After our game yesterday we had these additional questions:

How many dice do you roll for artillery attacking a minefield in an attempt to clear it? Couldn't find this anywhere in the book.

Do you only get the benefit of cover if the target unit is obscured by that cover from the attacking unit's leader?

If the answer to the above question is yes, then is it true when both the attacking unit and target unit are within the same area terrain, i.e. building rubble, then nobody benefits from cover as the terrain is treated as open terrain per page 41?

when it comes to deciding it a unit is or is not in cover, you draw a line from the attacking squad leader to each minature in the target unit. if half or more are obscured, they are in cover.

OK, just wanted to confirm then since terrain the unit leader is in is ignored when considering whether the target unit is obscured then the target unit gets no benefit o cover if it is in the same area cover. We played this wrong as we had several rounds of firefights with attackers and targets in hard cover and kept ignoring 2 points of damage for hardcover.

The unit does not need to be obscured to have cover. If they're in cover, they're in cover. But if they're obscured by cover, they will be in whatever cover is higher (the one they are in or the one they are obscured by.)

As for minefields, the rulebook really does not say but the consensus seems to be to roll what you would to attack vehicle armor (for any of the artillery weapons, they roll the same for all vehicle armor values.)

I'm not sure why you would ignore cover for being obscured if both attacker and defender are on the same piece of terrain, since the terrain would still count as cover for the defending unit even if nothing obscures the unit (unless someone can point me to a rule that says otherwise.)

Page 39: "Any miniature with its base touching, inside, or partially inside an area of terrain is affected by it"

Later on the same page: "Players may decide that *SOME* terrain, such as walls, do not provide the benefits of cover unless it interferes with line of sight." (emphasis mine.)

So if a miniature's base is touching a piece of terrain that gives it soft cover, it still has soft cover, even if the unit is not obstructed, (unless the players have decided beforehand that a piece of terrain is an exception to this rule.)

im pretty sure under the line of sight rules it says you ignore the cover you are in/next to. Otherwise you end up with the age old problem of granting cover to units you are shooting when next to a wall.

caecitas said:

Yes, if a leaders base is touching the terrain, then it may still grant cover (if the terrain normally gives cover), but are not affected by obstructions (windows, half walls, rocks, etc)

caecitas said:

this is the old problem of "terrain" vs "objects" where something can be both at the same time.

Take the example of a forest - units within a forest get a cover save even if there is no clear obstruction, yet the models are on the terrains base. If two units are within the same cover, id presume they dont get a save. Ill go check.

"a unit leader that has its base touching terrain ignores that particular terrain for seeing if a unit is obscured or not."

So if you are in a forrest with an enemy unit, they do not get cover, but models could be out of line of sight

It makes sense and would relate to the old AT43 rule where if you were within 10cm of an enemies cover, you would deny them that cover.

caecitas said:

Also, the fact that the book describes in detail how vehicles are an exception in that LOS muct be obstructed for them to be in cover proves the rule. If you needed to be obstructed to be in cover, then the rulebook would have just made a sidenote about how obstruction to vehicles works differently, which would have taken just one line to state. Instead, they go out of their way to write it as a completely different rule for cover, because it *is* a completely different rule for cover.

Page 42: "Additionally, the vehicle has a difficult time claiming obscured line of sight, OR gaining the benefit of cover, because of the following rule."

Obscuring line of sight and gaining the benefit of cover are 2 completely different things. If they were the same thing, then it would have been "and thus", rather than "or" between the two concepts.

im very much aware felkor, im talking from a traditional wargaming point - the issue of line of sight and cover usually being tied together does not apply to this game.

As i said, a unit can be out of line of sight when in the same terrain as another unit, but it cannot be in cover

caecitas said:

I disagree. There's nothing in the rulebook that says this - it only says that if they are on in the same terrain, line of site is not obscured.

caecitas said:

I don't think this statement is true. Page 41 Under Obscured line of sight, states "If the line [of sight] crosses any terrain area at all, then the target miniature is obscured. … If at least half of the miniatures in the unit are obscured, then the unit will gain the benefits of the terrain's cover type." You don't even have to be in the terrain to benefit from it in this case. Shooting at a unit behind a wall grants cover even if the target isn't touching the wall.

All the examples clearly state that if the line of site isn't obscured, the target doesn't get benefit of cover.

Then, the last paragraph on that page: "A unit Leader that has it's base touching or within an area of terrain ignores that terrain for purpose of obscured line of sight. The unit treats the area as open terrain. This includes terrain that both the target and the attacker are within."

felkor said:

re-read the obscured line of sight last paragraph.

"being in the same terrain ignores line of sight for the purposes of obscured line of sight, but does not block line of sight"

blocked line of sight means you cant hurt that miniature, obscured means it gets a cover save. If for example a unit is in a forest attacking another unit, if one of the miniatures is totally hidden by a tree, it is blocked and thus cannot be wounded. However, if any part of the miniature is visable, it is NOT obscured to an attacking unit that is also in the forest.

Also Ed that is exactly what im saying - they arnt tied together. In most war games you are either in cover via terrain, or you arnt. In this game you first check to see if miniatures can be seen, then decide if they are recieving the benifits of cover via what else is in the way, reguardless of if the unit is standing "in" that particular obstruction.

caecitas, yes you and I agree.

It makes sense that two units 3" away from each other in a firefight would kind of negate the use of cover. If both units are in the same room in a house, again very little available for cover at that range.

Or two units touching opposite sides of a low way would not get cover as you could easily reach over the wall to shoot.

got it in one, Ed. I was going to use an example of a house infact, where two seperate units are in seperate rooms devided by a wall. Same terrain, but no line of sight.

caecitas said:

Yes, that's nice and all, it's just irrelevent, as it only applies to obscured line ofo sight, and not necessarily to cover, which are two different concepts.

There are 2 ways to get cover - by being on or toching the base of terrain (see page 38), or by having line of sight obscured (see page 41.)

Nowhere in the book does it say that if you lose one way of having cover, you lose cover altogether. In fact, the idea that you have to have obscured line of sight to have cover is listed as an EXCEPTION to the general rule on page 38, where it says that "Players may decide that some terrain, such as walls, do not provide the benefits of cover unless it interferes with line of sight." So clearly the general rule is that terrain does provide benefits of cover, even when it DOESN'T interfere with line of sight. And if that's true, then being in the same terrain make the unit not obscured but does not affect cover (unless it's explicitly one of the exceptions decided on by the players ahead of time.)

While there are some gray areas in the rules, I don't see this as being one of them.

Some more reading, and I see some statements that seem a bit contradictory for me - perhaps not as "clear" as I thought, although the idea that you need your LOS to be obstructed to get cover is listed as an exception to the general rule. I'm going to ask around some more in other places and see what I can figure out.

Sorry, if I'm not being totally clear. Let me sum up.

The argument I see going on is this:

A) If the attacking unit leader is on the same terrain as an enemy unit, LOS is not obscured.

B) Having LOS obscured is required for an enemy to receive cover in the attack.

C) Therefore in the situation where more than half the enemy unit is in the same terrain as the unit leader, the enemy unit does not receive cover.


I am *not* disagreeing with A - that one is completely clear in the rules
What I am disagreeing with is B, which is not so clear.

The problem with B is that the attacking section seems to support it but the terrain section seems to deny it.

In the attacking section, it states that to see if your enemy has cover, you check for obscured line of sight.

But in the terrain section, it states that if the base of your unit is touching terrain, you are in that terrain for the purposes of cover. The terrain section also states that requiring LOS to be obscured for the enemy to receive cover in the attack (i.e. B above) can be an exception for the piece of terrain agreed upon by players, but otherwise B is not in effect for that piece of terrain.

So that's what bugs me here - to me the terrain section clearly says that just being in terrain or touching it is enough to gain cover, while the attacking section on the other hand seems to be clearly saying that cover comes from being obscured from line of sight.

UGH.

I've asked on the facebook group and also sent FFG a rules question on this. I'm going to keep playing it the way I have (that you can get cover from either obscured LOS or from touching terrain) until I hear otherwise from either FFG or one of the playtesters.

Thanks guys - at the very least you've helped me see another confusing section in the rules. As much as I love this game, I think I'm going to stop arguing that the rulebook is so clearly written…

deep breaths Felkor, you are almost there.

your a b and c points are all 100% correct. What the terrain entry is saying is that if a model is standing on the base of terrain it can also recieve a cover save as the lines drawn from an attacking squad leader would pass through the terrain.

for example - tank traps are traditionally mounted in cardboard bases far larger then the space required for the physical traps. If miniatures were standing on the cardboard base of the tank trap terrain they are able to recieve cover as the line drawn passes over the base of the terrain.

caecitas said:

Caecitas, perhaps you can clear this up for me if you can explain something for me.

On Page 39, it says: "Players may decide that some terrain, such as walls, do not provide the benefits of cover unless it interferes with line of sight."

Can you tell me, then, what the difference would be, between a piece of terrain that does not provide benefits of cover unless it interferes with line of sight, and terrain that does provide covere even if it doesn't interfere with line of sight?