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I'm having a hard time with the new 8th edition true line of sight. The only explanation of how to find my unit's LOS is given on pg 10 of the BRB, "For one model to have line of sight to another you must be able to trace an unblocked line from it's eyes to any part of the body (i.e. the head, torso, arms, or legs) of the target".

It seems simple but the problem I have with that explanation is that there is no mention of the frontal arc of the unit (or model for that matter). If taken literally the above seems to say that a unit has a 180 degree LOS taking the line from the models eyes and being unable to turn it's head. If we treat our models as abstractions as we are generally encouraged to do elsewhere and allow them to turn their heads they pretty much have 360 LOS. This seems to be the clearest explanation I can find since I'm not seeing any models which get 360 LOS as a special rule (as lone characters did in 7th).

This gets weirder when I go on and look at charging where the only restrictions I can see on declaring charges is that the charge must be possible and in line of sight, pg 16. The only other major restriction I can see here is that the unit can only make one wheel of up to 90 degrees during it's charge but this leaves the unit with a 180 degree charge arc. Hence the target of a charge doesn't seem to need to be in the front arc of the charging unit.

In magic on pg 31 being in the forward arc and having LOS are two separate requirements which vary based on on the spell type. The reason I bring it up is they appear to be distinctly separate here. Shooting on pg 39 also mentions needing both LOS and that the target be in the frontal arc of the unit.

What brought all this up for me is a lizardman magic banner "The Plaque of Dominion" which causes any enemy wizard within 18" which can draw line of sight to the unit carrying it to roll for stupidity at the beginning of it's turn. This seems particularly strong with the new LOS rules.

So guys, am I reading this right? What do you think?

As a completely separate note it looks like you can use the generals LD for stupidity checks now. Pg 76 & pg 107, stupidity doesn't mention using the models own ld statistic and inspiring presence doesn't mention only using the generals LD for specific tests.

Page 16 - in order to declare a charge you must have LOS AND the enemy must be in the front arc. Top of the second column.

You can use Generals leadership AND the reroll on ANY leadership test now.

Ah wonderful, thank you for pointing that out on the charges. So for most spells, charging and shooting the front arc is still needed. I'm rather relieved by that.

However it does look like things like the plaque of dominion or say the casket of souls are going to be pretty nasty though.

I strongly suspect that the Line of Sight rules are going to be heavily fudged in almost every game. I can't come up with a consistent way to play it, only that there's really no chance anyone is going to use the Rules As Written. Aside from the absurdity of models which are posed in a particular direction, there's the larget problem of "eyes". If your models don't have eyes (skeletons, guys with full helms, etc.), then they have no line of sight, and cannot charge or shoot anything.

Clearly, very few people are going to seriously try to argue that. On the other hand, there's no rules support for anything else. I cannot help but suspect this was deliberately done as a tweak to "Rules as Written" gamers (annoying, since I've never heard anyone complain that a rule set was too clearly written).

Note also that Chaos Spawn, and other models which have eyes in weird places, will now be able to trace all sorts of peculiar Lines of Sight.