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Okay, so this came up in a recent game I had. My Fire Warriors had 4 models in cover and 8 out of it. The Necron Immortals were firing at them as shown in the picture.
My opponent chose to focus fire at the models not in cover. While focus fire makes perfect sense usually, I find it very confusing in this instance. Mainly because in
order to focus on the models outside of cover, the Necrons must shoot right through the front 4 FW. Say he deals 7 wounds, focus fire and LOS say that the 7 closest
models outside of cover are killed. This leaves a very odd scenario where the 4 actual closest FW are untouched and the ones behind the the front 4 and the cover die.
RAW this is allowed, I think, so we allowed it. Although to me, and my opponent, does not really make sense in practice. Any input?

Yep, that's how it works. When it comes to Area Terrain, the models are assumed to be ducking and weaving (or whatever Necrons are wont to do) behind pieces of debris that aren't necessarily represented by the actual terrain piece. The guys that are further back don't have anything to hide behind, so can be seen more clearly.

It's just an abstraction to show that the leading guys aren't necessarily exactly where the models show.

Ah. Yeah that makes sense.

Except that terrain looks like a forest, if that was the case then all of the models pictured above would have a 5+ cover save.

P.102 Forest section, Cover Save graph has the info you need.

"It states "if one or more model in a shooting unit have to trace their line of sight through a forest (because they are shooting at a model beyond the forest) then the model being shot benefits from a 5+ cover save."
So then those FW would have had cover saves. Yes.

If it was hive guards shooting at them though; since they ignore cover that models aren't in or touching, the FW outside the forest wouldn't get a cover save if the HG focus fired?

 mh_mini wrote:
If it was hive guards shooting at them though; since they ignore cover that models aren't in or touching, the FW outside the forest wouldn't get a cover save if the HG focus fired?

Correct.

Your scenario would also work with any kind of general area terrain rather than forest.