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I thought I was losing my mind, a judge made this call and cited a section of the rulebook that I will list after I describe the situation.

Leman Russ elevated about two inches shoots through a template of area terrain at some Bikes. I go to take cover saves and my opponent contends that I should not since his tank has a clear LOS. I say shooting through area terrain grants cover to my guys. We call a judge and he cites this section of the rulebook:

pg 21 Firers may of course shoot over intervening terrain if they are tall enough or high up on some terrain piece so that their line of sight is completely clear. As usual, check the firers' line of sight by taking a good look from behind their heads, and 'see what they see'.

So this seems to say either forget about area terrain or this paragraph above forgot about area terrain.

However on the next page there are Exceptions, I will cite two to raise some interesting points.

Firing through units or area terrain: If a model fires through the gaps between some elements of area terrain(such as gaps between two trees in a wood) or though gaps between models in an intervening unit, the target is in cover even if it is completely visible to the firer. Note that this does not apply if the shots go over the are terrain rather than through it.

also

Firing out of area terrain: Models that are inside area terrain firing out of will position themselves with good fields of vision. Therefore they may fire through up to 2" of area terrain that they are occupying without the terrain conferring a cover save to the target.


Ok so now I am wondering if you shoot through area terrain and there are no objects like trees for a model to be between would you get cover at all? It seems pretty specific about the qualifier for cover. At first I thought I had caught a really bad ruling but this looks like RAW might dictate that flat area terrain would only grant cover to those in it or those being shot at it from more than 2 inches inside it.

Please help, I want to have this cover stuff sorted out fully by Bolscon.

Reading what you have posted, it entirely depends on if the firing unit can "see" over the area terrain. As always, the judges ruling is final...but you may want to establish what can be "seen" over and what can't...if there aren't trees or something else to give an indication of height for you.

Edit: I hate keyboards at work - ctrl-c why so hard?

Yeah not sure but I think this is what you want http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/295428.page .

The judge was in the right.
The exception is exactly as it's written, if you have clear LOS you need to fire between elements of the area terrain to grant a save.
Clear LOS + no elements = no save.

Also note that firing out of terrain more than 2 inches alone does not grant a save, which you might think when first reading that exception and your post implies at the end. The only things that grant saves are the things that actually say they grant saves.

Yes, the Judge was correct.

You've got the right of it here:
flat area terrain would only grant cover to those in it or those being shot at it from more than 2 inches inside it.

The bit about firing over intervening terrain is to prevent a unit a few inches away from a tall grass feature to claim that a tank on a hill can't see it.

TANK
%%%
%%%
%%% ,,,,,,,,,,, XOXOXOX
Hill Grass TARGET


Without the firing over provision, the target could claim cover.


This gets a bit tricky when you have a piece of area terrain with taller features:

TANK
%%%
%%% |
%%% ,,,,,|,,,,, XOXOXOX
Hill Trees TARGET

At that point, it's really a call of whether or not the physical terrain actual blocks any LOS. A lot of places will play that the area terrain is as tall as it's tallest element for this purpose, but that's far from universal (and even then it still comes down to a judgment call on cover).





Automatically Appended Next Post:
oh... fail.

/and ninja'd several times over.

So if I shoot out of the terrain you get cover, but if I shoot through it you rarely will unless it has two large trees?

Nice fing rules GW.(referencing bettlejuice)


Automatically Appended Next Post:

So after two years of 5th all of the sudden cover works entirely differently than the way I have seen everyone use it. Wow. What other secrets are in this foul tome?

No, you only cause a save if you are firing from more than 2" inside the terrain. If you are along the edge of the area terrain you do not give them a save.

...And you still wouldn't grant it to, say, MC's or vehicles.

Kolath wrote:No, you only cause a save if you are firing from more than 2" inside the terrain. If you are along the edge of the area terrain you do not give them a save.

I think you're confused. You only cause a save if you are firing from more than 2" inside the terrain AND are firing between elements.
Firing out of flat terrain with clear LOS does not grant a save.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/30/295428.page
As posted before, has a nice summary.

Wow ok so this isn't how I've seen people playing it the last couple of years but I'm glad that their will be less cover saves to go around. I did think it was a little silly that snipers would be giving cover to the enemy.


edit goddamn internet connection and the double posting it causes

I find the 2" rule with terrain is important when firing out of forests. Where I play the edge of the forest terrain is where the tree line is. If you are just inside the tree line then the forest can give you cover but not give cover to the enemy as long as there is no more than 2 inches. Without that 2" rule you would be giving cover saves to the enemy.

If you were sitting on the remains of a ruined building, that has no more walls, then firing out of it wouldnt give cover even if you are more than 2" in, because the terrain doesnt have any features high enough to be shooting between.