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Jackmojo wrote:
Sure you ignore them, so I cannot draw a line of sight to the rock your miniature stands on or whatever, but if I go get a models eye view its still in the way, so no LOS can exist through them.

Ignoreing them doesn't make them transparent, and no where do the rules allow or provide for moving them to check line of sight (permissive ruleset).

Jack

Actually, if you ignore them, you pretend they are not there, and check LoS as if they were not there. This may lead to some estimation, but that is okay, since we have something we are told to ignore actually blocking LoS.

you get the models eye view, then, if a scenic rock or other decorative elements that players might have placed on the base are in the way, you do not count them for LoS purposes, since we are told by the rules to ignore them.

In reality we have to do the best we can with LoS that goes through scenic bases, look a little bit above the head and determine what the model can see if the scenic rock or other decorative element were not there.

That's rather my point, if you're imagining a line of sight that is not there in actuality (which is fine play it however you want with your friends) then you're doing something the rules do not allow for, hence cheating (again however well intentioned).

I'm not trying to make a value judgement on how anyone plays the game, I'm just observing that no where do the rules allow you to do what you're suggesting.

Jack

Except it isn't cheating because this is covered in the rules.

they give you explicit permission to abstract when this situation occurs. Ergo, it isn't cheating.

Game rules are always abstraction, and they have to find a good trade off between realism and fun.

My experiences with TLOS are good. I have never had any problems with it. Most opponents I played haven't been bitchy at all, since anybody nitpicking about TLOS will just make you nitpick about it in his turns as well. On the other hand all opponents I played against since I started again in 5th ed are 20 years or older.

Usually situations like the one with the Tau from earlier in this thread are solved like "Well, if the model would kneel down (maybe some of the models in the unit are actually modeled kneeling, e.g. Eldar rangers) it could shoot through below the vehicle, so it's ok with me".

The problem are probably competitive situations without a competent judge.

IMO, TLOS is a necessary addition to the game. It's not used all the time either. I've only really used it a few times, mainly firing over terrain like walls.

insaniak wrote:

DAaddict wrote:... but because of the nature of the game, forests turn into orchards with well tended grounds in between the trees. Forest (orchard) templates 8" thick can be seen through by TLOS.

That's not entirely the fault of the game. The blame there lies far more heavily on the shoulders of people being lazy when crafting their forest terrain pieces. If you make your terrain pieces a little more involved than 3 trees stuck to a piece of cardboard, they can block considerably more LOS.

Well I don't qualify it as lazy either. I would call it prudent as the person does not want to model deadfall and brush only to see some yahoo jam his 30 figs into the terrain piece. Modeling terrain that is going to get wrecked is not a good idea nor is is too good to make "realistic" rubble or forests where you are going to frustrate players with placing their troops.


Why can't we just say -if it is on dark green felt it is forest if it is on lime green felt it is orchard? Because the TLOS zealot will say he can see it no matter what...

I have always read it as Jackmojo states.

You are 100% allowed to have a model "bring cover" for a different unit.

That is what cover saves for intervening units are for.

You are not allowed to claim a cover save from a model's own base, but it is allowed for a DIFFERENT unit to do so. This occurs regularly when the table is not flat, even without scenic bases.
ymmv

sirrah wrote:

DAaddict wrote:

sirrah wrote:

DAaddict wrote:


As an eldar who used to play heavy weapons platforms - sorry TLOS screws with it. I have yet to see a forest modeled like a forest where you lose anything more than 6' inside of it (to scale 1") so instead we have forests that are more like well tended orchards with mown grass and neatly lined up trees so that everyone can see through to the other side.

TLOS is both good and bad. Do not blow sunshine up my $#@@@ and tell me tha TLOS is wonderful. I will not say that the sun has fallen from the sky either that we have TLOS.

It is a mixed blessing but I am not gushing like GW that now I get the priviledge of bending over my model and getting the true perspective of what it can see.

Forests aren't supposed to block line of sight, they grant a 4+ cover save.

Walk out your door - assuming you have natural forests about. Just see how far in you can see. There is underbrush and overgrowth that darn near makes a forest impossible to see through. The silly thing is that city scapes are now the terrain of choice. A wall is a wall is a wall. If it doesn't have a window, nothing can see through it. My point it small clumps of natural forests totally block LOS like a wall but because of the nature of the game, forests turn into orchards with well tended grounds in between the trees. Forest (orchard) templates 8" thick can be seen through by TLOS.

But if forests are modelled to block LOS then what is the point of it granting a cover save? The 4+ save for shooting through forests is an abstraction, like bolters only shooting 120ft.

The point is the death of fire and redeploy armies. (Tau battlesuits, EJB) and the death of the usefulness and the value of indirect fire. (How many whirlwinds have you seen lately?? Also playing E HWP is a total wast of time...) So you will see them still but half of their value ( and half of what you are paying for) is lost with the current rendition of TLOS.

Grey Templar wrote:Except it isn't cheating because this is covered in the rules.

they give you explicit permission to abstract when this situation occurs. Ergo, it isn't cheating.

I guess we'll just have to agree that you read far more into the scenic base guidelines then I do.

I see it as strictly identical to the "banners and wings" LOS rules, i.e. you cannot claim LOS to a model because of them, but they're still there to get in the way.

Jack

Jackmojo wrote:I see it as strictly identical to the "banners and wings" LOS rules, i.e. you cannot claim LOS to a model because of them, but they're still there to get in the way.
Jack

That leads to some crazy MFA.

Like building assault marines with extra scenic bits that just happen to cover 50% of your advancing land raiders...

Sure, but if the rules didn't allow for it so called modeling for advantage wouldn't exist.

Again you can achieve the same things with extra large daemon wings, or plenty of oldschool back banners, so its hardly unique.

Jack

DeathReaper wrote:Like building assault marines with extra scenic bits that just happen to cover 50% of your advancing land raiders...

Have you not seen the pirate ship orks?

Or played against a Harpy with vertical wings? (Especially one that is basically a standing, winged Trygon)

Or seen anyone with a large banner claim cover saves for the unit behind it?

insaniak wrote:

DAaddict wrote:... but because of the nature of the game, forests turn into orchards with well tended grounds in between the trees. Forest (orchard) templates 8" thick can be seen through by TLOS.

That's not entirely the fault of the game. The blame there lies far more heavily on the shoulders of people being lazy when crafting their forest terrain pieces. If you make your terrain pieces a little more involved than 3 trees stuck to a piece of cardboard, they can block considerably more LOS.

And in doing so the forests become impossible to game with, because no models can be placed in them. They also become much more difficult to create in the first place, which is a big deal for a lot of people.

This sums up my problem with terrain in 40k, and why I still apply area terrain almost universally. For terrain to be effective at granting TLOS, it needs to be detailed and realistic enough to truly be line of sight blocking. No abstractions, no substitutions. This now puts it directly at odds with the practicality of construction and ease use in an actual game. Just try accurately the chaotic rubble pile of a collapsed building, or a dense tangle of forest undergrowth - then try to make enough to cover a whole table - THEN try standing models up on/in them. It's expensive and exhausting to build and frustrating to play on. Or you do what most players do, and play with inadequate cover, which even further reduces the game down to point-shoot-charge.

kirsanth wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:Like building assault marines with extra scenic bits that just happen to cover 50% of your advancing land raiders...

Have you not seen the pirate ship orks?

Or played against a Harpy with vertical wings? (Especially one that is basically a standing, winged Trygon)

Or seen anyone with a large banner claim cover saves for the unit behind it?

Banners and wings are specifically exempted. Bad examples.

Ghaz wrote:Area terrain was a good rule in 4th edition. The only problem was that too many players tried to apply it to situations where it did not apply, ie all of the time.

+ 1 to this!

Ghaz was the first person to make me read the rules for it again back in 4th... 95% of people played it wrong

pretre wrote:Banners and wings are specifically exempted. Bad examples.

That is why they are good examples, actually.
I am not talking about TARGETING the wings/banners, I am talking about them blocking LOS to another unit, which they can do. You cannot target THROUGH something that blocks LOS, that is sort of the point of using it.

kirsanth wrote:

DeathReaper wrote:Like building assault marines with extra scenic bits that just happen to cover 50% of your advancing land raiders...

Have you not seen the pirate ship orks?

Or played against a Harpy with vertical wings? (Especially one that is basically a standing, winged Trygon)

Or seen anyone with a large banner claim cover saves for the unit behind it?

Never actually seen any of those things.

Either way, if someone tries to let something, that the rules tell us to ignore, affect the game, there is going to be an issue.

You can target through something that the game specifically tells us to ignore.

Specifically "Scenic rocks or other decorative elements that players might have placed on the base... are always ignored from the point of view of determining cover"

So back banners and the like block LoS, but a scenic base the size of a land raider does not block LoS

DeathReaper wrote:Never actually seen any of those things.

Let's try an easy one then: Gargoyles can grant MCs cover saves?

If they were to actually cover 50% of the model? Yes.

If they were on a Land raider sized base and the Scenic base blocked LoS? No.

The rules only tell us to ignore Rocks and decorative elements on the models base. Banners hanging off the back, and Wings block LoS just fine to things behind said model RAW.

I just wanted to add about the whole forests thing:

I have been all around the world, and almost never have I seen a forest where you can't see a good 50-100 feet ahead of you. Forests with 6 foot high underbrush are not exactly common. Sure, a lot of stuff is obscured, that is why the game gives us a 4+ cover save. Unless you're playing on a board that is literally covered with trees, it is hard to imagine not being able to see through the forest.

If forests truly were as you claim, hunting would be impossible. Deer hunters do not sneak up within a few meters of their prey and shoot, they shoot it from a good distance away. You can see through forests just fine, to think otherwise is just silly.

In game terms, not being able to see through the trees would mean you also couldn't see out. At that point, why even use a forest? Just put a giant boulder there, since you can't see through it at all anyway.

40K is a game, and as many have said the rules are abstractions. When your models can see the enemy hiding behind those trees over there, it is a lot smoother and immersive to say that they can trace LOS, as opposed to saying "the rules say you can't see through trees, so ignore what you actually see."

4+ cover for being in a forest makes sense, both ruleswise and when compared to real life.

CalgarsPimpHand wrote:And in doing so the forests become impossible to game with, because no models can be placed in them.

It's not an either/or situation. There is a middle ground.

So many forest bases are just a flat base with a couple of trees on it. You can very easily scatter a few smaller terrain features through the trees (rocks, smaller bushes, etc) to help block LOS without making it impossible to place models.

If you want to get carried away, you can also build your forest bases as dense as you want with undergrowth, and just have the individual bushes/trees/whatever magnetised so that you can pull them off to place models... something the rules specifically allow for in this edition.

They also become much more difficult to create in the first place, which is a big deal for a lot of people.

That was more or less my point.

Although gluing 3 trees and a few rocks and bushes to a piece of cardboard really doesn't fit my definition of 'much more difficult' than just gluing three trees to a piece of cardboard...

For terrain to be effective at granting TLOS, it needs to be detailed and realistic enough to truly be line of sight blocking.

Not all terrain on the board is supposed to completely block LOS.

The rulebook recommends a mixture of terrain, some completely blocking LOS and some that just gets in the way a little.

That is what we do at my LGS. Place a piece of felt down to represent trees. If more than one "tree" is placed on the felt it is considered to be thick and block LOS. One tree and it just provides a cover save.

Has anyone here actually made his Guants so they are crawling or Daemon wings so large they span half the table?

Boss GreenNutz wrote:Has anyone here actually made his Guants so they are crawling or Daemon wings so large they span half the table?

I've seen at least one army (online, not in person) with crawling gaunts. The Ork Sail Truck also popped up a few years ago. That sort of thing isn't as common as internet discussions would have you believe, as players are generally self-policing over modelling abuse... People who indulge in that sort of thing tend to wind up with nobody wanting to play them.

The 'infamous' kneeling Wraithlord has been presented as an example of the difficiencies of the 40K LOS system since 2nd edition... and in more than 15 years of playing this game, I've personally come across 2 of them. And one of those was purely a display piece.

Boss GreenNutz wrote:That is what we do at my LGS. Place a piece of felt down to represent trees. If more than one "tree" is placed on the felt it is considered to be thick and block LOS. One tree and it just provides a cover save.

Do you have pieces of felt for buildings and hills as well?

pretre wrote:
Also, you know what's really annoying about TLoS? These threads.

A little snarky of a post, but, yeah. Everything you said was true.

I think what everyone... really, almost everyone, fails to grasp is that a game of this level isn't chess. It isn't designed to be an Olympic regulated sport. It's the same as any role playing game or any game that relies very heavily on the fluff - and on constantly updated source-books for income. This game was made for two buddies having a mock up war in the far future who want to create an interesting war story, with some drinks and some laughs. It isn't meant to be played for pink slips by grisly thugs out to win at any cost. The codexes are imbalanced and that will never change. The rules will be simultaneously crippling and yet abusable, and that will never change. If you're playing it the way it was designed to be played, that shouldn't matter. The people who design this game give you the trust, perhaps misplaced, that you won't be a douche.

The TLOS rules can be abused in anything as abstract as models and human opinion. The idea was to quickly ascertain who can shoot, while simultaneously putting the player in the game, with their battlefield, with their soldiers. It's not perfect and it made no intention of being so.

I guess that sounded kind of snarky too. I guess I'm venting at the community at large, there.

pretre wrote:

Boss GreenNutz wrote:That is what we do at my LGS. Place a piece of felt down to represent trees. If more than one "tree" is placed on the felt it is considered to be thick and block LOS. One tree and it just provides a cover save.

Do you have pieces of felt for buildings and hills as well?

I have the good fortune of being the president of a gaming club that has over 150 paid members. We have the priveledge of owning enough terrain to have actual hills and buildings.

diesel7270 wrote:I think what everyone... really, almost everyone, fails to grasp is that a game of this level isn't chess. It isn't designed to be an Olympic regulated sport. It's the same as any role playing game or any game that relies very heavily on the fluff - and on constantly updated source-books for income. This game was made for two buddies having a mock up war in the far future who want to create an interesting war story, with some drinks and some laughs. It isn't meant to be played for pink slips by grisly thugs out to win at any cost. The codexes are imbalanced and that will never change. The rules will be simultaneously crippling and yet abusable, and that will never change. If you're playing it the way it was designed to be played, that shouldn't matter. The people who design this game give you the trust, perhaps misplaced, that you won't be a douche.

The TLOS rules can be abused in anything as abstract as models and human opinion. The idea was to quickly ascertain who can shoot, while simultaneously putting the player in the game, with their battlefield, with their soldiers. It's not perfect and it made no intention of being so.

I guess that sounded kind of snarky too. I guess I'm venting at the community at large, there.

I wouldn't say that was snarky at all.

On the contrary, I agree with everything you said and I wish more people could see things this way.

sirrah wrote:

insaniak wrote:

sirrah wrote:That is not how LOS works, now or ever.

From 5th ed. RB:

In order to select an enemy unit as a target, at least one model in the firing unit must have line of sight to at least one model in the target unit.

That allows the unit to choose the enemy as a target, yes... but you can still only shoot with the individual models that have LOS themselves.

Bugger, really? It doesn't really change much though, checking one model is about as quick as skimming a whole squad.

edit: right, sorry! I was getting confused with only needing to draw LOS to one member of the target in 5th.

Selecting a unit as a target is one thing. One member of a unit must be able to see any one member of another unit.
But, counting up shooters still uses TLOS per model? Ignoring its own unit members, anything that blocks LOS to the target unit still prevents that model from firing?

As for kneeling models, I count kneelers as standing for both shooting and being shot.
There's always one who'll pop his head up when the firing starts.

Skinnereal wrote:
Selecting a unit as a target is one thing. One member of a unit must be able to see any one member of another unit.
But, counting up shooters still uses TLOS per model? Ignoring its own unit members, anything that blocks LOS to the target unit still prevents that model from firing?

Only models that can draw LOS to at least one model in the target unit can fire, so yeah.

lledwey wrote:I just wanted to add about the whole forests thing:

I have been all around the world, and almost never have I seen a forest where you can't see a good 50-100 feet ahead of you. Forests with 6 foot high underbrush are not exactly common. Sure, a lot of stuff is obscured, that is why the game gives us a 4+ cover save. Unless you're playing on a board that is literally covered with trees, it is hard to imagine not being able to see through the forest.

50-100 feet isn't exactly good visability in an age where we have rifles that can kill from miles away. at that distance it is hard to miss, any further and you can't see anything.

Some forests allow you to see a good distance. the question is, could you see an entire Battle tank if it was parked somewhere.

Oak forests are quite difficult to see more then 50-60 feet if they are moderatly dense. If they are completely unmanaged you might be lucky to move 100 feet in 20 minutes much less see that far.

Redwood forests, if they are old growth, can be extremely dense and thats just the trees themselves. there is very little undergrowth.