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The scenario- I have a unit of 10 IG (or Marines or Ork Boyz etc) and one has a missile launcher, I place the missile launcher armed one on top of a hill and the rest behind the hill. According to the new rules, if my opponent shoots at him, he and the whole unit get a 4+ cover save (or their armour save), any saves that are failed can be taken from any of the unit leaving the missile armed one on top of the hill still being able to fire at vehicles etc until the unit is wiped out or fails a morale check.
This cant be right can it? The scenario was put forward by someone at the local club who hates 40k, help me put him back in his place...
Cheers, Mick

More of a YMDC question, but your local club 40k hater is correct.

Welcome to the new line of sight rules designed to 'make more sense'.

That is not exactly correct.

With the new rules, you have to assign wounds to squad members before rolling saves.. If the "unit" takes a bunch of wounds, then you'll HAVE to put one on your missile launcher and roll it separately, since you can't double up wounds on any model until every model has a wound placed on it.
It's quite possible that you'd lose him on the first volley of shots, leaving the rest of the unit sitting behind a rock.

I had it happen to me once... Ten wounds, ten models, ten armor saves.

Special weapon died.
Sgt died.
Everyone else lived.


Eric

Still means you have to get at least 10 wounds though and then he still has a 50/50 chance of surviving... Admitedly the more of his unit you take out the more likely he is going to get hit but still gives him more chances to take out vehicles.
I'm helping to run a 40k tournament next year, I have a feeling there is going to be quite a few headaches, mainly mine...
Mick

Yah, its one of those strange things that have happened with the new rules. Tac squad guys with heavy weapons, eldar guardian platforms, and other single heavy weapon unit models just stand out in the open while the rest of their buddies hide. Its just the way it works now.

It's a game, it's a game, it's a game.

GW have made a lot of compromises to get their rules to work the way they like.

Killkrazy- Dont get me wrong I like the rules and had a good laugh playing them last Wednesday, just want a way to shut this guy up...
Mick

Mick A wrote:Still means you have to get at least 10 wounds though and then he still has a 50/50 chance of surviving... Admitedly the more of his unit you take out the more likely he is going to get hit but still gives him more chances to take out vehicles.
I'm helping to run a 40k tournament next year, I have a feeling there is going to be quite a few headaches, mainly mine...
Mick

Yeah, but... So?
With my typical armies, I can force that save on turn ONE. Easy.
Unit A opens fire.
Unit B opens fire.
Unit C (if needed) opens fire.

Plus... One lone guy isn't that much if a headache. More than likely, target priority is going to have him ignored, regardless of where his unit is... unless (a) his opponent doesn't understnad target priority or (b) the rest of the army is that crappy.

It's not all it's painted up to be, really.

Eric

Kilkrazy wrote:GW have made a lot of compromises to get their rules to work the way they like.

You must have a different definition to the word 'work' than the rest of us then.

BYE

MagickalMemories wrote:Yeah, but... So?
With my typical armies, I can force that save on turn ONE. Easy.

Which means all of what, exactly?

The question wasn't about how to kill special models by hitting the units many many times, is was about whether a squad can be out of LOS (except for a single model) and still take casualties from those out of LOS.

What you do in turn one in no way changes the answer to this question, which is yes, 40K 5th Ed rules allow for models out of range and LOS to be taken as casualties, making a mockery of Jervis' 'true LOS' rules.

BYE

H.B.M.C. wrote:... making a mockery of Jervis' 'true LOS' rules.BYE

...until you remember that you're attacking the unit, not the model.

A unit which I can't see. And I'm not in range of.

Seriously, don't try to defend the idiotic way casualties are dealt with in 5th. The fact that models that are out of range, LOS, or both can be valid targets is just plain stupid.

BYE

Damn you HBMC. Making sense and speaking so clearly. It's "true LOS" to your units footprint. AKA Fantasy, not some great wonderful game mechanic GW came up with.

H.B.M.C. wrote:A unit which I can't see. And I'm not in range of.

Seriously, don't try to defend the idiotic way casualties are dealt with in 5th. The fact that models that are out of range, LOS, or both can be valid targets is just plain stupid.

BYE

Except the in-game effect is practically nil, unless people make a habit of taking a ten man unit with a single heavy weapon, then hiding 9/10 of the unit behind a hill. Something you’d only do to make fun of a rules abstraction. Or if you were a really bad player.

Compare this to the old rule, where only models in range and LOS were viable targets. Then you had the actual, really did happen and happen a lot crappiness of range and LOS sniping. To the point where people took rhinos to block LOS to all but the target model.

The new rule is cleaner, clearer and results in far less ludicrous incidents in actual play.

sebster wrote:
Something you’d only do to make fun of a rules abstraction. Or if you were a really bad player.

I can see it being useful if the rest of the unit's weapons are going to go unused anyway, because the unit is assigned for tank hunting for example. 10 Guardsman with one lascannon would be a situation where one would do this.

H.B.M.C. wrote:A unit which I can't see.

Yes you can. See, there's one of them standing up there on that rock.

But you've had all this explained to you previously, and made up your mind to ignore any proposed way of justifying the rules, presumably because complaining about how silly they are is more fun than just enjoying the game for what it is.

Seriously, don't try to defend the idiotic way casualties are dealt with in 5th. The fact that models that are out of range, LOS, or both can be valid targets is just plain stupid.

The fact that a unit that is in LOS and range can take casualties from anywhere in the unit is, to my mind, a far better system than 4th edition's individual model-based LOS. This way is faster, easier, and better represents the fact that the models aren't actually supposed to be representing static statues with their feet glued to big plastic discs.

But to each his own.

Sent to YMDC.

Doctor Thunder wrote:I can see it being useful if the rest of the unit's weapons are going to go unused anyway, because the unit is assigned for tank hunting for example. 10 Guardsman with one lascannon would be a situation where one would do this.

Except that terrain that blocks LOS to whole units is at a premium in the new edition, and is more likely to be used for units wanting to hide entirely. An IG unit will want to hide it’s master vox caster, rough riders and the like. Meanwhile, there’s piles and piles of 4+ cover available, where the full squad will be seen but gain the exact same save.

It’s a hypothetical problem for the most part, compared to the old rule that created constant issues, to the point where people took armies and unit combos that were built around the ability to LOS snipe.

insaniak wrote:
The fact that a unit that is in LOS and range can take casualties from anywhere in the unit is, to my mind, a far better system than 4th edition's individual model-based LOS. This way is faster, easier, and better represents the fact that the models aren't actually supposed to be representing static statues with their feet glued to big plastic discs.

But to each his own.

But they are glued in place. You can shoot through the fething dreadnaughts legs to get the guy behind him. How come I can have a unit behind a solid impassable terrain building with no windows, no doors, no nothing (assume bunker). But if the enemy unit manuvers so that they can just get a glimps of one guys shoulderpad the entire unit can get wiped out? Sure they all get cover saves, but what the hell? Did everybody else look around the corner to see why bob got his head sniped off? Give me back model sniping any day of the week over this drek. At least that required skill and quite frankly taking models (transports for the most part) that everyone preached were useless.

The really nice part comes when you have things with multiple heavy/special weapons, so you can have 3 persons out in the open and 7 hiding and giving you coversaves and still take the casulties.

H.B.M.C. wrote:A unit which I can't see. And I'm not in range of.

Seriously, don't try to defend the idiotic way casualties are dealt with in 5th. The fact that models that are out of range, LOS, or both can be valid targets is just plain stupid.

BYE

I'm sorry, but in my opinion you have to be on crack to truly believe what you're saying. You honestly think range and LOS sniping is a better concept than having wounds abstractly allocated to a squad as a whole in an army scale game?

IMHO, you're wrong, wrong, wrong.

The casualty allocation rules are absolutely the best thing about the new edition and are loooong overdue.

Jayden63 wrote:

But they are glued in place. You can shoot through the fething dreadnaughts legs to get the guy behind him. How come I can have a unit behind a solid impassable terrain building with no windows, no doors, no nothing (assume bunker). But if the enemy unit manuvers so that they can just get a glimps of one guys shoulderpad the entire unit can get wiped out? Sure they all get cover saves, but what the hell? Did everybody else look around the corner to see why bob got his head sniped off?

No, they just spot the one guy hiding behind the building and then let loose firing through the building at the rest of the unit.

Again, 40K is played as an army scale game, and the point should be whether the SQUAD is in range, whether the SQUAD is in cover, out of LOS etc, not the individual models within the unit.

This is going to be one of the few times I disagree with you Yakface. I remember when people always asked in the tactics section... What do you play on a table with no terrain? Well in 5th ed. we all do. GW felt that cover saves were the generic answer for letting anything and everything get shot at, and its one of the worst ideas ever. Ok so you can see the one member of the squad. Well that dude deserves to get his but shot off, not the other 9 guys hiding in foxholes.

There are some good things that came out of 5th ed. The true LOS and wound allocation is not one of them. I really feel it has dumbed down the game and made unit positioning in the movement phase pretty much pointless when you figure anyone can get anywhere with run and can see and shoot pretty much anything. Its just the way I feel. I used to out manuever and out play my opponent. Now it seems I'm relying on my dice to win the day, it just seems that a bit of player skill has been removed from the game and replaced with "odds" of survival against incoming hits.

Because of 5th ed my FLGS laminated another of the old cities of death battlemats shown here: http://oz.games-workshop.com/games/40k/CoD/catalog/battlemat.htm

Mick A wrote:Killkrazy- Dont get me wrong I like the rules and had a good laugh playing them last Wednesday, just want a way to shut this guy up...
Mick

Sorry -- nothing personal was meant.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:GW have made a lot of compromises to get their rules to work the way they like.

You must have a different definition to the word 'work' than the rest of us then.

BYE

GW have made a lot of compromises to get their rules to work the way they like. Meaning GW like how the rules work.

Jayden63 wrote:
There are some good things that came out of 5th ed. The true LOS and wound allocation is not one of them. I really feel it has dumbed down the game and made unit positioning in the movement phase pretty much pointless when you figure anyone can get anywhere with run and can see and shoot pretty much anything. Its just the way I feel. I used to out manuever and out play my opponent. Now it seems I'm relying on my dice to win the day, it just seems that a bit of player skill has been removed from the game and replaced with "odds" of survival against incoming hits.

Then we disagree, fair enough.

But I do think you are taking a very close-minded approach to the changes. It is true that you can draw LOS much more often to any unit now and cover saves are much more prevalent, but if you think this has swung the game more in the direction of luck and less in the direction of skill, I think you're wrong.

What it does do is to tend to de-value the shooting in the first few turns of the game, where there are plenty of screening units and your models are in the terrain where you want them.

But as the game progresses, it is the player that maneuvers to get that clean shot without any cover saves, or the player that sets up his units properly to take an opposing charge specifically to leave the attackers sitting in open-ground to suffer a cover-free round of firing that is probably going to win the game.

In fact, I'd say the game is less luck-based than before because the ability to cripple your opponent's army based on who gets the first turn is drastically reduced.

Finally, there also isn't any reason you shouldn't have several completely LOS blocking pieces of terrain on the table that create a bit of variety in the game. If you don't, you're definitely missing out.


So in short, because LOS is more generous and cover saves are more generous, the game isn't about keeping your models in/out of LOS like it was in previous editions, it is now about setting up your army to get those 'clean' shots without any cover saves while minimizing the amount of times the enemy can achieve this goal against you.

Actually I agree with Yak. IMO the new rules are a good compromise for playing the kind of game 40K is.

It's bigger than a skirmish, and smaller than a block based big army game like Fire & Fury.

There have to be some trade-offs to make it run smoothly and quickly. If you wanted to use TLoS for every single shot, the playing speed would be really slow.

Yakface has already summed up my opinion pretty nicely while I was away, but I though this was worth addressing:

Jayden63 wrote: GW felt that cover saves were the generic answer for letting anything and everything get shot at, and its one of the worst ideas ever.

I strongly suspect that the proliferation of cover saves in this edition is actually the players' fault, at least indirectly.

GW have been telling us for at least 15 years now that the game works better with more terrain on our tables, and by and large they've been ignored... as evidenced by the continued spreading of the 'first turn wins' idea.

I think that the new LOS rules are, at least in part, a sign that GW have finally realised that most people simply aren't going to bother using more terrain, and so they've made it a little easier to get cover saves (making it less unbalanced to play on a more open table) as a response.

I say 'in part' because I believe that the larger part of it is simply to push the game more towards squad-level interaction, hence the 'see one, see them all' bit...

Yakface - here's the issue. They go to a "true" LOS system, but then promptly carve out big, big exceptions, including, but not limited to, being able to kill models behind terrain. If they are using a true LOS system, why not use an actual true LOS system?

I agree with you, I hated range sniping, etc. - but their new approach is still pretty schizo.

Why not just go to true LOS, which means that models behind terrain cannot see or shoot, and also cannot be seen or shot. Why not do that? They are making us roll saves for individual models, so they aren't worried about slowing the game down that much.