ok - lets presume a unit is touching the base of said tank traps.

when checking if a unit is obscured, when drawing the line to each miniature from the attacking quad leader if ANY terrain is in the way, it grants cover. Thus, a unit with its base touching technically gets the save granted by the tank traps.

that rule is mainly to stop arguments about if something is or is not is cover.

caecitas said:

sure can felkor

that is mainly to do with artillery shelling. As line of sight is drawn from an observer team, yet no line is check for obscuring terrain, certain terrain areas count as always giving cover, while others are due to the lines drawn from a squad leader.

eg

your allied long time fires, drawing line of sight from the command squad at a unit of nazi scum in a forrest. The radio man checks to see if he can see any of the miniatures in the defending unit - if he can, then he has line of sight.

we would then check obscuring lines - but as we do not draw from the observer, we simply check if the terrain is one that always grants cover advantages - as agreed by players previously.

Does that help?

felkor said:

if the majority are vs an artillery hit, yes bud.

Page 39 goes into this a little, talking about terrain that does not give benefits unless it interferes with the LOS. I think it's easier to think about terrain as being either linear or area. Linear is like a wall, that only benefits you if you are in the right place with regards to your enemy, but might otherwise be worthless. Area is like a forest, or even a crater, were you are in the terrain.

Before we play, we go through and agree what is linear, and what is area. For example, there are some rubbled buildings we play with, and we agree that the standing walls are linear hard cover, while the rubbled floor is area soft cover. You can be anywhere on the floor and get the benefit of the low rubble, but the wall only helps if it's in the way.

Grim6 - so if in my example, the terrain was rubbled floor, you would have the defending unit get a cover save?

felkor said:

If the majority of the unit was touching or in the terrain, then I would say yes. It does need a little clarifying, since pg 43 says the line between attacker leader and each mini needs to be checked for obstruction. But I would chalk it up to the inability to perfectly model every crumbled wall, tree and rock on the battlefield. When people find themselves getting shot at, I think they tend to be creative in trying to not get hit.

So you would agree with most others that in this picture:

the defender is not in cover, as it does not have most of it's base in the cover but is just touching it?

It does not get cover because the line of sight does not go through the terrain before reaching the target model.

At the same time if the terrain is between the to models with neither mode in or touching the terrain, the target would get benefit of cover because the line of sight goes through the terrain before reaching the target model.

A simple rule of thumb, if there is nothing between you and the bullet, then no cover.

ZombiEd said:

Unless you're suppressed…

(couldn't resist)

felkor said:

Here's my take:

Pg. 39 would indicate that this mini counts as being in cover, since it is touching. I think this is an effort to avoid having these sorts of arguments, where players argue over whether a mini is inside of a terrain feature or not.

But then pg. 41 says that you check for terrain between the center points, as shown.

I would say it's a combination of the two - you check from the center points for intervening terrain that might obscure the target, but you also give credit for the terrain that the mini is "in" or touching. Forests terrain pieces are great examples, because it's impractical to model every tree and stump in a patch of woods, but you give credit to the minis "in the trees", even if you can see them clearly. As I said, I think the bit about "touching" counting as being "in" terrain is meant to be as generous as possible with terrain in order to prevent people from arguing that a mini is not fully in some patch of terrain.

Lastly, it also helps to remember you have to have a majority of minis in a unit "in" (or touching) a piece of terrain to get credit for the cover, so I think it's less likely that someone will get some wild advantage by lining their minis around a piece of terrain.

I've gone back and forth, but now I firmly agree with you, Grim6. Yesterday I posted my final thoughts, referring to what I believe are all the relevant rule bits here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=253&efcid=6&efidt=649821&efpag=1#650155

I'm now finally quite confident that that's the way it works. And I also agree that it makes for less arguing. It also makes the game less fiddly, as you don't have to constantly check for obscured LOS - 95% of the time cover will be obvious and there will be no need to check, which makes the game go much faster.

blkdymnd said:

sure you can, at the start of your activation. Ba-Dum!

Grim has got the right idea- unless over half the models are sat on the rim of the cover, or only 1 model is straddling the line while the rest are in the open, the subject will never come up. In 10+ games ive not seen it happen, infact the only argument we have had about cover is the vehicle "all of the base must be obscured" rule - which while it makes sense means that a walker can recieve cover, we found that the sheer volume of craters and rubble all over the map resulted in walkers often being in light cover simply by virtue that at 36'', theres a lot of stuff to get in the way.

I admit though this may be due to the fact that ive a shed load of bombed out areas on my regular table - I may infact be limiting this in future.

I really dont get this argument, as far as I remember a unit gains a bonus to armour rolls due to cover if the lines from centre base of the firing units leader* hits a terrain piece** before the base of the minis for the majority of the figures in the target unit. I dont see how an individual mini touching tereain or not here is relevent?

Colour me confused.

* - or spotter in the case of artillery.

** This includes the terrain pieces base and/or agreed upon limits before the game.

King Jareth said:

probably best to stay out of it mate, but yes, you are 100% currect. It seems however units also gain cover of a particular terrain if they are in base contact with it, and we have been arguing both sides to see if we can come to a conclusion.

double post - please cast into nearest void at earliest convinence.

Yeah, i think at this point the argument has come to a close… best to just play it how we each see fit and hope the upcoming FAQ speaks to this issue specifically.

FFG is going to have answers for all this in the FAQ that is due out in the next week or so…

I know how it works [playtested the game and still am], but have been informed there will be cover clarification in the FAQ.

did the same problem occour in play testing, or did it just never come up? I imagine if it had been clarified during play testing you'd of just gone ahead and told us.

gobbo would probably be under a nondisclosure agreement if he was playtesting so I would guess he dosent like getting sued is the reason for not saying anything.

thats what i thought - but then why be fine with stating an FAQ is due soon when no public announcement has been made? Dust is not only released, but the book is sat next to me. Personally i dont see the issue, though respect gobbos right to want to cover his/her/its ass.

Becouse almost with out fail, FFG puts out a FAQ for all there game in about a month from release. Bad editing is a FFG trademark.

Noir420 said:

Yes, if there were no typos or editing issues in the book, I would fear it wasn't real FFG merchandise. It's their seal of authenticity.