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Last night I played against Eldar and twice in the game my opponent and me had infantry units partially hidden behind things. We tried to figure out how cover saves would work we did not manage to do so.

Case 1 : My leman Russ MBT decided to shoot his Swooping hawks which were hidden behind a destroyed vehicule after a DS. My tank had LoS on 1/3 of his unit and score a direct hit with its battle cannon (ordnance 1). The center of the plate bypassed the wreck and ended up on his SH first rank, covering 3/4 of the unit. Did the SH have the right to claim a 5+ cover save as they were partially hidden, or were we right to say the center of explosion was just front in of them so no cover?

Case2 : Pretty much the same but with his Fire Prism. From the turret of the tank, he could only see the head of my Veteran Sergeant, every other model of the 10men squad being completly hidden. He shot and roll a hit!. I had no other choice than accepting my guys would not get cover saves as I wiped out his Hawks on preceding turn.

What is the exact rule about this then?

For non-Barrage Blasts, the template is only used to calculate the number of hits. All other shooting rules, like determining cover saves and allocating wounds, are exactly the same as with any other weapon type - that is, you check LOS from the shooting model, and measure ranges from the shooting model. It doesn't matter where the centre of the blast ended up.

I ran into similar situation a month ago. A friend fired his Hellhound's torrenting flamer, and wrapped it around a building to hit the whole squad. Since many of the members in the squad were completely out of line of sight, we looked up in the rulebook how flamers and template weapons worked. It's spelled out pretty clearly that you cannot assign wounds to models you have no LoS to.

Not only that, but so long as 25% of the model is covered by intervening terrain between the model firing the shot and the target, then you get a cover save. This applies even when there's no intervening terrain from the centre of the blast marker. The only time this doesn't apply is with Barrage weapons, as its rules state specifically that you determine cover from the centre of the blast.


So,

Case #1 - They should claim a 5+ cover save from being partially hidden, but determine it on a model by model basis. So if the closest 3 models had no cover but the next 3 had some cover, and you scored 6 wounds, then he'd first remove 3 models, then he'd make 3 cover saves. If his closest 3 had cover, but the next 3 had no cover, then he'd make 3 saves and remove models, and then if he passed any of those saves he'd make additional saves, continuing to remove models until he arrives at the 3 that had no cover. Any excess wounds at that point would cause models to be removed with a save (Example: Rolls 3 dice, makes 1 save, and removes 2 models, with 3 wounds remain to be saved. He rolls 1 die, fails to save, and removes 1 model. There's still 2 wounds remaining to be saved, but without any cover he just immediately removes two more models).

If any Swooping Hawks were completely obscured, then those models can't die from the blast, even if there's more wounds to be applied.


Case #2 - In this, it seems that if only the head of the Veteran Sergeant was visible, then you'd calculate the number of hits based on the blast, and make that many saves. In this case, you should DEFINITELY get a cover save. Not only that, but regardless of how many saves you fail, you could only remove the Veteran Sergeant as a casualty, as no others are in LoS to the Fire Prism.

You are getting confused with the Barrage rule. Only blasts with the Barrage rule check for cover from the center of the blast marker.

All other blasts determine cover with normal shooting rules so both units would have had cover.

Solid copy. Thank you for help !

Subsidiary question though : does infantry get increasing cover saves for being more or less masked behind scenery stuff, just like vehicules do?

Just my 2 cents but I believe the following is the correct way to resolve these:

Case 1 - Regardless of the final position of the blast marker, cover saves are determined on a model by model basis based on line of sight between the firing model and the models in the unit. In this case, it sounds as though some of the Swooping Hawks would have received a 5+ cover save and some would not.

Case 2 - This one seems pretty clear cut. All of the models hit should have received a cover save.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Solid copy. Thank you for help !

Subsidiary question though : does infantry get increasing cover saves for being more or less masked behind scenery stuff, just like vehicules do?

No, non-vehicle models don't benefit from that rule. And even in the case of vehicles, they only get enhanced cover if the facing they are shooting at is completely obscured, but another facing is not. So, for example, if a Chimera just has the front of its facing poking out past a building, but you are shooting at it in the side arc, then you shoot and calculate armour penetration based on the side armour, but the Chimera will get an improved cover save since only its front armour is visible.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Solid copy. Thank you for help !

Subsidiary question though : does infantry get increasing cover saves for being more or less masked behind scenery stuff, just like vehicules do?

No. They get the cover the piece of terrain gives them.

So, for example, if a Chimera just has the front of its facing poking out past a building, but you are shooting at it in the side arc, then you shoot and calculate armour penetration based on the side armour, but the Chimera will get an improved cover save since only its front armour is visible.

Ok fine.

All this cover save stuff is really weird because direct-fired shells explode pretty much the same as barrage shells falling from the sky. The impact is actually under the center of the plate isn't it?

Many rules complications for not-so realistic effects on the TT i think.

Pretty much same answer as all above:

Case 1 - Cover saves on a model per model basis. If the closest Swooping Hawk was out in the open, no cover save. Once he dies, you check the next Hawk: he's partly behind the wreck, so he get a cover save. Keep going until you run out of Wounds in the Wound Pool, all the Hawk are dead, or until they are completely out of sight from the tank (those "can't die" )

Case 2 - Clearly he could only see the head of your Veteran Sergeant: that was the only model that he could kill. If the Blast template covered 5 models, then the Veteran Sergeant would have to take saves against 5 Wounds, but only he can die, if the rest of the squad was out of sight

3) No, it's an "all or nothing situation":
- They are in terrain, or 25% hidden by something, they get that specific cover save.
- They are in the open, or slightly hidden (like 20% hidden), they get no cover save.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 RazgrizOne wrote:
The impact is actually under the center of the plate isn't it?

Nope, closest model to the firing Unit takes the Hit, and it works backwards.
In the exact same way that you would resolve Bolter/Lasgun Shots.

The template is only used to "count" how many Hits you get.

The way you describe it is only for weapons with "barrage".

 RazgrizOne wrote:

So, for example, if a Chimera just has the front of its facing poking out past a building, but you are shooting at it in the side arc, then you shoot and calculate armour penetration based on the side armour, but the Chimera will get an improved cover save since only its front armour is visible.

Ok fine.

All this cover save stuff is really weird because direct-fired shells explode pretty much the same as barrage shells falling from the sky. The impact is actually under the center of the plate isn't it?

Many rules complications for not-so realistic effects on the TT i think.

Yeah, it's kinda messed up, but thems the rules. There used to be rules detailing how the centre point was full strength, but further out was lesser strength. It was silly, because it meant that even the strongest blasts in the galaxy had next to no chance of harming anything that it didn't score a direct hit on. Sure it makes sense that the point of impact will be stronger, but how should you otherwise handle those blasts without requiring a massive change (which, one could argue, the Apocalyptic Mega Blast, with the 3 areas of damage, sort of does)? The rules (should) exist to define what happens in every situation for a game, and sometimes that means bending what would really happen in order to save on complexity.

Nope, closest model to the firing Unit takes the Hit, and it works backwards.
In the exact same way that you would resolve Bolter/Lasgun Shots.

The template is only used to "count" how many Hits you get.

The way you describe it is only for weapons with "barrage".

Yes, I got that but I was actually talking from a "realistic" standpoint. I did not make myself clear, sorry. Then, you can always object that evocating realism to justify/criticize rules makes you enter slippering ground, which is actually true.

There used to be rules detailing how the centre point was full strength, but further out was lesser strength. It was silly, because it meant that even the strongest blasts in the galaxy had next to no chance of harming anything that it didn't score a direct hit

I remember ! Back in the days of 4th ed when artillery used to have its S divided per two when striking vehicules. That was weird but possible to justify. What I just wanted to say here is that Fire Prism/Leman Russ are supposedly firing explosive projectile.

Just imagine the situation : you're in a big tank, 200m farther, ennemy soldiers are waiting in line just behind a wall, their leader pops his head by the street and you see him. You immediately fire a 120mm HE shell/superheated explosive xenos beam at him. Oh wait, his mates are definitly a few meters behind him, out of your sight, so no worries for them.

I think I will have to homebrew some rules about this kind of silly stuff.

Problem with going the realistic route it that you would have to change everythig.....

Tanks that have the same combat speed as infantry walking (in a warzone?), or jet fighters that perform strafing runs while flying at 3x walking speed? (Jet fighter flying at 30km/H ? )

As such i would recommend playing by the "aproximate" rules GW have provided, only to make the game faster-paced, and fun (think of it as "Arcade mode" maybe). Have 2-3 games in the time you'd play a "realistic" one, trying to sort out so many home-rules that a new guy who wants to join in would have to spend ages learning.

Saying that, i'm not against homebrew rules, and between good friends who've know the game for a while, why not?

My ambition would not to do a remake of 40k, I actually like the current ruleset (in general I mean). It's just that sometimes, it is very very silly. It's not even on a military/realistice standpoint, I don't want hardcore gaming, just logical things. In this case, I don't like the way artillery hit its targets, but whatever, I'll just agree on something to fix this with my usual opponent =).

 RazgrizOne wrote:
My ambition would not to do a remake of 40k, I actually like the current ruleset (in general I mean). It's just that sometimes, it is very very silly. It's not even on a military/realistice standpoint, I don't want hardcore gaming, just logical things. In this case, I don't like the way artillery hit its targets, but whatever, I'll just agree on something to fix this with my usual opponent =).

Thing is, Artillery, which is all the weapons with "Barrage" in their profile, do actually work like you would expect them to: From the center of the Blast Marker.

In opposition, most of the "normal" Blast weapons fire directly, so any missile, Demolisher cannon, etc, would "logically" hit the guy at the front, possibly killing a few more behind him. So even "realistically", IMHO the Blast rules make sense

Well... I am lost

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Well... I am lost

There are 2 types of Blast weapons:
A) Battle Cannon S8 AP3, Ordnance 1, Large Blast

These "Blast" weapons follow the Rules under Special Rules: "Blast"
Which can be summarised as: Place template, scatter, count the models below it (say 6 Hits)
And then assign the Wounds from the Wound pool from the Front of the Unit. (The guy at the front takes the battle cannon directly in the face)


B) Stormshard Mortars S4 AP6 Heavy 2, Barrage, Blast, Ignores cover, Shred

These "Barrage" weapons follow the Rules under Special Rules: "Barrage"
Which can be summarised as: Place template, scatter, count the models below it (say 6 Hits)
And then assign the Wounds from the Wound pool from the centre of the template. (The mortar shell explodes in the middle of the Unit and can kill at the back)

These weapons are the "artillery" weapons of 40K.

You know, I would have fiercely advocated the opposite interpretation until I read your posts in this thread. If you can lob a tank shell at the one guy poking around the corner and then murder the entire squad with the template, from a game balance perspective, Barrage suddenly loses much of its value. So even though it's not incredibly realistic, that interpretation seems more fair to me, if only because the Barrage rule was clearly intended to give you that ability where you would not have otherwise had it.

Thanks for the explanation Blacktalos ! So it means that you can actually kill some guys which are out of sight with a Battle cannon? I mean if you allocate wounds until the first guy (which is in LoS) dies, his mates would have to deal with the remaining wounds, right?

You know, I would have fiercely advocated the opposite interpretation until I read your posts in this thread

This discussion allowed me to understand the true nature of both type of weapons and yes, that's indeed true that barrage weapons would lost some of their interest if one would actually play blast wepons like I did with my friend. But even with our misinterpretation during this game, Barrage weapons were still able to fire indirectly, which is giving them a greater value when dealing with hidden targets.

 RazgrizOne wrote:
Thanks for the explanation Blacktalos ! So it means that you can actually kill some guys which are out of sight with a Battle cannon? I mean if you allocate wounds until the first guy (which is in LoS) dies, his mates would have to deal with the remaining wounds, right?

No, you cannot kill out of line of sight with the Battle Cannon, because of this Rule:
"If none of the firing models can draw a line of sight to a particular model in the target unit, then Wounds cannot be allocated to it, (...) If there are no visible models in the target unit, all remaining Wounds in the pool are lost."

The problem is also this Rule:
"Remember that any Wounds inflicted by weapons with the Blast special rule must be allocated to the closest model in the target unit even if it is out of sight of any models from the attacking unit."

Which would mean, in your example of "only the Sergeant sticking out" that it would work like this:
1) You count all the Hits (7)
2) Roll To Wound (6 Wounds)
3) Allocate Wounds, to the closest model. Say 2 Guardsmen are closer than the Sergeant.
4) Remove 2 Guardsmen
5) allocate Wounds 1 at a time to the Sergent. Say (don't ask) he saves 1 Wound, but dies on the 2nd.
6) You have use 2+1(saved)+1 Wounds, there is 2 wounds left. These Wounds are now discarded, because there are no models in Line of sight.

 RazgrizOne wrote:

You know, I would have fiercely advocated the opposite interpretation until I read your posts in this thread

This discussion allowed me to understand the true nature of both type of weapons and yes, that's indeed true that barrage weapons would lost some of their interest if one would actually play blast wepons like I did with my friend. But even with our misinterpretation during this game, Barrage weapons were still able to fire indirectly, which is giving them a greater value when dealing with hidden targets.

Barrage does not have the same issue above, as everything is measured from the center of the Blast, so 7 Hits could be 7 kills, even if you can only see 1.
I would point out that this is debatable though, and that the above "remaining Wounds in the pool are lost" can arguably be used for barrage too. But then weapons that fire out of LoS, like Tau smart missiles would never work.....