Determining Defender's Cover w/ Fire Support

By SPARTAN VI, in Rules

Could use some clarification on how a Defender's cover is applied in this situation. I've attached a screenshot of the ranged attack below.

  • The Rebel player has a unit of Rebel Veterans (5x Veterans + 1x CM-0/93 Trooper) performing a ranged attack on Darth Vader (Operative).
  • The Mark II Medium Blaster Trooper has a faceup order token, and therefore the Rebel player chose to contribute the Mk II Medium Blaster Trooper's Fire Support to the Rebel Veterans' ranged attack pool.
  • All of the attacking minis have LOS on Darth Vader (Operative) and he's within the front arc of the Mk II Medium Blaster Trooper.
  • Darth Vader's base is partially obscured by the light cover crate terrain piece.
  • The line drawn from the center of the Rebel Veterans Leader's base to the center of Darth Vader's base crosses through a barricade terrain piece (which the Veterans Leader's in base contact with), but not through the light cover terrain piece.
  • The line drawn from the center of the Mk II Medium Blaster Trooper crosses through the heavy cover terrain cliff and the light cover crate terrain piece.

    Does the Defender, Darth Vader, apply any light or heavy cover to this attack?

    LegionFireSupportLOS.jpg.659e60541cb7c856e5360d0cdeb5716d.jpg
Edited by SPARTAN VI

Perhaps related: just noticed the Rebel player may have committed an error by deploying half the unit on the cliff side, and half on the ground floor. This was how the unit was deployed, they did not clamber/climb up to the cliff.

Edited by SPARTAN VI

Looks like no cover:

- Only the veteran leader is relevant for cover, neither the rest of the unit nor the blaster

- the barricade is ignored, because the leader touches it (and it probably doesn't obstruct los anyway)

- the light cover is also ignored, because the line from veteran leader to Vader doesn't cross it

23 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

Looks like no cover:

- Only the veteran leader is relevant for cover, neither the rest of the unit nor the blaster

- the barricade is ignored, because the leader touches it (and it probably doesn't obstruct los anyway)

- the light cover is also ignored, because the line from veteran leader to Vader doesn't cross it

Thank you, this is how we ultimately ruled as well. There was some discussion about whether the Mk II Blaster would have to do a separate attack pool because of the crate (light) and the edge of the cliff (heavy, but the leader is touching it anyway), but the Fire Support rules made it pretty clear that the Fire Support unit need only satisfy LOS and weapon requirements (e.g. range, arc, etc.) to add to the attack pool. Would also defeat the purpose of Fire Support if they had to do a separate attack..

Regarding the Veteran Troopers deployment, is it legal to deploy half of the unit on height 1 terrain and the other half on the ground level? I believe there wasn't enough room originally because the Mk II Blaster didn't allow the full squad to deploy at the top of the cliff.

Edited by SPARTAN VI

The unit cannot deploy like this. The only way to separate a unit in hight is directly after a climb/clamber action (unless you do a move that ignored hight with jump for example)

Remember that fire support is irrelevant to cover. Cover only checks from the activating unit’s leader. The fire supporting unit needs LOS to participate, but after that is confirmed, they just add their dice and any relevant keywords on the weapon(s) added to the attack pool.

5 hours ago, SPARTAN VI said:

Regarding the Veteran Troopers deployment, is it legal to deploy half of the unit on height 1 terrain and the other half on the ground level? I believe there wasn't enough room originally because the Mk II Blaster didn't allow the full squad to deploy at the top of the cliff.

SailorMeni already answered this, but I'm leaving the exact rule for refference, which is one of the last dots under "Cohesion":

"When placing a mini in cohesion, it cannot be placed onto a different level of terrain than its unit leader, unless that mini’s unit leader has just climbed or clambered. Minis can always be placed onto the same level as their unit leader when being placed in cohesion."