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This should be a simple answer, but I've looked through the BRB and I'm not seeing a clear answer on it.

When deciding whether or not a squad gains the benefit of cover, do you take into account only those squad members who are FIRING, or the ENTIRE squad?

The problem came up yesterday in a game where I had a group of Orks standing in front of a squad of Termigaunts. The Gaunts had about 6 or 7 members right in front of the Orks with no intervening terrain, no problem. However, the squad had about 20 members to it, and the others were stretched out in a U shaped pattern that wound around OTHER Tyranid units. These other Gaunts WOULD be firing through a different squad to hit my Orks... except that they were OUT OF RANGE anyways.

So of the Gaunts that were in range to hit my Orks, I clearly did not have cover. However, if you count the entire squad, including those out of range, I would clearly have cover.

We played it such that the Gaunts that were out of range didn't count as far as giving me a cover save. From that, we extrapolated that only about 2 Gaunts in range were still shooting through another squad, which wasn't 50%, and thus I didn't get a save.

I'm fairly certain we played it right, but I'm having trouble finding in the BRB how exactly this should have played out. Any ideas?

You check line of sight and determine target before you measure range. So my understanding is that you work out cover before you check range.

You declare who is attempting (or not attempting) to shoot prior to measuring or resolving. Most of the time this doesn't matter because those shots miss automatically. However, those shots are still fired. Sometimes there are things that can happen as a result of attempting to shoot and these still apply. The textbook example is weapons that get hot.

As for a rulebook reference, there is no single reference that clarifies this. But the cover rules are written entirely with respect to the 'firer' or 'firers' rather than the 'firing unit'...

Right, so you declare which the models in the unit will be firing, work out cover, and only then check range to see how many of the models are in range.

So in the OP's question, if the 'nid player just declared "this unit is firing at the orks" then you would work out cover using all the Termigaunts. But if the 'nid player took a guess at which gaunts were in range and said "these gaunts are firing" then only the gaunts who were firing would be used to work out cover. Once, again before checking range to see which ones were actually in range.

Correct?

Correct.
As per page 16 LOS is traced from the eyes of the firing model to any part of the body of the target model.
Now as per page 21, a target model is in cover when any part of its body is obscured from the point of view of the firer.

So you first define which models are firing and check LOS.
Then you make sure that the target unit is in range.
Any firing models that are out of range miss automatically.
Then you check to see if any of the target models are obscured.
If so, those models are in cover.
Then if half or more or the target models are in cover, the unit gets a cover save.

Declare which models are firing, then figure out the cover/range situation. Models out of range still fire, but auto miss. The only thing I am unsure of is whether or not the auto miss shots still count for cover after you declare who is and isn't shooting.

-cgmckenzie

They count for cover as they are a firing model, and cover only cares who is firing, not who is in range.