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Would you get a cover save if somebody shoots a marker light shot at you? I mean it makes sense....

The only sticky on this page tells you where rules questions go.

Hint: you're in the wrong sub forum.

Says in the rules that units hit by markerlights get no saves of any kind.

And yeah, getting a cover save would make sense, but alas. Dumbness abounds 40k rules.

Well as a counter point, its not like they are shooting physical markers at them that could be deflected or blocked, but rather they are sitting still holding laser at that position telling the rest of the army to shoot here.

 Lobukia wrote:
The only sticky on this page tells you where rules questions go.

Hint: you're in the wrong sub forum.

Correct, please make sure to read all stickies in each sub forum before posting - I have moved you to the correct location

Just read the codex rules, its quite explicit.

In terms of fluff, cover and armour is not going to stop me from shining a spotlight or lazer pointer at you. I might be pointing on the wall in front of you or on your shoulderpad, but its on you nevertheless.

 McGibs wrote:
Says in the rules that units hit by markerlights get no saves of any kind.

And yeah, getting a cover save would make sense, but alas. Dumbness abounds 40k rules.

Cover saves are used to block wounds. Markerlights don't wound so rolling cover would do nothing anyway.

Rules wise you do not get any saves against markerlights because they do not cause wounds.

As an aside, fluff wise you would be able to try to duck and avoid a markerlight, but I imagine you would be more concerned with ducking the actual weapons being fired at you and not paying as much attention to a few laser pointers.

That and it's always questionable how noticeable the pointer is, modern military already have lasers who are only visible with special equipment.

Fluff wise, you should get a cover save from weapons that are using markerlight abilities. The guy sees that he/she is being "painted", and ducks behind a wall/bush/what-have-you.

Actually fluffwise, cover saves don't make sense, a forest won't magically stop 1/3 of the bullets/lasers/whatever fired at you it should just make you harder to hit.

True, but since 40k doesn't use To Hit modifiers (Lord only knows why not) that won't work....

By your logic, wouldn't that negate lascannons/ plasma weapons/ even bolters? As a bush wouldn't stop those ammo types either?

It's just a silly system that only leads to arguments is all i'm saying.

"cover saves" is just a name. They also represent "hard to hit." As shown when a skimmer gets a cover save for moving fast.

When foliage blocks rounds, it's implied that the people shooting are having a little trouble seeing the people they are shooting at and/or huge trunks are in the way that actually stop the round. It's " a little bit of both "

Yes, until GW decides that a to hit penalty should be the way cover works (which is more realistic and faster) cover is still a 'save'.

For what it's worth I believe that you 'should' be able to duck the markerlight (in the form of a cover save or perhaps just a straight d6 roll to notice you are being painted and avoid it). But alas, such is not included in the rules currently.

My advice therefore would be to slay that markerlight unit post haste so you can go back to enjoying your cover saves and such again.

The only way to avoid a markerlight is to be out of sight. This makes sense - the Tau only have to put a markerlight in your general location to say "hey! there's someone here". They've already rolled to hit, as well.
What DOESN'T make sense to me is that the markerlights can be used to grant Ignores Cover, because you could then be in a situation where someone's ducking behind a wall from incoming fire, do other Tau weapons magically phase through the wall or something...?

The ignores cover idea is that by locating the target so accurately the other Tau are able to fire around the cover or through small holes.

You want a really silly concept? FMC's hit by a marklighter have to make a Grounding test. Unless that was specifically ruled against in the Tau Codex. So flashlights can knock bugs out of the air.

There's nothing silly about laser pointers forcing a grounding test. Lasguns have been doing the same thing for months.

...wait.

People would have a lot easier time with this if they could wrap their heads around the fact that these are not Hollywood style bright red laser beams that let a character look down and say, 'Oh feth me!' when they see all the very obvious little red dots dancing over their chests. So models don't even known when they've got a markerlight lighting them up. Meanwhile, all the Tau's spiffy targeting tech is tuned in to catch the IR splash or whatever it is of the markerlights, which is what let's them do all of their fun stuff.

And just like in all threads where someone complains about bushes stopping lascannons, it's due to people not understanding how cover in 40K incorporates cover and concealment. When tall grass keeps a space marine from getting nuked by a plasma shot, it's not because a passed cover save means one tough blade of grass blocked the shot, but because of having an obscured view of the target, they didn't land a critical hit.

Now, markerlights downing FMCs is fairly silly, and I never understood why GW had it be hits that force the grounding test and not wounds.

At the end of the day GW does whatever they think is in the interest of sales, and a little game balance i guess.

As a point of note, 1st and 2nd ed 40k used to hit modifiers... It was no faster and you had just as many arguments...

 Massaen wrote:
As a point of note, 1st and 2nd ed 40k used to hit modifiers... It was no faster and you had just as many arguments...

Indeed, this is correct. It was one of the biggest changes from 2nd to 3rd, modifiers as a whole got thrown out the window - for normal armour saves as well. A 1,000 point game then takes about as long as a 1,500 point battle now... and most units were twice the points back then.
I am in NO rush to see modifiers return en masse.

Indeed, this is correct. It was one of the biggest changes from 2nd to 3rd, modifiers as a whole got thrown out the window - for normal armour saves as well. A 1,000 point game then takes about as long as a 1,500 point battle now... and most units were twice the points back then. I am in NO rush to see modifiers return en masse.

Indeed it took longer if someone brought Terminators. You'd be there all week doing Terminators vs Genestealers in combat... It also had horrendous balance issues (wolf guard with cyclone missiles AND an assault cannon on EVERY guy).

 Super Ready wrote:

 Massaen wrote:
As a point of note, 1st and 2nd ed 40k used to hit modifiers... It was no faster and you had just as many arguments...

Indeed, this is correct. It was one of the biggest changes from 2nd to 3rd, modifiers as a whole got thrown out the window - for normal armour saves as well. A 1,000 point game then takes about as long as a 1,500 point battle now... and most units were twice the points back then.
I am in NO rush to see modifiers return en masse.

Although to be honest, the game lengths had nothing to do with the hit modifiers themselves but more with all the other fiddly stuff going on.

Remember that all the dice you roll are mechanisms designed to determine the effectiveness of a particular model. Having a cover save is no different in concept to applying a modifier to a to-hit roll. The ultimate effect is that cover makes it more difficult to kill things. How exactly that is determined is up to the rules writer. GW has decided that markerlights should not be affected by cover, fine, its their game. Also given that markerlights can also be used to remove cover bonusses it makes sense that they are not affected by cover themselves. Maybe the markerlight beam does some kind of 3d scan of the target unit taking into account topology and composition of the enemy position, allowing other units to take precision shots, or just highlight weak spots.

Yeah, being able to get a cover save makes perfect sense!
We've all seen those videos of the US military shooting laser guided missiles into masses of people, vehicles and military vehicles. They all knew there was a missile or bomb on it's way so they were all prepared for it when the detonations happened...

If you want to talk reality then NO, you would not be able to get a cover save because you wouldn't be aware of being panted with a laser of a spectrum the human eye can't see and because even if you did the missile/bomb on it's way only needs to hit anywhere within 10-20m of you to kill you with the blast. So hiding behind a bush, wall, rock, bunker, inside a frickin tank wouldn't help at all. Modern day weaponry is designed to take you out and everyone within 25m of you.

And the Tau use weaponry we only have theories about. In reality you would get no cover save from any rail weapon either as it would simply pass through your cover, you and the 10 houses behind you.

As for realism, you absolutely should get a cover save from a markerlight.

I've tried to "mark" targets in cover plenty of times (with a PEQ on an M4, which is invisible to the target), it makes it significantly more difficult.

Gamewise: No, no cover saves. Remember, 40k isn't "real" It's a system of rules that sometimes make sense, sometimes don't.

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
Yeah, being able to get a cover save makes perfect sense!
If you want to talk reality then NO, you would not be able to get a cover save because you wouldn't be aware of being panted with a laser of a spectrum the human eye can't see and because even if you did the missile/bomb on it's way only needs to hit anywhere within 10-20m of you to kill you with the blast. So hiding behind a bush, wall, rock, bunker, inside a frickin tank wouldn't help at all. Modern day weaponry is designed to take you out and everyone within 25m of you.

That is assuming that you play imperial forces. Remember there are other races, and these races may be able to see whatever spectrum you are using in your lasers. Also these races maybe quite a bit tougher than humans which means the relative power of weapons as compared to humans is meaningless

 MadCowCrazy wrote:
And the Tau use weaponry we only have theories about. In reality you would get no cover save from any rail weapon either as it would simply pass through your cover, you and the 10 houses behind you.

As has been previously stated in this thread a cover save does not necessary mean what you are hiding behind blocked the round, it is just as probable if not more so that the reason they didn't hurt you is because they hit were they thought you were but because of the wall, bush, fence, rubble, didn't see you move to the left a foot or so.