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Ok here is the situation: Eldar pathfinders infiltrate on top of a bunker's roof with no walls rubble or anything on top of it. So would he get a 4+ cover save (2+ due to pathfinders)? There is nothing blocking any LOS, the shooting player can clearly see everthing including the base of all the rangers involved. Both players knew the bunker was a 3+, and all other terrain was a 4+, however since we never have had used the roof before (two high to get to normally) there was no cover value assigned to it.

This debate ingulfed my basement tonight (involving oddly 2 eldar players who both run lots of rangers), it occured during turn 1 shooting. What hapened was he demanded that if he had known that it wouldn't provide cover he would simply have infultrated them into the bunker, we allowed him to redeploy - he's a bit of a TFG so and my other friend (his opponent) wanted to keep the game moving on as fast as possible so we allowed him to redeploy (didn't matter though they died anyway).

So who was right? The ranger's player, his opponent (who me and my brother supported after looking up the cover rules in the rulebook).

I know a picture of said bunker will be nice but I dont have my cord to download pictures to my computer with me.

Well if it's a building building. It's just like a terrace on said building. You can't even shoot them, you have to shoot at the building and destroy it. If it's a ruin building. They just have their cover save provided by the building improved as per pathfinders.

Ok, so rereading my post i seem to have made 1 thing not clear. (since there is already a response i wont edit my message)

He infiltrated them on top of the building - we aggred on the rules if they were inside the building. But since they were on top in plain view that is where the question occurs.

BIAS::: I am the other player in this case...

This was not a building, just a bunker, open back 2 story clear roof though.

using TLOS. and he was on the roof and not in the bunker i'd say, no cover save

It seems I saw a thread some time ago asking a similiar thing w/ bare hills. In that thread there were a few points to consider:

If the edge, of said terrain piece (Ruin/Bunker/Building in this case) can obscure part of the model (Legs/torso/arms/head) then yes a cover save is imparted. Imagine a unit of troops looking up at a unit on top of the terrain piece with the edge being used as the cover.

If the entire model can be seen and there is nothing to suggest a cover save, pieces of low walls etc, then no cover save is given.

This is just my gut feel from a similiar previous post. I haven't checked any source for it and I wouldn't die defending this position until it was completely verified.

Unless you nominate a piece of terrain as 'area terrain' before the game a unit does not simply get a save for sitting on a piece of cover. And in fact, even with area terrain models must be in between two 'elements' of the area terrain in order to even get cover from the area terrain.


Assuming you didn't nominate the building as area terrain (which you generally shouldn't be if the building has a roof) then absolutely you'd use true line of sight. If no part of the model is obscured then it doesn't benefit from the cover.

yakface wrote:
Unless you nominate a piece of terrain as 'area terrain' before the game a unit does not simply get a save for sitting on a piece of cover. And in fact, even with area terrain models must be in between two 'elements' of the area terrain in order to even get cover from the area terrain.

I thought the "in between elements" was only if the model wasn't inside the piece of area terrain itself but behind it. If it's standing anywhere in the area terrain it would get the cover save. Is this not the case?

frameshift wrote:

yakface wrote:
Unless you nominate a piece of terrain as 'area terrain' before the game a unit does not simply get a save for sitting on a piece of cover. And in fact, even with area terrain models must be in between two 'elements' of the area terrain in order to even get cover from the area terrain.

I thought the "in between elements" was only if the model wasn't inside the piece of area terrain itself but behind it. If it's standing anywhere in the area terrain it would get the cover save. Is this not the case?

Nope you're right, my bad. Anywhere inside the piece of area terrain grants the model cover.


But in the case presented in the op, an enclosed building or bunker is not recommended by the rules to be classed as area terrain, although you could always choose to do so if you really wanted to (although all terrain should be agreed upon before the game if possible).

Buildings/bunkers are not area terrain. They are vehicles. So can you really deploy on top of the vehicle? No cover save on top if you allow them to deploy there. Also when the building/bunker is Pen'd 6 it is removed and a crater is put in it's place.

No cover save.
If a hill has a cave you can get a cover save for being inside the cave, but if you stand on top of the hill you get no benefit of the cave.

It mainly depends on perspective really. If you are able to see the entire squad no problem then no cover save, but if you can only see 2 clearly and the rest are obscured by the top edge of the bunker then there should be a save (as per the LOS rules). Ultimately though, he doesn't get cover for just being on top of the bunker.

if you can see the whole frickin model theres no cover save and i think its stupid to think that there could be since you could see the whole model and the base with nothing in the way how could he get a cover save? theres nothing blocking him is there?

Parapets and Battlements section (pg 80 small rulebook, under the larger section of Buildings) has a nice summation of what should be done.

to paraphrase it, the section basically tells us that IF the building (which includes bunkers) has a parapet/battlement, that this allows more models to fire, but that they are still considered inside the bunker. which means you couldn't fire at them at all, you'd have to fire at the building.

All that said, it doesn't appear that you were using the rules for buildings at all - as you designated the bunker as a 3+ cover save. In which case I'd say that to get the cover save you'd have to be inside it. Standing on top of a roof is just asking to get shot if you have nothing to hide behind - it's like standing in the open (granted, if the enemy is standing directly next to the bunker they may not be able to draw LOS anyway).

If they declared it 3+ cover then it's 3+ cover. However, it is also not a building, as defined by the rules.

So standing on top of a 3+ cover thingy, they get the save because that's what was agreed upon. If, in the future, you decide to declare it a building, cover becomes irrelevant as you use the embarkation rules much like for a vehicle.

ok this may help, let me explain the layout of the "bunker" a bit more clearly.

on the 1st floor its has 3 walls and a open back, a ladder leading to the 2nd floor. Both floors have windows (NOT fire points) from which it was agreed that you could shoot from. The 2nd floor has a open back (same as 1st). on top of 2nd floor is a roof that covers it, flat and nothing that would ordinarily suggest any cover. It has a beveled front edge so that i could clearly see the squad of rangers.
We did not declare the roof as "area terrain" due to the fact there is no normal way onto it, its higher than 6" so unless you had JI for something of the like, you could not normally reach it. We did however agree that inside of it granted a 3+ cover save. He chose to infiltrate onto the top of it.
The reason that he may have though that it granted cover was that we also have smaller one story bunkers that do have edgegs that grant some cover.
Hope this helps.

He could also have easily gotten confused with a partially built ork fort (currently being built) where there are platforms that count as area terrain (due to small walls on the edges) which are large enough for squads/cannon batteries, and something like dark reapers to sit behind. (however this is painted differently, and wasn't in the battle)

I personally think he's never used multi story buildings before either so that could have lead to his confusion.

Next time we play him we will go into greater detail about the specific pieces of terrain to avoid having the issue go again. However please keep discussing it now that we have better discriptions (see above post).

psf3077 wrote:ok this may help, let me explain the layout of the "bunker" a bit more clearly.

on the 1st floor its has 3 walls and a open back, a ladder leading to the 2nd floor. Both floors have windows (NOT fire points) from which it was agreed that you could shoot from. The 2nd floor has a open back (same as 1st). on top of 2nd floor is a roof that covers it, flat and nothing that would ordinarily suggest any cover. It has a beveled front edge so that i could clearly see the squad of rangers.
We did not declare the roof as "area terrain" due to the fact there is no normal way onto it, its higher than 6" so unless you had JI for something of the like, you could not normally reach it. We did however agree that inside of it granted a 3+ cover save. He chose to infiltrate onto the top of it.
The reason that he may have though that it granted cover was that we also have smaller one story bunkers that do have edgegs that grant some cover.
Hope this helps.

Given this information, it's clear that it wouldn't provide cover. But like most threads, you'll now get discussion on everything relating to it.

OK putting it simply if it is a 'building' then the squad counts as being 'transported' by that building as per page 66 ... if it is a 'ruin' then the squad get a 4+ cover save (any where) and must take difficult terrain tests to move round the base, up a level or go through a wall (this has caused some funny situations)

Soooo from what you've described you were play it as a ruin and he'd gain a 3+ cover save for being on top ... now at the beginning of the game you could have made it a impassible terrain ...(edit didn't copy over --> ) or class it as not giving cover but by default it would

From the sound of how you describe your "bunker," you need to treat it as one of 2 things.

Either it is a fully in tact BUNKER (building), which is treated as a vehicle or, since it's open in the back, like a ruin (cover saves, etc).

If you treat it as a ruin, he gets the cover save. if you treat it as a bunker/building, then he can't be targeted from it (if you allow him to be up there).

I'm assuming that there are no parapets or battlements, though, which means that he shouldn't even be up there.


Eric

psf3077 wrote:on the 1st floor its has 3 walls and a open back, a ladder leading to the 2nd floor.

Just going by that, if it's not fully enclosed it would generally be played as a ruin (since the rules for Buildings cover fully enclosed buildings)... which means Area Terrain, and so a cover save would be granted for being anywhere in the terrain feature.

If you play it as a Building, then they're either getting no cover save unless they're obscured from the firer's POV, or they're counted as being on a parapet, in which case they're embarked in the building and simply cause the building to count as open-topped.

Both floors have windows (NOT fire points) from which it was agreed that you could shoot from.

If it's played as a ruin, or as some other piece of area terrain, there's no need to agree that they can be shot from... models can shoot from them if they can see through them.
If it's played as a building, then they're fire points.

We did not declare the roof as "area terrain" due to the fact there is no normal way onto it

You wouldn't declare a roof as area terrain. You would declare the entire terrain piece area terrain or not.

I certainly agree with the rules that pertain to the situation and how it should have been played. The only reason I personally say that there would be no cover save for the unit deployed on top of this 'structure' (intentionally avoiding the use of an actual game term here) is because they never discussed it prior to the game.

By the same token, the owning player should have avoided deploying his unit in that space. It was definately an excellent sign of 'sportsmanship' on the side of the OP when he allowed his opponent to redeploy them. Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer to play by the rules all the time but I've never been in a game where something wasn't talked about or forgotten.

Now I'm going to go re-read all the rules for buildings etc....I never did really go through them.