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I know it's not exactly the same issue, but I think that opening a new thread would be unnecessary...
My question is: What is the cover save that models receive for being out of LOS?
In fact it happened to me that a plasma cannon shot scattered from an assault squad dircetly on the top of a Razorback that was completely out of LOS for the firer (it was covered by a dense forest). How would you solve the issue? We initially thought that the vehicle should receive a 5+ for the forest but then we also thought that being totally out of LOS should be somewhat different and we agreed for a 4+ save, practically using the 5th ed rules... It's a rough solution, I know, but it's the only one we thought about ATM.

Since this kind of issue will present pretty often, especially with vehicles (now that area weapons are so effective against them), how would you rule that?

Note that I'm implicitly seconding the interpretation of the rule that allows the wound to be allocated to models out of LOS, since IMHO it's the interpretation that most follows "the spirit of the rule" but YMMV...

Honestly I give up, you guys win. I will just play with my gaming group with the interpretation we agree on. Maybe GW will be nice and FAQ the rulebook sometime soon.

roland9382 wrote:Again as I said look at my example, how is that not broken?

Because it isnt? You cannot control scatter to achieve that result every time.

Presumably your answer to the question "so you believe they wrote a rule that has no function" is yes then? Given you ignored it entirely

roland9382 wrote: Also the rules for the impaler cannon you keep mentioning are in your FAQ, ignore line of sight restrictions and only provides cover for units in area terrain. Its also not a blast so has no chance of scatter.

How about you quote the FAQ entry, given that the only entry for Impaler Cannon make no mention of LOS restrictions at all.

As for it being analogous, you dont seem to be understanding: the Impaler cannon AS WRITTEN has no purpose to its special rule, because it has no allowance to ignore wound allocation. Same as you are saying scattering Blasts have no purpose to their rules. That is the analogy.

And you are still ignoring that you do have permission to allocate, because otherwise you cannot wound the unit. - little w meaning any part of wound, including causing unsaved ones.

Maybe I should start another thread...

punkow - at least 25% obscured, so 100% obscures fits with no alteration to the rules. This means only a 5+ a lot of the time

roland - if you cant argue rules, this probably isnt the forum for you.

Obviously not, I thought this was about figuring out what the rules were not just fighting about them, it seems more like A "im right and youre wrong so suck it" kinda forum. Doubt ill post here again.

Uhu... I forgot to add a thing... To come up to this solution we beared in mind also the fact that if the facing you are firing to is completely invisible, the vehicle receive a +1 to the cover save (page 75 core rulebook)... the situation described in the rulebook is slightly different from the one I described but we thought that and xtensive interpretation fitted nicely.

Sorry if I forgot to mention this, probably fundamental, thing...

roland9382 wrote:Obviously not, I thought this was about figuring out what the rules were not just fighting about them, it seems more like A "im right and youre wrong so suck it" kinda forum. Doubt ill post here again.

Figuring out what the rules are, where there are multiple interpretations being presented, involves discussing why people think those interpretations are right or wrong.

So yes, if people disagree with the validity of your interpretation, they will point out that they think it is wrong. That's not some peculiarity of this forum. It's how discussion works.

roland9382 wrote:Obviously not, I thought this was about figuring out what the rules were not just fighting about them, it seems more like A "im right and youre wrong so suck it" kinda forum. Doubt ill post here again.

Noone has been doing that here - all we've asked is for you to support your assertions with rules. For example you asserted that the Impaler has been "fixed" via FAQ - yet I cannot find that in the current FAQ. Similarly with the blast rules, you are essentially asserting they wrote a few rules that have no function - now generally that isnt a good interpretation, as you assume some form of functionality in rules, especially core rulebook rules.

My contention is that the specific permission to wound (little w) units overrides the LOS allocation rules.

I can see arguments for both sides looking over this thread(go figure GW dropping the ball on rules right?) Does anyone think that the cover should just be modified depending on whats in between the shot and the target?

nosferatu1001 wrote:So youre saying the rule has no function whatsoever?

Blast scatters to unit entirely out of LOS. They wrote that you can hit and wound that unit. You believe that they wrote that rule to have NO effect? None whatsoever?

The point of the part of the rule as written that you're throwing a hissy over is that when you target a unit that has some of it's models out of line of sight, and the blast scatters onto those models, you still get hits and roll wounds against the unit from the blast. How that isn't plainly obvious to a proponent of RAW I don't know.

Yes, this sometimes will result in the blast scattering onto a unit you didn't target in the first place with no models in line of sight of the firing unit and so you won't be able to allocate any wounds from the resultant wound pool. Boohoo, that's how shooting works in 6th, get used to it.

The rule plainly works every single time you have a unit where every model isn't in LOS, it obviously has an effect, and one that will apply to no small set of circumstances, unlike the blast marker hitting a separate untargetted unit completely out of LOS of the firer.

You are given permission to wound the unit, implying you are allowed to allocate to models within the unit. If you don't then you have broken the blast rule.

You may imagine their is an implication, I strongly disagree for reasons listed above, the rule is self contained and makes perfect sense within the context of the rest of the rules (how shooting works) without adding your 'implication'. Even if there was an implication, RAW is clear.

No rule is broken, because

Rigeld2 wrote:
Wounds are caused. They populate the wound pool. The rule is satisfied.

During allocation you're not in LoS. Excess wounds are lost.

This is the crux of our interpretation. Bearing it in mind, read the entire shooting section instead of skimming and applying your 5th ed knowledge, read the Blast rules, embrace enlightenment.

Additionally,
The Astral Aim in Codex GK has nothing to do with these rules so I won't bother addressing that red herring argument.

If roland9382 is struggling to articulate an argument, that's fine, he's bowed out. Others here including beside myself have made the pertinent points you should concentrate on rebutting if you want your argument to stop leaking.

No hissy, but thanls for the negative assertions you are making about others - it is a GREAT way to make your argument look water tight.

Astral Aim is not a red herring, given the entire point of the rule is to allow you to wound models out of LOS. Ditto Impaler Cannon.

I answered your and Rigelds points - if you lose wounds from the wound pool, you have not wounded (little w) the unit, as no wounds have been caused. Breaks the rule.

This is how blasts work in 6th - "get used to it"

Are people normally this angry in this forum?

It can get quite heated, as the sticky warns you, however people deliberately being insulting is generally frowned upon, as per the rules of the forum in general.

nosferatu1001 wrote:No hissy, but thanls for the negative assertions you are making about others - it is a GREAT way to make your argument look water tight.

Astral Aim is not a red herring, given the entire point of the rule is to allow you to wound models out of LOS. Ditto Impaler Cannon.

I answered your and Rigelds points - if you lose wounds from the wound pool, you have not wounded (little w) the unit, as no wounds have been caused. Breaks the rule.

This is how blasts work in 6th - "get used to it"

Astral aim has it's own rules worded completely differently. It has nothing to do with the standard blast rules, so I don't see how you can lean on it at all.

1) It's a 5th edition rule. It plainly references the old Nightfight rules. If it was written in 5th ed and references old rules, why would you expect to be able to use it's wording to support how a 6th ed rule should be interpreted? Obviously, you can't.

2) "Can shoot any unit in range, even if you don't have Line of Sight to it" Is quite different to a rule that states a scattering blast can be used to calculate hits and wounds out of line of sight. The first specifies an exception to LOS for 'shooting', encompassing any and all aspects of shooting. The second specifies the steps of the shooting process that the exception to LOS applies to, ie, not the whole she-bang.


So your position is

if you lose wounds from the wound pool, you have not wounded (little w) the unit, as no wounds have been caused.

and hinges a vague appeal to capitalisation.

I'm pretty happy to let ours sit in opposition to that.

1) Because its an analogous situation, thats why.

2) So you are allowed to claim an implicit exception for one thing but not another?

Inconsistent arguments are a clue that an argument isnt a good one.

the capitalisation is important - you do understand the difference between wound and Wound, yes?

Edit: simply put, you have a rule that is analogous to two other rules that do not currently have any purpose, despite your hurried assertion that one rule (AA) is implicitly allowed to override the wound allocsation rules, and something else isnt.

Be happy if you want, i know what makes more sense to me.

Why are people saying the rule has no use ? It comes into play when part of a unit is out of LOS, you can still wound the unit if you scatter onto those out of LOS, I'd just like to see someone actually hide an entire unit, especially if you're shooting from elevation.

Seems like they are arguing about missing the unit you aimed for and hitting a different unit out of LOS. Probably a dumb question but has anyone tried contacting GW for clarification?

BloodKnight82 wrote:Probably a dumb question but has anyone tried contacting GW for clarification?

The only people at GW who can be contacted for rules queries are the customer service people, who were hired for their ability to sell stuff, not their knowledge of the game rules.

Warlord Sniksgraga wrote:Why are people saying the rule has no use ? It comes into play when part of a unit is out of LOS, you can still wound the unit if you scatter onto those out of LOS, I'd just like to see someone actually hide an entire unit, especially if you're shooting from elevation.

So if it scatters 9" onto a unit you cant see, that unit shouldnt be harmed? You are told you can wound UNITS out of LOS, not just *models* but entire *units* out of LOS

Those claiming this rule was clearly "intended" to only work where you scatter onto a unit with some in and some out of LOS have been unable to deal with this issue.

I agree that the intent of the rul eis clearly to cause actual wounds and potentially kill models.

I don't the the RAW allows it, however.

Happyjew wrote:The problem is the wording of the rule:
"...can hit and wound units out of range and line of sight..."
and then:
"...unsaved Wounds are allocated on the unit as for a normal shooting attack."

It seems to me, that although you can hit and wound a unit completely out of line of sight, you then allocate wounds as normal, starting with the closest model in line of sight. Once there are no more models in line of sight, any remaining wounds are lost. Of course this is definitely not how I would play it. As far as I am concerned, (RAW or not) things that can hit a unit out of LoS (i.e. Impaler Cannon) can wound said unit, ignoring the normal LoS restriction.

The period at the end of the 2nd quote is not in the original text. IMO, the whole sentence is relevant to this discussion. Sadly, that whole sentence has a lot of "and"s in it, leading to some ambiguity.

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:
You have been told the unit CAN be wounded, meaning a wound has permission to be allocated. If you fail to allocate a wound, you have broken the rule allowing the unit to be wounded [which has a prerequisite of allocation]

This is an unsupported leap in logic, and not part of the rules in any capacity.

See the full sentence above.

rigeld2 wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:So, you have failed to wound (little w) the unit, as required in the rules?

You have broken a rule.

the only way you can apply the rules is that this is a more specific rule that requires the LOS requirement for the wound pool to be overridden, as it conflicts.

Wounds are caused. They populate the wound pool. The rule is satisfied.

During allocation you're not in LoS. Excess wounds are lost.

See the full sentence above.

insaniak wrote:

roland9382 wrote:Umm yeah that rule is for partially hidden, we are saying completely. I.E. you can see exactly 0% of the model.

The rules for cover saves don't ask for the model to be 'partially hidden'... they allow a model to take the save if it is at least 25% obscured.

A model that is completely obscured is at least 25% obscured.

Yep.

Warlord Sniksgraga wrote:Why are people saying the rule has no use ? It comes into play when part of a unit is out of LOS, you can still wound the unit if you scatter onto those out of LOS, I'd just like to see someone actually hide an entire unit, especially if you're shooting from elevation.

This is actually quite easy to do, especially if you have some GW or FW terrain.

Here is a simple illustration
------ = a 3" (76mm) high wall
X = a space marine
VwBW = a vehicle with a blast weapon

..............X X X X
........X X X X X X
----------------------------------------
..............X X X X
........X X X X X X




...............VwBW

The vehicle with a blast weapon shoots at the Visible SM squad. The shot scatters, landing on the SM squad out of line of sight.

From p33 "Note that it is possible, and absolutely fine, for a shot to scatter beyond the weapon's maximum or minimum range and line of sight. [Snip fluff]. In these cases, hits are worked out as normal and can hit and wound units out of range and line of sight." (underlining mine)

The underlined "and" modifies how hits are worked out. They are not worked out like normal. They are worked out like normal and something else.

Another Fishing Trip in these Pages.

The rules with blast weapons are not going to to tell you how to resolve out of line of sight wounds and then take it away from you at the end.

GW is in this for the money. They might write bad rules but they would never start you down a path and then close that path off. Waste of ink and money.

So I think everyone is in agreement until the "wording "use normal rules of a shooting attack."

Now normal rules say you need LOS but in the SPECIAL RULES section Blasts have a different wording. So if Blasts can wound units out of LOS then you simply ignore anything that is blocking LOS and see who is the closest model.

GW implies that you know LOS is not needed. It walks you through every part after the hit. But......people do not want to play a war game where their unit die. So they will find anything to help them not lose models. I don't understand this because I know that war means death to units.

The Blast Special Rule clearly states that units outside long, min ranges and unit that have blocked LOS can still be wounded.

How do we determine the casualties? Closest model to the firing unit. LOS has nothing to do with this because BLAST says so.

For those that think it's impossible for a shell to land where it landed! Talk to some military people that have seen some weird shots.

MJThurston wrote:So I think everyone is in agreement until the "wording "use normal rules of a shooting attack."

Sigh... now I have to go down to my car and grab my 6th ed book. I swear, if that period is not there...

EDIT - not sure what MJT was referring to in his quote. I did not see the quoted phrase on p15-16 or 33.

Anyways, p33, 5th paragraph of BLAST & LARGE BLAST "hits are worked out as normal and can hit and wound units out of range and line of sight (or even your own units, or models locked in combat)."

A scattering blast CAN hit and wound friendly troops
A scattering blast CAN hit and wound troops locked in combat

These are both clear exceptions to "normal rules".
Why is the idea of a scattering blast hitting and wounding units out of LoS so different?

The 7th paragraph of the BLAST & LARGE BLAST entry on p33 has some compelling language for the "no" argument, IF it was the only thing written about the situation. It is not. Quoting the 7th and ignoring the 5th is cherry-picking rules and ignoring context.

I believe it's "for a shooting attack" and not "of".

MJThurston wrote:I believe it's "for a shooting attack" and not "of".

Do you mean p33, last sentence of BLAST & LARGE BLAST - "for a normal shooting attack."?

Halfpast_Yellow wrote:

Astral aim has it's own rules worded completely differently. It has nothing to do with the standard blast rules, so I don't see how you can lean on it at all.

1) It's a 5th edition rule. It plainly references the old Nightfight rules. If it was written in 5th ed and references old rules, why would you expect to be able to use it's wording to support how a 6th ed rule should be interpreted? Obviously, you can't.

2) "Can shoot any unit in range, even if you don't have Line of Sight to it" Is quite different to a rule that states a scattering blast can be used to calculate hits and wounds out of line of sight. The first specifies an exception to LOS for 'shooting', encompassing any and all aspects of shooting. The second specifies the steps of the shooting process that the exception to LOS applies to, ie, not the whole she-bang.

The thing in question really has nothing to do with the blast as such, but with wounds being assigned to units outside of LOS.


1) I quoted the 6th ed errata of the rule. So it's a 6th ed rule.

2) Yes, can shoot at them. But doesn't state anywhere that the normal rules for assigning wounds from shooting do not apply. Just like with blast templates. And if it is your opinion that they don't, then how do you suggest I place the wounds from it? You can't tell me a part of it applies but the rest don't. The Astral Aim rule has no specifications of its own as how to resolve the wounds from the shooting, so we have to assume it uses the rules from the rulebook. The blast says it can hit and wound people out of LOS. This isn't a red herring, and just waving it off as one is just as bad as me waving off the fact that the rulebook says that the shooting is resolved "as normal."

The definition of "shooting at them" meaning the whole shebang is your definition. It is not supported by anything. Especially since it isn't replacing the whole shebang with its own rules.

For arguments sake, this example is considering only Plasma cannons / frag missiles / venom cannon / other direct fire blast weapons.

Astral aim and Hive guard are codex entries, we are talking basic rulebook mechanics. Perhaps there is no clear answer until an FAQ is out.

However it seems RAW says wounds are allocated as per a normal shooting attack and until an FAQ is out nobody can be sure what RAI are.

Edit: Updated original post to give page references.

No FAQ is needed.

Rule is clear. No need for LOS for scattered shots.

Some want to argue it because they don't want to lose models. Sorry buddy you have no leg to stand on.

GW wants you to use the closest model to the unit that fired. LOS has no effect on these shots as per the rule.

Remember that Blast is in the SPECIAL RULES SECTION. THEY BREAK THE OTHER RULES.

GW could have said use the center hole for LOS but wanted you to get a cover save from direct fire weapons. Is this not the case? So take your cover saves and stop crying.

MJThurston wrote:Some want to argue it because they don't want to lose models. Sorry buddy you have no leg to stand on.

That's a lie. Stop propagating it. Those who disagree with you must have some hidden agenda? Are you serious?

GW wants you to use the closest model to the unit that fired. LOS has no effect on these shots as per the rule.

Remember that Blast is in the SPECIAL RULES SECTION. THEY BREAK THE OTHER RULES.

GW could have said use the center hole for LOS but wanted you to get a cover save from direct fire weapons. Is this not the case? So take your cover saves and stop crying.

I agree with intent. I don't agree that's what the RAW says.