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So after getting my second game of WFB I am left wondering about TLOS. In the game I played, I had 2 empire cannons firing at me through several units. Basically his cannons and hand gunners sat back and shot me through his own units because he can see me through his own units. Through gaps in the legs, arms, in between heads, and whatever other BS, and saying his cannons short packed the charge and lobed the ball over his units.

His set up was something like... H = handgunners C= cannon.
-H-------------------H
--H----C-----C----H
---HHHHHHHHH

That was on one flank, and then on the other he made a wall of spearmen, knights, and other cheapish units that I had to get through while getting nailed by cannon fire and handgun fire.

Now what really took the cake is when he put the cannon target about an inch on the other side of his knights (long ways to) to land and my unit of heavy horsemen.

Please say that this is not how TLOS works... it is one of the big reasons I have almost stopped playing 40k (from once a week to once a month MAYBE). And right about now the flames of war guys are looking at me and beggin to come out and play.


I was fully expecting to lose the game, and did a lot better then I thought I would. my Prince and Tomb guard fethed some stuff up good, but in the long run his 1+ save knights 40 hand gunners, and 2 cannons saved the day... would have helped if my Tomb Scorp didn’t miscast and miss the game, as he would have been right in the cannons faces. Or if my tomb swarms didn’t scatter away from them. But dems da dice.

o we were playing 1500 points (I think), and after the game he was talking about going home and looking for some cheep civil war cannons so he can have 50% of his army be cannons, with Engineers sitting with them for misfire protection. I have my doubts about how effective this would be, but still scary none the less.

As long as he can draw LOS to the target, you can place the target there.

Not "he can see through his friendly troops" - friendly troops block LOS in the exact same way as everything else.

And fyi TLOS existed in 4th ed....just everyone played terrain as area, incorrectly so.

Theres normal tourney TLoS, then there douchebag TLoS.... It looks like you got the latter.

If you can see the models chest and head you are considered to have LoS to the model (some discresion will need to be had)...

If his cannon is blocked by his block of guys he DOES NOT have line of sight, and saying he can see between there legs and stuff is bs.

You basically have to get down to the head level of the model, and see what you can see.

Well, if he actually CAN see through their legs then that is fine, however unless empire handgunners have the bandiest legsknown to man, and are wearing stilts, that is unlikely.

I tried to argue the point that his cannons and hand gunners can’t fire through his units...

His logic was "they short pack the charge and arc the shot over my own units and land on yours... THERE, you happy now?"
That and saying his handgunners kneeled down when the cannon fired...

Basically he could draw a LOS to most anywhere he wanted to by looking through stuff which I think is 110% BS...

But with TLOS... I can see it, I can shoot it.

Though he did bring up the idea of taking a laser pointer to help draw LOS... I warned him that at a tourney he would get nailed on sportsmen ship for it but "I don’t see why you get hit on Sports for following the rules"... maybe I will bring a laser pointer with me to the next game and have him put it on the cannons level and wish him good luck on shooting through a unit of hand gunners, spearmen, and a long ways unit of knights

Though he prolly could get it to point through 1 unit... which brings us back to the BS of cannons shooting THROUGH friendly units.

I think you are angry at the new game mechanics and taking it out on him. The only unsportsmanlike issue I think is that he wants to field 50% cannons.

Messing with the TLOS rules so you can fire cannonballs under the legs of a rank of spearmen is unsportsmanlike. It makes absolutely no sense, but then theres nothing illegal about it.

I think TLOS just kills fantasy.
Untill people get used to it, TLOS is going to be abused heavily.

TLOS is just slowed, in WFB and in 40k.

Because you always get the people who will say "I can see some of one model, my whole unit unloads on it" and I know in 40k everyone in the unit can die. Not just the one that they had LOS to. Which is another issue altogether.

Then there are people claiming they can see in-between the heads of the unit in front of them and that is enough to fire rifles… and cannons.

Forest templates SHOULD now be completely covered in trees so you can’t see through them which is VERY impractical for actually gaming. There is next to nothing that blocks LOS to anything. You might be able to hide some of your little guys but good luck when you field something like a cannon magnet err I mean treeman.


Hopefully there is something that addresses this in the core rulebook... I’m not sure because I don’t have one, and at $75 I’m not going to buy one… GW can go fornicate themselves with an iron stick at this point.

I am hoping that the island of blood will be somewhat of a deal as that will come with a min book. But knowing GW my hopes are not exactly high.

Envy - except you presumably missed the utterly slow range and LOS sniping that was so prevalent in 4th? Im glad they got rid of it.,

Oh, and TLOS was suppsoed to be used for the majority of the time in 4th, but again people played the game poorly by having 100% area terrain.

It not only doesnt kill Fantasy but you know, actually makes fantasy more fun by having some terrain on the playing field, not just planet bowling ball with 2 hills andf 2 forests in the corner.

Envy89 wrote:TLOS is just slowed, in WFB and in 40k.

Because you always get the people who will say "I can see some of one model, my whole unit unloads on it" and I know in 40k everyone in the unit can die. Not just the one that they had LOS to. Which is another issue altogether.

Then there are people claiming they can see in-between the heads of the unit in front of them and that is enough to fire rifles… and cannons.

Forest templates SHOULD now be completely covered in trees so you can’t see through them which is VERY impractical for actually gaming. There is next to nothing that blocks LOS to anything. You might be able to hide some of your little guys but good luck when you field something like a cannon magnet err I mean treeman.


Hopefully there is something that addresses this in the core rulebook... I’m not sure because I don’t have one, and at $75 I’m not going to buy one… GW can go fornicate themselves with an iron stick at this point.

I am hoping that the island of blood will be somewhat of a deal as that will come with a min book. But knowing GW my hopes are not exactly high.

Yup. Definitely ticked at the rules. Don't penalize your opponent for following them.

I find that a laser pointer is good for these situations. Good luck getting a beam through the legs of ranked up troops.

All I can find is that a cannon cannot be "fired in such a way that it has a chance of hitting a friendly unit or an enemy unit that is engaged in close combat." (pg 112, cannons, choose target)

so according to the book, by placing the target beyond his own units he can shoot through them, if he has line of sight.


Regarding the handgunners shooting through units, that would give you a "cover" -hit modifier detailed on page 41. Unfortunately because a cannon doesn't use the crews BS to shoot, it gets no penalty.


Tracing sight through ranks of legs is not something I'd be encouraging.

EDIT: Oh yeah you mentioned something about people claiming that if part of the shooting unit can trace line of sight the whole unit can shoot? BRB says only the models in the unit that are in range, have line of sight and targets are in front arc of shooting model can shoot. Second rank can use the model immediately in front of it for front arc and los. If some models in a unit are under half range and some are over half range, each models shots are done with their respective penalties.


Hope your next game is more fun, Envy .

Yup. Definitely ticked at the rules. Don't penalize your opponent for following them.

I think you are angry at the new game mechanics and taking it out on him.

I disagree whole heartedly with both of these statements. Perhaps you can draw TLOS through the gaps in between in the models and through legs etc etc, but using this to fire direct fire weapons through units is total crap. From a realistic stand point, any fire fight I have been involved with in Afghanistan I wouldn't even think of firing at an enemy just because i could see him through gaps in between the legs of the squad in front of me. From a gaming standpoint, with fog of war (smoke, noise, etc) permeating the battlefield, a handgunner may catch glimpses or flashes of the enemy through their leading units but would hesitate to fire into the fray, much less an entire unit of them. As far as cannons go, I highly doubt that even the best trained artillerymen of the Empire arecapable of bouncing a cannon ball through their fellow soldiers legs and into enemy formations.

I feel like this is a blatent case of using RaW instead of RaI, and ignoring common sense for a gaming advantage. If he wanted to 'short charge' powder and lob shells over his infantry blocks then he should have taken an effin mortar.

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nosferatu1001 wrote:Envy - except you presumably missed the utterly slow range and LOS sniping that was so prevalent in 4th? Im glad they got rid of it.

Yup, I actually miss that a lot. It wasn’t hard at all to prevent it if you had a lick of tactical thinking at unit and model placement.

So I assume that you actually like the fact that the boys in the back of the mob of 30 that are running at you die when you shoot them?
Or the neophyte at the other table edge dies when you rapid fire plasma guns on the 20 strong templar squad... but wait, he makes his 4+ cover save because 10 neophytes and 1 marine are strung out behind terrain. Pay no attention to the fact that the fact that the only thing you had range to were 5 marines out in the open.

Or how about the good old, I can see 1 fire warrior in the squad... but the other 11 behind the building die.

nosferatu1001 wrote:Oh, and TLOS was suppsoed to be used for the majority of the time in 4th, but again people played the game poorly by having 100% area terrain.

I am all for TLOS when it comes to hills and the like. But when your have something like forest templates then that needs to be sized class. As I said before a TLOS forest templar would look like a forest... covered in trees and very impractical for gaming.

LOS blocking terrain is needed. There is no arguing that. And with pure TLOS there is little to nothing that block LOS to anything larger then Joe.

Envy89 wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:Envy - except you presumably missed the utterly slow range and LOS sniping that was so prevalent in 4th? Im glad they got rid of it.

Yup, I actually miss that a lot. It wasn’t hard at all to prevent it if you had a lick of tactical thinking at unit and model placement.

So I assume that you actually like the fact that the boys in the back of the mob of 30 that are running at you die when you shoot them?
Or the neophyte at the other table edge dies when you rapid fire plasma guns on the 20 strong templar squad... but wait, he makes his 4+ cover save because 10 neophytes and 1 marine are strung out behind terrain. Pay no attention to the fact that the fact that the only thing you had range to were 5 marines out in the open.

Or how about the good old, I can see 1 fire warrior in the squad... but the other 11 behind the building die.

Gamers will be gamers. I'm glad people in your area were sporting about TLOS and range sniping. Around here, they were real jerks. It's fine when you're considering JUST terrain. You know - stuck your sergeant out from behind a wall? HAH! You deserve to get plucked! Problem is when players ACTIVELY work to find such things. I drive two rhinos in front of your unit. Now I can only see the lascannon. Boom! It really made no sense considering in NORMAL wound allocation, you can take anyone you wanted, assuming that if it was a heavy weapon trooper that died, someone else picked up his gun. TLOS sniping went entirely against that, so they made it so that anyone in the unit could die [assuming that if it was the lascannon trooper that got killed, the guy that picks it up would be standing in his spot].

Of course then they introduced torrent of fire, which threw the fluff of picking up friendly weapons out the window. Ah well. Hitting 11 fire warriors that are out of LOS because of the 1 that isn't is just an abstraction of the battlefield. It assumes they aren't JUST standing there, they're moving about and thus more casualties are caused. Like you said about TLOS and range sniping though, this is easily managed by either making sure you're out of LOS entirely or, if they're seeing one guy, have him die during their first shooting attack so the others are spared. If they all die because of some ordnance blast centered on the guy they can see that kills almost the entire squad....

Well then what the heck are you thinking, man? Don't bunch them up like that!

As far as forests go, agree with your opponent. Make them unable to be seen THROUGH, just seen INTO or something. Most gorgeous gaming tables I've ever seen had SOLID forest templates filled with trees. But it was actually two templates - one with a ring of trees, one with a solid block. When someone moved into the template, they took out the center piece so they could move models in it. WHFB's generalization of "forests" that can be seen through is quite loose. It's easy to imagine a jungle or a thicker forest that DOES block LOS. Just build it that way. Use more obstacles and buildings in your fantasy games - look at the pictures in the book! 8th edition encourages a LOT more terrain on the board, way more than ANY of us are used to.

Also remember that obstacles like fences and walls [which you can get a LOT of, and scatter throughout the board, and don't impede movement at all] will block a cannonball. Once. After that, they're destroyed. Unless he lands his initial shot behind the wall, a bounce through will block the shot entirely. Keep that in mind and use terrain to your advantage!

Also, if cannons are what he's going to take a million of, take a ton [a TON] of small 5 or 10 man units of cheap core crap. Just run them all over along the flanks, etc. He can't deal with them all even with handgunners and the like [besides, he's got to focus on your heavy hitters] and you'll reach his cannons pretty quickly. There's also a variety of magic items and banners that give ward saves or regeneration to your units, the lore of life can resurrect dead people, and surely you have some offensive magic of your own that can take out cannons?

I'd also like to see that 50% cannons army face off against vampire counts. Wind of Undeath - HOW many units do you have? Ok, here's my unit of 4 bases of spirit hosts.

No assumption that the guns are firing over the heads of the troops?

Parabolic arcs and all that...

ZF-

Zad Fnark wrote:No assumption that the guns are firing over the heads of the troops?

Parabolic arcs and all that...

ZF-

You could assume that, but they would have to be able to see the unit. Looking through the legs doesnt cut it imo....

shooting through your own units should incur some penalties. When the draws line of sight, and the waist down is blocked by his own dudes, your unit should recieve at least soft cover, and in addition any rolls of a 1 may hit the unit they were shooting through!. Thats what i want to see.

Zad Fnark wrote:No assumption that the guns are firing over the heads of the troops?

Parabolic arcs and all that...

ZF-

Not according to the rules. In the op's situation the player should have drawn los from the barrel of the cannon. Unless the canon has been mounted on a 3" high base it should be impossible 99.9% of the time to draw los through ranked up troops. A laser pointer is a good investment, but it gooes both ways.

Fluffwise it makes sense. He's not shooting through anything. He's Aiming through them, firing over them, and hitting your units. Cannons fire in arcs. They don't roll along the ground, nor do they fly like a bullet. They ARC.

And yes, always have a laser pointed now.

cannonballs have to fire somewhat straight in order to bounce. If he is firing at the arc these guys are talking about they should be able to kill a single mode, cause that cannon ball is not going to bounce.

Not to mention the handgunners should have to take a toughness test or something from have a cannon discharged 3 feet away from them, otherwise they go deaf and cant hear orders.

"I'd also like to see that 50% cannons army face off against vampire counts. Wind of Undeath - HOW many units do you have? Ok, here's my unit of 4 bases of spirit hosts."

To which he replies.... where is your general? Ok here's my cannon balls.

The question however, is how would he be getting 50% cannons? If you're playing under 3000 points, he can only take 3, due to the duplicate rule. And if you're over 3000, he gets six. Either way, he can't get 50%


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ShivanAngel wrote:cannonballs have to fire somewhat straight in order to bounce. If he is firing at the arc these guys are talking about they should be able to kill a single mode, cause that cannon ball is not going to bounce.

Not to mention the handgunners should have to take a toughness test or something from have a cannon discharged 3 feet away from them, otherwise they go deaf and cant hear orders.

You're right, in order to roll along the ground taking out peoples toes, you have to fire in a straight line. Arcing however, causes a cannonball to bounce, the higher the arc, the higher the bounce, until it reaches the point that it "thuds". So admittedly, while it's not firing with the same arc as a mortar, cannoballs certainly fire high enough to clear the heads of an infantry unit.

Hahaha I do like the deaf thing though, nice.

Envy - ah yes, the old "only the stupid got affected by range/LOS sniping in 4th" fallacious defence on the utter fething awful rules.

No, movable terrain (aka cheap vehicles) meant that static heavy weapons teams were screwed by it. You also assume that the troops out of LOs are actually static....guess what, theyre not. If you can see one guy running left, just running out from behind cover, its a fair bet that his buddies are just behind the wooden fence....

But its fine, you just dont get the concept, good tihng is your view is irrelevant, as the designers of the game and the vast majority of gamers disagree with your view point.

Angron - and he replies "hidden behind this large of cavlary that is LOS blocking you, and even if you shoot them away I get a 2+ LOS from being in a unit of infantry" - oh, and winds of undeath, your cannon is gone.

Not to mention the spell that augments a unit such that direct-fire weapons have penalties, and non-BS weapons like warmachines require a 4+ to even be able to fire.

Yeah, there's plenty of stuff to prevent cannons from decimating an army.

Relative noob here, at least in terms of posting, but not playing, but:

While I'm sure this is annoying, I just can't see how it's "unrealistic".

This guy has cannons behind units of handgunners. He's firing them at your troops. His troops aren't really static, immobile statues. The handgunners could certainly kneel down to fire, giving the cannon a better field of fire. Heck, they could possibly even lie flat on the ground and fire at your troops. The cannon could certainly have been positioned on a small rise not modeled on a board. The cannon could be facing a shallow decline not modeled on the board. In addition, real handgunners could certain shift around a little bit to give a cannon behind them a better field of fire, by squeezing closer to the guy on the left or right (though this would be a bit harrowing, and I would certainly prefer to have a nice lie down instead.

In addition, your troops don't really stand around and then suddenly advance a large distance, then stop. Presumably, the cannons are actually firing AS your troops move forward, too.

There's plenty of abstractions in the game that penalize cannons as well. They need line of sight from the cannon's bore, and not from the crew who are actually aiming and firing the weapon? The cannon has a 1 in 6 chance of misfiring (who would use a weapon this unreliable?)? You can HIT people with a cannon ball and fail to injure them? Why can't I fire through my own troops, especially if they aren't valuable and loyal state troops, but are instead impressed Free Company, deranged religious camp followers, or untrustworthy mercenaries?

Yes, this guy sounds like he is maximizing his use of the abstractions that benefit him. On the other hand, he could be playing a completely kosher army using totally kosher tactics, with nothing but handgunners, mortars, cannons, and hell-blasters (and some heroes) lined up on the board edge just shooting you all game. If someone is determined to play a game which you personally find annoying or boring, don't play them. Have fun instead.

I agree that "True Line of Sight" is basically nothing if not a recipe for fiddly shots and argumentation.

But how can you draw LoS through legs... When the cannon is probably at chest height?

If he pointed the end dowards to see through the legs, then he would be shooting into the floor.

If one of the crew was looking through the legs, he can still then Only really guess where the enemy is he doesnt have a complete view. so the cannon shot wouldn't be very accurate. Plus when he stands back up to aim the cannon, that unit could of moved away.

With the handgunners, anything that is rank and file is trained and drilled to stand in that way.
If they all wanted to drop to the floor, an order would have to be barked, they all drop to floor, wait for everyone to be in position, cannon fires, they all have to get back up and back into firing position, then told to fire handguns.
By that way, they are probably into the enemy turn by now.
I know a 40k Turn is like 6 seconds or so? in the 40k world
WHFB turn probably isn't much longer

Do bolt throwers have bases? or can they be put on bases.
So could i model a giant rock on my bolt thrower base?
And see over everything.
I probably wouldnt make many friends

If we could lay off the veiled/not so veiled digs and attacks at each other, that'd be super. People are always going to have differing views and thoughts over the suitability of rules on game play, if we could understand that it makes things so much more pleasant for everyone.