Line of Sight and Woods

All questions about difficult rules in here; for both Asrai as well as other armies.

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Ease
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Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Ease »

So my gaming group is very anti-terrain, and I have to fight tooth-and-nail to even get my free wood, letalone any placed randomly as part of the battlefield!

Once I've got my free wood, they then argue that if I move into the wood I will suffer -1 to hit with shooting because the trees block my line-of-sight to their units. I really don't think this is the case.

Also, if a unit is mostly behind a large rock, they argue that if I can't see whole models then I can't shoot them. I argue that it would be Hard Cover. Basically any time line-of-sight comes into play we waste half an hour arguing...

Please could someone confirm for me, and provide me adequate logic with which to prove to them the truth!

Thank you!
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Lassoto »

I researched this when I decided to start WE up again, in terrain under forests and shooting in the BRB on page 119 it clearly says "This penalty does not apply if the shooting model is drawing a line of sight out of a forest it is in."
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Beithir Seun »

Also, True Line of Sight means True Line of Sight. If your model can "see" a part of an enemy model to shoot at, then they can shoot at it. The enemy unit that's "mostly" hidden behind a large rock is not *completely* hidden - if you can draw LoS to a model that's not completely hidden by the rock then you can shoot at the unit. There is absolutely no requirement to see whole models - the rulebook states that LoS is drawn from the 'eyes' of your model to any part of the body of an enemy model (i.e. the arms, legs, torso or head).
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Ease »

Thank you Lassoto and Beithir. What if you have a completely clear view of the majority of a unit, but a quarter or so are behind a rock? I'm sure this is covered in the BRB but I've foolishly left mine at my parent's house, and I've got work every day until the tournament, so I can't even pop into a GW to check these things.
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Dazmaz »

So my gaming group is very anti-terrain, and I have to fight tooth-and-nail to even get my free wood, letalone any placed randomly as part of the battlefield!
Your gaming group should check the rules. A setup without any terrain would severely benefit certain armies. You should refer to BRB where it clearly states how terrain is chosen and placed. (use acorn if you want to piss them off)
Once I've got my free wood, they then argue that if I move into the wood I will suffer -1 to hit with shooting because the trees block my line-of-sight to their units. I really don't think this is the case.
The turn you move into the wood you would get a -1 because we cant move and shoot without penalties anymore. But it would not be because of the woods. Shooting out of a wood does not grant -1, BRB is clear on this matter. However shooting THROUGH a wood (standing outside of it) will provide soft cover for your target, as the woods becomes interposing terrain.
Also, if a unit is mostly behind a large rock, they argue that if I can't see whole models then I can't shoot them. I argue that it would be Hard Cover. Basically any time line-of-sight comes into play we waste half an hour arguing...
Define terrain pre-setup. What is hard/soft cover (ruins, buildings, woods whatever)
I believe that if less than half of the unit is visible then it counts as cover. usually impassable TN block LoS, and is therefore hard cover.


I personally think that the LoS rules are crap. true LoS is not very good IMO. Large models converted and such are subject to shooting if a tail sticks out from behind a rock fx. We measure from the base. Furthermore hills also blocks LoS even though we can technically draw LoS from a models head over the hill.
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by hutobega »

Yes no -1 when you are in the woods shooting out of them. if enemy model is behind a rock wall then it most likely is hard cover, usually cover modifiers are easy to understand if its super hard wall with no holes in it that's hard cover (or a building) or castle ramparts) if its soft with lots of space (wooden fence forest) then it's soft cover. And start using terrain if they want to play warhammer correctly hell they might ant some cover for all the shots you will be placin ginto his units now...
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Sidewinder »

Each member of your gaming group needs to invest money into buying a rulebook for themselves and then invest time into reading the d**n thing.

If they are so anti-terrain, convince them to play with no terrain. Use points for the folding fortress, fill it full of GG, and protect it with combat troops. If they say you can't use it, then tell them that you can choose equal points of their magical gear that they can't use.

If anyone in your gaming group plans to ever enter tournaments or league play, they really will need to learn how to play with several pieces of terrain on the board. Knowing how to deal with terrain is an important component for playing the game.

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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by MortenLarsen »

Get a new play group. Must be the most boring games you play in that group. Without terrain, you might as well calculate the odds of one unit vs another and call a winner. Without terrain there's no need for tactical skills. You should tell them to collect civil war games instead.
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by captkurt »

First of all...true line of sight is an abomination that should be destroyed from the lexicon of large scale table top miniatures games. Works great for skirmish games though.

In any case, when shooting at a unit either though or into cover, you get modifiers...-1 for soft cover (woods, hedge, etc) or -2 for hard cover (walls, rocks, hill, etc). But you do not get a penalty for shooting OUT of cover, only for shooting through or into cover.
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Re: Line of Sight and Woods

Post by Tropic »

My understanding of claiming cover is if half or more of the target unit is behind cover to half or more of the shooting unit. From a WE perspective, if at least half your models in the unit can cleanly see half or more of the target, no cover can be claimed.
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