearly as much as the forest would.

so I would argue that theyre not the same thing and shouldnt be treated as the same. thats why im not a fan of suppression conjuring light cover out of thin air. I personally think suppression would make more sense if it gave a defensive benefit other than cover (or at least if it gave low profile instead). similar to how I dont think the airspeeder should have cover and should have agile 1 and outmaneuver instead. or similar to how I dont think smoke should give cover and should instead block LoS. I think other mechanics beside cover couldve been explored for suppression and that the cover keyword on the whole is overused due to lack of creativity.

1 minute ago, Khobai said:

theres a big difference between lying on the ground in the open and hiding behind a tree. at least foliage can conceal you and a tree can conceivably stop a blaster bolt.

In both cases you are reducing your target profile. Lying on rocky ground can make you harder to spot, and a rock can stop a blaster bolt. So you are slightly harder to hit than standing up. White armour isn't exactly being concealed by greenery.

If being a smaller target leaves the odds of getting hit unchanged, then it doesn't matter if you are a smaller target from lying down or slightly hiding behind a tree.

Again, the game has no other mechanic in built to represent being harder to hit due to any circumstances other than Cover.

7 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Again, the game has no other mechanic in built to represent being harder to hit due to any circumstances other than Cover.

That isnt true though.

I already gave an example of how the airspeeder could have agile 1 and outmaneuver instead of cover 1.

cover was overused as kindve a catchall keyword to make things harder to hit but its not always the only or best game mechanic for doing so.

in the case of the airspeeder giving it cover is largely redundant with armor except for impact weapons. which is why giving it agile 1 and outmaneuver makes far more sense.

the same goes for smoke grenades and suppression they didnt have to make them give cover they couldve used different game mechanics entirely.

10 minutes ago, Khobai said:

That isnt true though.

I already gave an example of how the airspeeder could have agile 1 and outmaneuver instead of cover 1.

cover was overused as kindve a catchall keyword to make things harder to hit but its not always the only or best game mechanic for doing so.

in the case of the airspeeder giving it cover is largely redundant with armor except for impact weapons. which is why giving it agile 1 and outmaneuver makes far more sense.

the same goes for smoke grenades and suppression they didnt have to make them give cover they couldve used different game mechanics entirely.

Agile is a very limited extra protection, the Airspeeder doesn't stop slightly slow down everytime someone shoots at it, or even have time to jink away from ground fire into another shot, so you'd need to tack on Nimble to keep the difficulty of later shots in the turn up. Also, it would cause a situation where the Airspeeder is easier to hit at the begining of the turn than after it activates, despite it never actually coming to a complete stop. Cover is representing the difficulty of hitting, not just "the shot hit something in the way."

Regardless, you seem to want Legion to be far more of a simulation than it will ever be, and a different understanding of how the world works so I see no value in continuing the discussion.

9 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Agile is a very limited extra protection, the Airspeeder doesn't stop slightly slow down everytime someone shoots at it, or even have time to jink away from ground fire into another shot, so you'd need to tack on Nimble to keep the difficulty of later shots in the turn up. Also, it would cause a situation where the Airspeeder is easier to hit at the begining of the turn than after it activates, despite it never actually coming to a complete stop. Cover is representing the difficulty of hitting, not just "the shot hit something in the way."

Regardless, you seem to want Legion to be far more of a simulation than it will ever be, and a different understanding of how the world works so I see no value in continuing the discussion.

You could give it nimble too, it was just an example to show you there are other ways of making units harder to kill that dont lazily involve sticking the cover keyword on them all the time.

And no cover does not adequately represent the difficulty of hitting the airspeeder because it doesnt actually make the airspeeder anymore difficult to hit since it already has armor. cover mostly does nothing for the airspeeder except in situational cases involving impact where theres only one hit showing on the dice. Because if theres more than one hit, cover only negates one of the hits, and one of the other hits gets upgraded to a crit instead which still renders the cover useless.

cover is an absolutely horrible rule for the airspeeder that fails spectacularly at representing the airspeeders ability to dodge incoming fire. the clone tank laughably comes off as being more maneuverable than the airspeeder which is just plain wrong.

so please stop trying to defend cover as a catchall rule for making things more difficult to hit. ive given you examples of why using cover for everything doesnt work. and ive showed that there are other mechanisms in the game that can be used instead of cover such as giving the airspeeder dodge tokens and outmaneuver instead.

theres times when the cover rule is appropriate and theres times when its not appropriate. And I feel the game could do a better job with that.

On a related note the airspeeder is also a unit that could benefit from an offensive elevation bonus. i still think that being elevated above your target should give you sharpshooter 1. That way being elevated would always grant a definitive advantage against units in cover instead of only sometimes giving you an advantage but not really. Being elevated above your target is primarily an offensive advantage and not a defensive one.

I still dont think being on a rooftop should automatically entitle you to cover if the rooftop has no form of protection by way of a wall or railing. And climbing should only cost 1 action.

12 hours ago, smickletz said:

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.

They definitely used jump. That terrain was just under range 2 high.

There's no arguing that jump/scale/expert climber and other keywords are powerful. That's exactly what I was saying. That said, even IF the ARCs had been forced to clamber up there, while not as efficient as scale or jump, looking at the terrain, they couldn't have had a better position on the ground. It definitely gave them advantage over all 4 rounds.

I'd still say manually clambering/climbing to get to advantageous heights can be significantly more efficient in the long run than sticking to the ground level. In this situation, those troops threatened my entire left flank because it was nearly impossible to hide from them and they had heavy cover from the extra height. Had they stuck to the middle I could have broke LoS with troops as they moved up and moved Grievous+Dooku up without fearing a deadly blast from ARCs. Having them up there forced me to react to them.

As someone who has actually been shot at in real life, and has more combat training than the average bear, yes, going to ground makes you less likely to get shot. There's a reason why in both World Wars, veterans and FNGs could be identified by just watching what they did when under fire; rookies looked around bewildered, vets hit the dirt, and made themselves as small of a target as possible. Laying down in an open field might not seem like the brightest of ideas, but it's a whole lot better than standing up in the same field. Additionally, few areas are truly flat, and you'd be surprised at what dips and depressions can be found when your life depends on it. People that have been shot at also tend to stay down a bit more when hearing gunfire than people who haven't, hence the entire point of the suppression mechanic in the game.

And this is in a universe where bullets do occasionally bounce. In Star Wars, where we have lasers and plasma weapons that are never shown to bounce off of or skip across the ground, it would work even better. Sure, there are other weapons, like rockets and flamethrowers, but notice that more than a few of those tend to have the "Blast" keyword, so the point is somewhat moot, ain't it?

4 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

And this is in a universe where bullets do occasionally bounce. In Star Wars, where we have lasers and plasma weapons that are never shown to bounce off of or skip across the ground, it would work even better.

I'm sorry @Alpha17 , but you may know more about everything than me, but i distinctly remember Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie being trapped in a trash compactor, and the lasers bounced off the walls.

57 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

I'm sorry @Alpha17 , but you may know more about everything than me, but i distinctly remember Luke, Han, Leia and Chewie being trapped in a trash compactor, and the lasers bounced off the walls.

The trash compactor was magnetically sealed, which is what caused the blaster bolt to bounce around.

Edit: Also, Alpha17 specifically called out the ground, not walls, so not positive how that is relevant?

42 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

The trash compactor was magnetically sealed, which is what caused the blaster bolt to bounce around.

Laser blasts have polarity? And everyone says Star Wars doesn't pay attention to science.

4 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

Laser blasts have polarity? And everyone says Star Wars doesn't pay attention to science.

Blasters aren't lasers (at least not currently). The current canon has them listed as firing "plasma energy." https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Blaster

science fiction doesnt always have to explain everything. blaster weapons defy the known laws of physics.

and blaster bolts can definitely bounce off numerous things. they bounce off lightsabers too. theoretically if two blaster bolts hit eachother they could bounce off eachother too lol.

6 hours ago, Alpha17 said:

As someone who has actually been shot at in real life, and has more combat training than the average bear, yes, going to ground makes you less likely to get shot.

of course it makes you less likely to get shot.

my argument was that it shouldnt have the same effect as hiding in a light forest.

suppression conjuring up cover 1 out of thin air, the same protection as a light forest or hiding behind a tank, is a bit of a stretch for me.

I think the rules for suppression couldve been done better.

The number of things blaster bolts "bounce" off of is two as far as I'm aware: lightsabers and anything magnetically sealed. That doesn't include rocks or dirt, unless someone has a canon source to cite otherwise.

4 minutes ago, Khobai said:

science fiction doesnt always have to explain everything

but blaster bolts can definitely bounce off numerous things. they bounce off lightsabers too.

of course it makes you less likely to get shot.

my argument was that it shouldnt have the same effect as hiding in a light forest.

suppression giving cover 1, the same protection as a light forest or hiding behind a tank, is a bit of a stretch for me.

Really what this game ought to do is delineate the difference between concealment and cover. The defensive procedure is so abstract.

Typically military groups define cover as concealment which is capable of physically protecting an individual from enemy fire. They define concealment as anything that hides you from observation.


A light forest, depending on the weapons being fired could be defined as cover (less so against slug throwers or IRL bullets, as they can often go through small trees, but blaster bolts don't seem to have a high level of penetration.) Going prone would mostly be concealment (based on the geography and topography, IE, tall grass, hills, small rocks).


That's the biggest disconnect I have right now.

differentiating cover vs concealment would definitely make sense.

concealment could work like cover does now and reduce the number of hits to represent making you harder to hit due to being concealed

while cover could do something else entirely like give you automatic armor saves, extra armor saves, armor save rerolls, etc... to represent the cover physically blocking some of the incoming damage.

essentially concealment would reduce the opponents units' offense while cover would increase your units' defense. there could also be separate keywords that negate either concealment or cover.

that would make the game more mechanically interesting IMO since saving throws would no longer be entirely subject to luck like they are now. the level of cover could help you curb the luck of your saving throws.

1 hour ago, Darth Sanguis said:

Really what this game ought to do is delineate the difference between concealment and cover. The defensive procedure is so abstract.

Typically military groups define cover as concealment which is capable of physically protecting an individual from enemy fire. They define concealment as anything that hides you from observation.


A light forest, depending on the weapons being fired could be defined as cover (less so against slug throwers or IRL bullets, as they can often go through small trees, but blaster bolts don't seem to have a high level of penetration.) Going prone would mostly be concealment (based on the geography and topography, IE, tall grass, hills, small rocks).


That's the biggest disconnect I have right now.

The way some games handle the difference between cover and concealment is by modifying the number result needed for some portion of the attack. In some cases this means concealment changes the number required to hit the target, while cover will modify either the number needed in order to inflict damage, or the number required for some kind of "save." With symbolic dice, that isn't as easy a system to implement, which is one of the costs for quickly read dice results. Surge is the usual mechanism for changing the required values but adding surge to the defence pool doesn't work for units that already have surge defence, and similarly removing surge from the attack pool doesn't affect units that already don't have surge attack. So either of those solutions is significantly less than ideal. Adding or removing dice similarly has a dispropriate effect on various units depending on the die being removed (so a barricade would be of greater value to a Stormtrooper than a Rebel trooper for instance), and it reduces/modifies the maximum possible result without changing the guaranteed results.

"Cover" in Legion is sort of a compromise between true cover and concealment. It reduces the number of saves that need to be rolled by cancelling out some number of hits (which is ALMOST the same adding automatic blocks, the main difference is that it doesn't interact with Pierce). So, the effect of "Cover" in Legion is essentially that it makes the target harder to wound, either by making them more likely to miss (if you view it as removing a hit from the pool), or easier to save (if you view it as adding a block result that cannot be canceled by Pierce).

However, Legion isn't alone for treating Cover and Concealment as having the same sort of effect in game terms. It makes defining terrain significantly quicker since you don't need to differentiate between if a given terrain type just makes it difficult to see or adds a physical barrier (no need to differentiate between a wood that consists of primarily of bushes offering concealment or one that has some old growth trees offering some manner of cover). Games are not often intended to be perfect simulations, compromises are made in order to facilitate easier understanding and quicker play time.

Even if you had both concealment and cover it would be pretty easy to define terrain.

Concealment is anything that obscures vision but doesnt provide any protection.

Cover is anything that provides protection.

Its pretty hard to disagree on what should provide concealment vs what should provide cover.

I do think legion should have both and if they ever do a legion 2.0 ruleset id like to see them include both concealment and cover instead of the dumbed down version of cover the game uses now.

Cover doesnt work as a catchall for everything. Speeders having cover is a good example of why it doesnt work. Because keywords like blast and sharpshooter ignore cover even when those weapons should still have just as much trouble hitting a fast moving speeder as everything else. Thats why speeders should get a different defensive keyword other than cover. I personally think all speeders should get a free dodge token each turn, outmaneuver, and possibly nimble rather than cover X. It makes far more sense for a keyword like high velocity to counter a speeder than a keyword like blast or sharpshooter. Because a high velocity shot needs less lead distance to hit a speeder.

@Khobai it doesn't make it easier, since now you have two different components to determine. Does the piece of felt representing area terrain woods provide Cover, Concealment, or both? There is no visual representation of the woods blocking line of sight, nor how dense the woods are.

Sharpshooter represents any number of things: plot abilities, improved optics, a guided missile, the Force, etc. Having to lead by slightly less still entails accurately judging how much you have to lead the target by with little feedback as to actual speed. An unskilled shooter with a high-power rifle is less likely to make the same shot on a moving target as a skilled shooter, or another shooter with better optics.