Shooting when some units LOS is blocked

Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you:

No adverts like this in the forums anymore.
Times and dates in your local timezone.
Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance.
Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely.
Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net.

If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

**SirWeeble**

If I have a unit of 10 models, all the same weapon - 5 have LOS to a target, 5 have LOS completely blocked - can only those 5 with LOS shoot, or can all 10?

Reading through the rules (p179 "choose targets") "a model in the unit must be within the range of the weapon being used and visible to the shooting model". Seems to indicate that only 1 model in the unit needs range/LOS.

However, In my last game the other player said the opposite - every model needs range/los to fire.

And follow up: What if there is 1 special weapon in the squad? does it need to determine LOS independently from the POV of the firing model?

**Medicinal Carrots**

Range and Line of Sight are determined individually for each shooting model in a unit. The full rulebook quote is "In order to target an enemy unit, a model from that unit must be within the Range of the weapon being used (as listed on its profile) and be visible to the shooting model." The target has to be visible to the model in order for the model to be able to shoot. It doesn't matter if other models in the unit can see the target, if the shooting model can't see, it can't shoot that target.

**JohnnyHell**

Range and LOS is checked model by model.

**Stux**

Note that line of sight is only needed when the unit is first selected to shoot, NOT when the individual model is shooting.

Say you have a unit of marines shooting at a unit of orks. The orks are behind LoS blocking terrain except for 1. All your marines can see the 1 Ork that is not behind the terrain. So when the rules ask you to check if your unit has LoS, every model does.

You then start making shooting attacks. The first Marine fires and it's an unsaved wound. The Ork player removes the only visible Ork. The rest of your squad can still fire on the same unit, and potentially kill Orks that are outside of LoS, becaus the rules never ask you to check LoS again.

Weird, but that's RAW!

**JohnnyHell**

Stux wrote:
Note that line of sight is only needed when the unit is first selected to shoot, NOT when the individual model is shooting.

Say you have a unit of marines shooting at a unit of orks. The orks are behind LoS blocking terrain except for 1. All your marines can see the 1 Ork that is not behind the terrain. So when the rules ask you to check if your unit has LoS, every model does.

You then start making shooting attacks. The first Marine fires and it's an unsaved wound. The Ork player removes the only visible Ork. The rest of your squad can still fire on the same unit, and potentially kill Orks that are outside of LoS, becaus the rules never ask you to check LoS again.

Note that the targets must still be in range, as this is checked when you actually fire each weapon.

Weird, but that's RAW!

That's not weird, that's to stop casualty removal shenanigans and speed things up. It's sensible and deliberate (and not the OP's Q).

Also you got the range bit wrong. Only checked once before any shooting happens.

**Medicinal Carrots**

Stux wrote:
Note that line of sight is only needed when the unit is first selected to shoot, NOT when the individual model is shooting.

Say you have a unit of marines shooting at a unit of orks. The orks are behind LoS blocking terrain except for 1. All your marines can see the 1 Ork that is not behind the terrain. So when the rules ask you to check if your unit has LoS, every model does.

You then start making shooting attacks. The first Marine fires and it's an unsaved wound. The Ork player removes the only visible Ork. The rest of your squad can still fire on the same unit, and potentially kill Orks that are outside of LoS, becaus the rules never ask you to check LoS again.

Note that the targets must still be in range, as this is checked when you actually fire each weapon.

Weird, but that's RAW!

Correct on LoS, Incorrect on Range. It is also only checked once, before any models in the unit fire, in the same step where you check Line of Sight.

E.G. You have a unit of 4 marines with bolters and 1 with a meltagun. There's a unit of orks where 1 ork is 12" from all 5 marines, 4 orks from 13" to 24", and 15 orks more than 24" away. If your first shot with a bolter kills the 1 ork 12" away, you can still fire your second shot with that bolter, the other 3 bolters still get 2 shots each from being in rapid fire range, and you can still shoot the melta. If the next 4 bolter shots kill the remaining orks within 24", you still get to fire the last 3 bolter shots and the melta, even though the remaining orks are all out of range at this point.

**Stux**

Apologies, you are correct. All ranges and LoS are checked before the unit fires a single weapon and then not checked again regardless of whether models are removed.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

JohnnyHell wrote:

That's not weird, that's to stop casualty removal shenanigans and speed things up. It's sensible and deliberate (and not the OP's Q).

It's weird intuitively. Not saying I disagree with the implementation for the reasons you state, but a lot of people get it wrong because it goes against how most people would assume it works. That's all I'm saying.

**SirWeeble**

Thanks for the clarification. The way it was written it made me think that units attacked units, and 1 model needed RNG and LOS in order to attack - rather than models in the unit attack individually.

I was already aware of the oddness of being able to kill a whole unit when only one is in LOS - i thought the same applied to attacking too.

**skchsan**

Medicinal Carrots wrote:
There's a unit of orks where 1 ork is 12" from all 5 marines, 4 orks from 13" to 24", and 15 orks more than 24" away.

That's an insane conga line... This assumes all of these conga-lined orkses are from one unit, correct?