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Had a little argument regarding covers on my last game with a friend, guess i'd take this here to dakka since we can't seem to decide if a unit gets cover or not.

I had a unit of 10 zerks run behind some ruins that managed to keep off LoS 7 of the 10 models, on the next turn my friend fires some missile launches at the zerks from a unit that can clearly see the 3 zerks left out and which are the closest models to the missiles. Being our 2nd game with 6th ed. I though that just as in the past eds if the majority of my models were obscured they were granted a cover save unless he declared focus fire on those that were out of cover which he didn't, but he went unto say that those 3 zerks didn't get anything more than a missile to their faces. So we went to the BRB.

The BRB mentions on pg. 18 that the cover is given depending on the target model's body but I can't seem to find anything regarding a unit, and this was my friends argument since it doesn't mention units, he went on to say that if the closest model he sees isn't in cover it doesn't get a save until he kills all the no cover models and then move to the ones on the ruins. After reading that and for the sake of the game speed I took them out and keep going with the game.

Looking at the picture on pg. 19 The example has 3 orks out of cover, 3 on a 4+ cover and 4 on 5+, it then goes on to explaining about focus fire which I get, but at the end it says "or take their chances against the whole unit." and i'm not sure on what does this exactly mean... like take shoot at the closest model which is one of the blue no cover models without any save, remove it and then determine which is the closest after that one dies, if it is in cover take a cover if not remove another model and so on or treat the whole unit as in 5+/4+ cover?

Cover is now worked out model by model basis. I can't post a page ref at the mo but I will when I get home unless a fellow dakka beats me to it

Cover is determined on a model by model basis. During the wound Allocation, if the model being shot had 25% cover from ANY firer, he may make a cover save.

Wounds are allocated by the closest model. So it sounds like in your case, the closest guys did not have a cover save. So they would be removed without cover saves. All your models out of LOS cannot have wounds allocated to them.

Now, for another example. Assume that you had 4 guys in a crater and 4 guys behind in the open. The 4 in the crater have a 4+ cover save and are the closest models to the shooter. Here is when you will want to focus fire. You can shoot the guys in the open behind the 4 in the crater and not have them take cover saves. The downside is that you cannot kill the 4 in the crater.

Start of page 18: "Often, you'll find enemy models are partially hidden or obscured by terrain - - Where this is the case, the model will be entitled to a cover save. - - If, when you come to allocate a Wound, the target model's body is at least 25% obscured - - Wounds allocated to that model receive a cover save."

This means that the ork unit in the example on p. 19 is a mixed save unit, and wounds go to closest first, with each model using the best cover save it has, if the Marines do not Focus Fire.

Oh ok, good. That pretty much sums it up. If the closest models to your unit have a worst cover save or no save at all you should never use focus fire since the enemy unit will need to save with the worst cover save anyway. Got it.