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hey guys so heres a really probably stupid question that i can probably answer myself but i still wanna get feedback and possible reference pages.

when in the shooting phase you declare shooting from unit a at enemy unit a now enemy unit is somewhat gaggled in cover and out of cover so 4 of 10 models are outside cover and 6 are in does the entire unit including the ones outside cover benefit from cover? or is it exactly like the brb says with true line of sight and getting cover saves you need to be 25% concealed to gain that benefit if anybody can come up with some page reference as to where it says the entire unit gets cover because one model is in cover id love to see it cause to me it sounds stupid.

Not near my book so cant reference pg#...

But you start at the closest model, if its in cover it gets a save, if not it doesn't.

Say you are shooting at a unit of 20 orks, with marines. the 4 closest orks are out of cover. You do 6 wounds, so the closest 4 being out of cover just die, the last two wounds the orks would get a cover save against as the ones being hit are now in cover.

The reverse is true if the closer models are in cover and the farther ones are out. The models in cover would get to roll saves until the closes living model was no longer in cover, then the remaining wounds would not get a cover save.

This is why its important that you can make the opponent take wounds from weapons in the order you want. Say there was a flamer in the squad and the closer models were in cover. You'd tell the opponent that the flamer wounds are allocated first, and since flamers ignore cover he wouldn't get a save. Then hopefully enough die that the bolter shots chew up the farther away models out of cover.

Again the reverse is true: If the closer models are out of cover, you can make the bolters hit them first, then the flamer can hit the farther back ones denying them cover.


Hope this made sense, I'm tired and this was a lot longer answer than I started out typing.

Cover saves are model based, not unit based.

 Happyjew wrote:
Cover saves are model based, not unit based.

Certain rules grant saves to units, KFF for example but the save is still worked out per model.

deekthegreat wrote:
if anybody can come up with some page reference as to where it says the entire unit gets cover because one model is in cover id love to see it cause to me it sounds stupid.

No one will be able to show that because it does not exist.

It is quite possible, however, that all models in the unit are obscured from a single firer and thus all receive a cover save.

Rorschach9 wrote:

deekthegreat wrote:
if anybody can come up with some page reference as to where it says the entire unit gets cover because one model is in cover id love to see it cause to me it sounds stupid.

No one will be able to show that because it does not exist.

It may be helpful to note that it USED to be the case that 50+ being in cover meant all got cover. That is no longer the case

ok so now area terrain like hills and stuff if a model is not in the terrain then the model does not benefit from cover? i've had some long time veterans say what i had posted be true which was interesting cause it sounded really weird. but ok exactly like the brb says model by model bases thanks guys now for arguements sake can somebody explain the vehicle cover saves to me and would you grant a better save because the majority of the vehicle(ork walker) is covered but you can see from his mid section up and would intervening models in front of another walker be counted as shooting through a 3rd unit or do we assume the walker is tall enough that isnt a problem

Vehicles are treated the same, but do not benefit from area terrain. That's it. No other changes.

I've only ever seen hills played as Open Terrain...

There are exceptions where units / models can gain cover saves without being Obscured or in Area Terrain:

Being shot at through a Forest / Jungle / Wood (Page 102 - Cover Save) will get you a cover save.

Being shot at through another unit will also get you a cover save (Page 18 - Intervening Models).

Vehicle models are Obscured in the same way as normal infantry, the value of the save is set by the type of terrain and not how much more than 25% is obscured. The exception to this is on page 75 which shows what happens when a firing model cannot see the vehicle facing it is in (for example, if a marine is in the front arc of a rhino, but cannot see the front and can only see the side), which improves the save by +1.

 Quanar wrote:
I've only ever seen hills played as Open Terrain...

Really?

I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Quanar wrote:
I've only ever seen hills played as Open Terrain...

Really?

I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

Eugh, that's so 4th edition....given hills have a defined save in the book, hills as area is not great....

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Quanar wrote:
I've only ever seen hills played as Open Terrain...

Really?

I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

Eugh, that's so 4th edition....given hills have a defined save in the book, hills as area is not great....

Hills do? what page?

I see an entry for Ridgelines/Hill Crests, but that does not cover the whole hill as the crest is only the highest part of the hill.

Wait... If a hill is open terrain, and a model is Obscured (>25%) by that hill, what cover save, if any, does it get?

 DeathReaper wrote:

nosferatu1001 wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Quanar wrote:
I've only ever seen hills played as Open Terrain...

Really?

I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

Eugh, that's so 4th edition....given hills have a defined save in the book, hills as area is not great....

Hills do? what page?

I see an entry for Ridgelines/Hill Crests, but that does not cover the whole hill as the crest is only the highest part of the hill.

I agree with DR, my group plays that being behind the hill gives the 4+ but if your on top or in front of but still on the hill we do difficult and area terrain.

 DeathReaper wrote:
I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

We've been going off page 90's description of Open Terrain ("Open ground covers everything from dusty plains to rolling hills."), but it's interesting to hear people playing them differently (being slowed by difficult terrain up a slope makes sense).

Ah, found the reference for ridgelines / hill crests - page 105 if anyone's interested.

 Quanar wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

We've been going off page 90's description of Open Terrain ("Open ground covers everything from dusty plains to rolling hills."), but it's interesting to hear people playing them differently (being slowed by difficult terrain up a slope makes sense).

Ah, found the reference for ridgelines / hill crests - page 105 if anyone's interested.

That is a hill crest though, not the whole hill.

 DeathReaper wrote:
That is a hill crest though, not the whole hill.

Pyrian asked for the page earlier in the thread, multitasking!

The Focus Fire rules on page 18 are relevant to this situation. As said before, each model determines it's cover save individually. Using focus fire, the shooter can pick off the people not in cover, specifically.

In the ork example earlier, if there were 20 orks with 16 in cover, closer to you, and 4 out of cover, further from you, you could call focus fire on the orks with no cover save, applying all wounds to them, ignoring all the ones in cover.

 DeathReaper wrote:

 Quanar wrote:

 DeathReaper wrote:
I have never played with hills as open terrain, we always say area terrain for hills. Weird.

We've been going off page 90's description of Open Terrain ("Open ground covers everything from dusty plains to rolling hills."), but it's interesting to hear people playing them differently (being slowed by difficult terrain up a slope makes sense).

Ah, found the reference for ridgelines / hill crests - page 105 if anyone's interested.

That is a hill crest though, not the whole hill.

Yes, and my point is that Hills are not, by nature, cover granting objects just for stnading on them. It even gives a fluff backing to that idea.

Hills as area terrain is 4th edition, back when people commonly misplayed area terrain everything terrain. There is no need to assign anything other than "open ground" to your average smooth flocked hill, as it is just open ground with a slight shape to it.

Hills do have a base that does cover an area, so it just seemed natural to make it area terrain, but to each his own.

However they dont represent something difficult to model - like a properly ruined building, or a forest with the right amount of trees - that is still then useable as terrain. Its just sloping ground

I just have bad memories of 4th, where pretty much everything was area terrain, as noone seemed to understnad the rules for terrain

nosferatu1001 wrote:
However they dont represent something difficult to model - like a properly ruined building, or a forest with the right amount of trees - that is still then useable as terrain. Its just sloping ground

I just have bad memories of 4th, where pretty much everything was area terrain, as noone seemed to understnad the rules for terrain

Not all hills are just sloping ground. Some have many gopher holes that make them quite difficult to navigate.

DR, do you play the hills built into the RoB boards as area terrain? or only movable freestanding hills as area?

 deviantduck wrote:
DR, do you play the hills built into the RoB boards as area terrain? or only movable freestanding hills as area?

We don't use the RoB boards at my FLGS.

For my group, it tends to vary from game to game. The way I prefer depends on the exact hill we are using. If it's a gently sloping hill that you can easily place models all over, then it only gives cover if it blocks line of sight. If it has a steep edge, then it's difficult terrain to get up on top of it, but is open ground once you're up there. We never apply area terrain rules to a hill though.