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FOR THIS POLL, PLEASE ANSWER HOW YOU CHOOSE TO PLAY THE GAME, NOT NECESSARILY WHAT THE RULES AS WRITTEN (RAW) SAY.

Feel free to post how and why you voted, but please DO NOT ENGAGE OTHERS IN DISCUSSIONS/ARGUMENTS ABOUT WHAT YOU THINK THE RULES SAY. Please create a separate thread if you feel the urge to have this kind of discussion.



The Tyranid 'Impaler Cannon' rulse says (Tyranid Codex, pg 47): "The Impaler Cannon can shoot any target in range, regardless of whether there is line of sight to it or not. The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard."

The rules for 'Units partially in cover' say (rulebook, pg 22): "Sometimes, a unit will only be partially in cover, with some of its models in cover and some not...Models that are completely out of sight are considered to be in cover for this purpose."





QUESTION: Do you play that a target unit that is out of line of sight from firing 'Hive Guard' (but not actually in or touching a piece of actual terrain) gets a cover save against 'Impaler Cannon' shots?



OPTION A. I play that the target unit would NOT get cover saves, as the majority of the models are not actually in or touching a piece of actual terrain between them and the Hive Guard.


OPTION B. I play that the target unit WOULD get cover saves, as the majority of the models count as being 'in cover' (due to being out of line of sight) from the 'Hive Guard', and being 'in cover' is a specified situation where 'Impaler Cannons' do not disallow cover saves.


OPTION C. Something else entirely: reply exactly what it is below.

A. Because that is what I believe the intention of the rule to be.

P. 47 of Codex Tyranids reads "The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard." Page 21 of the main rulebook reads (1st paragraph "Models in or behind cover receive a cover saving throw." and "When any part of the model is obscured from the point of view of the firer, the target model is in cover." Therefore, if the target is behind cover, but not touching or in it, it receives a cover save.

We run it as one can only claim a save if one is in or touching area terrain.
A)

I think its poorly worded and crudface has made an oversight in my opinion regarding this. In short: A.

Well, if one was here > *\o/* [[And this a building]] <(~_~< and that was a guy with an impaler cannon one would be behind cover, not touching or in. But the BRB says on cover "When any part of the target model’s body (as defined on page 16) is obscured from the point of view of the firer, the target model is in cover"
Thus otherwise almost all of the time - unless they were, like, 3" apart and facing each other - people being shot would almost alwatys be entitled to the cover save they would have been granted... unless it was from SoS or something like that.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
But the they would be 'touching' the Sos 'bubble' I guess so the recive it anyhows.

A since there is a difference between "in" and "behind". Got to be in it to win it!

The rules for 'Units partially in cover' say (rulebook, pg 22): "Sometimes, a unit will only be partially in cover, with some of its models in cover and some not...Models that are completely out of sight are considered to be in cover for this purpose."

The Tyranid 'Impaler Cannon' rule says (Tyranid Codex, pg 47): "The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard."


At first glance I felt that this was pretty clear, as the target might be in cover because it is out of LOS, but according to the impaler they can only count the BENEFITS of said cover if...

...it lies between them and the hive guard. And that's where it got complicated. If a hive guard unit fires at a rhino standing behind a land raider, completely obscured, according to the rulebook pg22 it gets its cover from the land raider, however, where IS the actual cover? Does it exist on the table?

Voted A, because it's a hassle and that's how I feel it should work.

A) because it specifically goes out of it's way to say 'hey line of sight means bunk to these guys, you can shoot anyone without line of sight'. If you don't need line of sight, how can you get cover from the model's point of view using line of sight? That's why all the (almost unbelievably) poorly worded junk is put in after that part to explain how it's supposed to get a cover save.

I've got with option A as the rules in the codex say the Hive Guard doesn't need LOS and models only get cover if in cover or touching cover.

On another note, how would this work for vehicles? Example came up in a game sometime ago when Hive Guard were behind a wall of a building, vehicle comes up and torches building. Vehicles owner claims 50% is hidden as Hive Guard cannot see it, but Hive Guard don't need LOS to see it nor is 50% covered.

The problem comes from GW's ambiguous use of the word in. I believe their intention was to have it so you actually have to be base to border with, or standing inside the border of, the terrain you are gaining cover from, otherwise the whole line about LOS would be unwarranted. Unfortunately, the rule is ambiguous and can be confused with the wording from the BRB....

Battlesong wrote:otherwise the whole line about LOS would be unwarranted.

No, mentioning LOS actually lets you shoot even if the unit is totally out of sight. Normally you can't open fire unless you can draw LOS to a model in the target unit.

I'd say B - bad wording is bad so go with the least benefit.

We play A.

We play option A.

Ok, bear with me here. This is how I parse the rules, which leads to my answer.

"The target can only X if Y."

X, in this case, is "count the benefits of cover they are in or touching." In this clause, cover is implied to mean a piece of terrain or an object that provides a cover save, as you cannot touch the "state of being 'in cover.'" It is immaterial. Therefore, I assume "cover" means a physical object or area that provides cover by some means (by obscuring parts of models or being area terrain), with the specific modifier "in or touching" restricting the rule to affect only those types of physical objects (ones the targeted models are in - for ruins, area terrain, etc - or touching - such as walls). The phrase "benefits of cover" is fairly straightforward, indicating the ability of the unit to claim a cover save.

Y is "it lies between them and the Hive Guard." That is, the above ^^ is true only if the aforementioned cover (object or area terrain that the target is in or touching) lies between the target and the Hive Guard.

This is where the stupidity of the way this rule was written becomes incredibly obvious to me. By RAW (as I see it anyway - don't worry, I'm getting to my opinion) the impaler cannon should only deny cover saves to a unit that is in or touching something granting them cover that does not lie between them and the Hive Guard. The problem here is that cover as defined by the BRB essentially means that the object granting cover will, 99% of the time, be between the firer and the target. (Exceptions to this might be a unit with every model standing half on the edge of area terrain with the Hive Guard shooting from the clear side). Furthermore, the clause is restricted to cover saves provided by cover the models are in or touching, not cover granted by other means, such as being out of line of sight, further making the rule useless.

At least, that's the way I interpret the exact wording. Since, in my opinion, the rule is both incredibly vague and potentially useless, I use the following: "If the Hive Guard can draw a straight line to the target (or rather, >half the target models) that does not pass through any object or terrain that the target is touching, the target cannot claim to be "in cover" from the perspective of the Hive Guard."

TL;DR: I vote A, because of my interpretation of the RAI, not RAW.

EDIT:
The alternate way to parse the phrase leads me to the same answer (though with less RAI interpretation). That is, if you read it as "They may only count the effects of cover they are in, OR [cover they are] touching ([but only] if it lies between them and the Hive Guard)."

The problem I have with that interpretation is that the sentence doesn't really read that way very easily.

Option A.

The specific wording of the Impaler Cannon overrules the general cover rules. Only in the two listed circumstances would models get a cover save.

Well, since I was the one who prompted the poll, I'll chime in.

Originally, I never noticed the fact that the sentence can be parsed out in another way.

Neither did my entire local gaming community.

However, having been elucidated on the matter by Yakface and others in another thread, I too believe now that the impaler cannon can deny cover saves...

*man enough to offer myself up for public humiliation*

Poor wording on gw's part to say the least...

I voted B, meant to vote A....

My bad...

poor wording for gw as always, we play it as A ... if only the used the word terrain for terrain ...

We play it as A because it's probably what was intended, but the rules definitely support B.

The intention of the rule is A...the wording and RAW force it to B.

A. Seems quite clear to me.

Option A for everyone in my area.

Impaler Cannon overrides regular cover rules by its own wording.

Option A.

Option B doesn't have any legs to stand on.

DakkaDakka wrote:

Came up recently and we played A after a little 'discussion' to make the wording sound better i argued that it was like shooting live ammunkition that could swarm around objects to reach target or like a bombardment weapon. not in cover = no cover save.

Well, as I see it, there are two ways of seeing this rule.

A) The target only counts the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive guard.

Placing emphasis on the sentance here implies that the cover between them and the hive guard only counts if they are in or touching it.

B) The target only counts the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the Hive guard.

Here, the emphasis implies that if cover lies between them and the Hive Guard, they get cover saves, but they have to be in cover.


Thus, in option A), if one fires over an intervening object or unit, the target only recieves cover if they are touching it.

I Chose option A.

I always play like option A

We play option A, but we don't play that "cover" only means "area terrain" but "any object that could give cover."

Thus if a rhino is *touching* a second rhino in between the hive guard and their target, the second rhino gains a cover save because it is touching an object that is giving it cover, and that object is between the hive guard and the target.

The wording is tricky but you have to look at the second part of what the Impaler cannon is saying regarding cover... the first is clear: they have to be in terrain. The second half is where I think the confusion comes from:

"...touching if it lies between them and the Hive Guard."

There are two factors that this exception is looking for. The model must A: first be touching the terrain, and B: the terrain must be between them and the Hive Guard.

So... example below. G is a guardsman, H is a hive guard, and * is terrain.

H **G
**
**

Here the guardsman gets a cover save; he's touching the cover and it's between him and the Hive Guard... now if we change this:

H G**
**
**

Now the guardsman no longer gets a cover save. While he is touching the terrain it is not between him and the Hive Guard. Final example:

H ** G
**
**

Now we have the terrain between the two models, but since the guardsman is not touching the terrain.

The impaler cannon's rules are clear. It ignores cover saves unless certain conditions are met, in this case overriding the BRB's normal cover rules. The conditions are: being in cover, or touching cover that lays between them and the Hive Guard. The first half of the rule for the Impaler cannon says clearly that being in line of sight or not doesn't matter; these are the only ways for a model to gain cover. Essentially, they're allowing for models to get a cover save if the terrain would not normally allow them to enter said terrain piece, either due to the type of terrain not being large enough to accomodate the figure or simply not being able to be placed within the terrain due to how the terrain was modeled.

...btw apologies for the poor visual examples; I'm not sure how to add in more than 1 space from the side. :/