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Line of sight disagreements occur in at least half of my games and games I watch. I typically just concede the argument and let my opponent have their way. This really should be addressed by GW in my opinion. The "leave it up to our players" stance isn't the best answer to everything.

I've never had a problem playing games that use area-effect terrain, earlier eras of 40K included. I never understood how it was an issue, especially one that's worse than how terrain is handled now.

sand.zzz wrote:
Line of sight disagreements occur in at least half of my games and games I watch.

In mine as well. I my regular opponents are friendly players, but we can't help but have "spirited discussions" about whether the front of a Hammerhead is more than 25% obscured - and it's just not clear who is right. And it matters a lot, because it's the difference between a 3+ and a 6+ cover save. And it seems to happen in every single game we play, since naturally we are trying to hide our models as much as possible while still giving them enough LOS to shoot. The terrain and TLOS rules are fiddly, often subjective, and rarely fun.

If checking how obscured a hull is is causing grief, one of you is trying to win at all costs. Since you say they are friendly you might want to take a self assessment. Line of sight cover has never caused issues for me. Remembering the rules for area terrain has from time to time. 25% is 1/4. If you really need to end that discussion just put a tape measure on the front of it flush with the cover. If the distance from hammerhead endpoint to cover is 3/4 or less the profile of the hammerhead from that perspective give it the cover save.


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PS: I would like to thank you for making the complaint though, since it will help me make better terrain. Any other useful tidbits that could help me make my ruins?

It's not really an issue for Imperial vehicles, since they have such boxy profiles. But Tau and Eldar vehicles have this "bubbly" profile, and chaos walkers have this "spikey" profile, and it's not as straight-forward as eyeballing it.

I've been trying to get new people into playing the game at our FLGS, and the convoluted cover rules (and lack of guidance when it comes to terrain) is causing them a lot of grief.

Ventiscogreen wrote:
PS: I would like to thank you for making the complaint though, since it will help me make better terrain. Any other useful tidbits that could help me make my ruins?

The main tidbit of advice I offer to people building terrain is: make sure you can actually fit your hands inside there to place models
But in terms of TLOS... make 'em blocky, make sure there are chest-high walls. All the best looking terrain at our store has tended to be the most problematic when you actually try to play with it.

Best piece of advice I could give for ruins is make the entire bottom solid in terms of los, no cracks, no windows, if there are winows, crack some popsicle sticks and board'm up solid. It will help solve a lot of issues.

http://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/images-81246-42288_Unpainted%20Ruin%20With%20Scale.html I think these you might like.

The biggest problem with TLOS is that it completely ignores that we are not playing with poseable models. Almost all of the good games out there seems to have allocations made to the LOS rules that assume that models don;t always have to be in the single dramatic pose they are locked into. Even Necromunda mentioned that models "aren't constantly kneeling, prone or standing straight up like the model depicts" when you established what your model was doing to gain cover from terrain, because it's stupid to assume that "Ratskin model 5" can never shoot over anything a standing model can, because the sculpted model is kneeling.

TLOS just gives a good, legal reason for nit-picky players to slow the entire game to a crawl.

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The biggest problem with TLOS is that it completely ignores that we are not playing with poseable models. Almost all of the good games out there seems to have allocations made to the LOS rules that assume that models don;t always have to be in the single dramatic pose they are locked into. Even Necromunda mentioned that models "aren't constantly kneeling, prone or standing straight up like the model depicts" when you established what your model was doing to gain cover from terrain, because it's stupid to assume that "Ratskin model 5" can never shoot over anything a standing model can, because the sculpted model is kneeling.

TLOS just gives a good, legal reason for nit-picky players to slow the entire game to a crawl.

And makes it damn near impossible for heavy weapon teams to get off a shot in cover.

I know that most people feel that the latest of published rules is gospel. Not really. Unless you play many games with strangers will the need to have a matching rule set be necessary. Our hobby and 40K are a flexible rules set. You have access to both or all of the available publications, take and use what you want with your regular comrades and have fun. I agree that the escalation of rules has been a bit of a pain in the buttocks. Find what you and your group of friends like and use it so your games will be more realistic and enjoyable. I've even gone back to the 4" coherency rule from RT. My friends and I do what works best for us, however if I played a new person I would be obliged to ask if we could house rule some things or play a ridged rule set. Good luck.

In Wargames Illustrated #318, Alessio Cavatore discusses this exact issue: true LOS versus abstract LOS, and the issues that appear in both systems - lack of 3 dimensions in the abstract system without additional rules, models being static in true LOS applications, etc.

Kings of War, Bolt Action, and others also use True LOS, the same as 40k. Now, their rules might be better written, but I wouldn't know since I don't play either. However, I've never had a problem with LOS or adjudicating terrain as long as its been discussed beforehand (from 2nd ed until 7th).

Alessio indicates that either system has its benefits and hindrances, but he has become a "vociferous advocate" for True LOS, as it offers more "immersion" in the game than standing over it as if it were a boardgame. At least on the 40k front, "immersion", "narrative", etc. are the buzzwords now.

"Immerse yourself in the Line-of Sight narrative"?

Seems like you can blend the best of the two systems without too much trouble. When my buddy and I play AT-43 or Confrontation: Age of Ragnarok, we do it all the time, because there is little to no official terrain rules for either of those games. We stoop down to use the model's eye view for establishing Line of Sight, but yet we use all the traditional rules for area terrain, like more than 6" of woods blocking LOS, etc.

Again, with woods you need to model them to actually obscure LoS. That means density. Not http://www.games-workshop.com/en-US/Citadel-Wood
If you think three trees in loose coherency deserve to block LoS, you have issues.

Actually, I make all mine as modular woods, where an approximately 6-inch square of "woods" should have about 4-5 individual trees on 40mm bases to allow them to be moved around within the area's border to facilitate ease of model placement. I assume there is imaginary foliage and undergrowth making it dense enough to block line of sight as a gaming concession. So about twice as dense as the GW forest.

Sounds like it would limit line of sight a good deal without imaginary foliage. Especially if you put more than one together.

Dense forests are impossible to stick models in.

Infantry fit just fine if done right. Vehicles aren't getting through dense forests though.

 McGibs wrote:
Dense forests are impossible to stick models in.

Bingo. And that's the quagmire, you want space for models to actually fit in area terrain (forests).


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Ventiscogreen wrote:
Infantry fit just fine if done right. Vehicles aren't getting through dense forests though.

Really depends on the forest.


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 AegisGrimm wrote:
Actually, I make all mine as modular woods, where an approximately 6-inch square of "woods" should have about 4-5 individual trees on 40mm bases to allow them to be moved around within the area's border to facilitate ease of model placement.

That's sadly another casualty of gw throwing out terrain rules, all the stuff about elements and moving them out of the way in the area terrain rules are gone.


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 Andilus Greatsword wrote:

 AegisGrimm wrote:
The biggest problem with TLOS is that it completely ignores that we are not playing with poseable models. Almost all of the good games out there seems to have allocations made to the LOS rules that assume that models don;t always have to be in the single dramatic pose they are locked into. Even Necromunda mentioned that models "aren't constantly kneeling, prone or standing straight up like the model depicts" when you established what your model was doing to gain cover from terrain, because it's stupid to assume that "Ratskin model 5" can never shoot over anything a standing model can, because the sculpted model is kneeling.

TLOS just gives a good, legal reason for nit-picky players to slow the entire game to a crawl.

And makes it damn near impossible for heavy weapon teams to get off a shot in cover.

To be fair, gw's misguided idea of putting heavy weapons on 60mm bases had a fair part to play in that.

I don't understand why people think that "forests" should block LOS. Think about how big they are, the typical "forest" terrain represents maybe 10-20' of trees growing in the middle of an open field (the rest of the table). That's one of those decorative trees in a parking lot, not a giant forest that obscures everything behind it. A human-size model might be able to get some cover from those trees, but a tank is going to be completely visible behind them.

Also, remember that the realism argument works both ways. Sure, your space marine should be able to crouch down behind a wall and out of LOS, but my tank squadron should be able to shoot him through the wall. The current cover rules might not work well in every case, but they tend to average out to something close to a realistic outcome. LOS blocking is rare, being able to shoot through/around cover is rare, but getting some degree of protection is fairly common.

 Peregrine wrote:
I don't understand why people think that "forests" should block LOS. Think about how big they are, the typical "forest" terrain represents maybe 10-20' of trees growing in the middle of an open field (the rest of the table). That's one of those decorative trees in a parking lot, not a giant forest that obscures everything behind it. A human-size model might be able to get some cover from those trees, but a tank is going to be completely visible behind them.

Also, remember that the realism argument works both ways. Sure, your space marine should be able to crouch down behind a wall and out of LOS, but my tank squadron should be able to shoot him through the wall. The current cover rules might not work well in every case, but they tend to average out to something close to a realistic outcome. LOS blocking is rare, being able to shoot through/around cover is rare, but getting some degree of protection is fairly common.

Almost every piece of combat footage I have ever watched had soldiers spending most of their time trying to figure out where the enemy is. I can only imagine this works both ways. Firing where they think the enemy fire is coming from etc.

I personally would rather terrain in my games stop the enemy from being able to see you THEN maybe offer protection.

I personally think line of sight blocking terrain should be very common compared to it being pretty rare now.

 Swastakowey wrote:
Almost every piece of combat footage I have ever watched had soldiers spending most of their time trying to figure out where the enemy is. I can only imagine this works both ways. Firing where they think the enemy fire is coming from etc.

Depends on the unit I guess. Let's say we have a heavy bolter team camping in a ruin in a good firing position. A guardsman with a lasgun is going to have to be very careful to stay in cover, duck out for an occasional glance to see if they can figure out exactly where the shots are coming from and maybe fire back, etc. A LR Demolisher is just going to put a shell into the building and turn the whole thing into a pile of rubble. So IMO it averages out pretty well, you only get a cover save against the guardsman, but you get a save instead of just instantly dying against the tank and the building is still there to give cover to anything behind it.

I personally would rather terrain in my games stop the enemy from being able to see you THEN maybe offer protection.

The problem is that when cover isn't a save units start to become too durable. Right now it's clearly useful, but it will never raise a unit's overall durability above a certain level. But if you let it get around the "only one save" limit death star units that are already very difficult to kill get even tougher. Imagine a unit with a re-rollable 2++ and a cover bonus, you might as well not even bother rolling the dice for your shooting. To fix this problem you'd have to weaken saves so that the end result of cover + save is the same as it is now.

I personally think line of sight blocking terrain should be very common compared to it being pretty rare now.

But why? Most of the terrain people use represents things that don't block LOS in the "real" world (at least if you're shooting back while hiding behind it). And if you put too much LOS blocking terrain on the table you make the "meet in the middle and kill each other" issues even worse. You still need a 6x4 table to play the game, but since long-distance LOS is blocked all of the relevant action is limited to a very small area of the middle and you get one of those ridiculous GW catalog pictures where Basilisks and snipers are lined up 6" from the centerline, directly across from a horde of orks.

I can see your point, but I personally would rather forces have to meet in the middle over what we have now. I will admit I play 500-1000 point games so my battlefields arent full of men like many we see, having forced mobility is something I long for like when I play other games.

Forcing people to find good shooting locations rather than simply selecting one of many targets in the distance. Forcing people to choose zones to cover rather than simply seeing most of the enemy.

I personally find Line Of Site terrain to create scenarios like this and as a result I would like more of it.

I am also used to games like FoW where too much cover simply prevents you from shooting or a mix of factors that work against your shooting ability. I find restricting shooting from a "choose your target" down to a situation where you have to try maximize your shooting potential through movement and position which makes it much less forgiving.

Just my taste. Less cover saves, more no shooting zones (provided by LoS blockers).

As a Tau player, meeting in the middle would be grounds for kicking the player/to responsible for the terrain in the nuts and going elsewhere. I could see it justified in certain cases, mostly urban combat, but forcing a meet in the middle too hard screws tau into oblivion.

 Swastakowey wrote:
I can see your point, but I personally would rather forces have to meet in the middle over what we have now. I will admit I play 500-1000 point games so my battlefields arent full of men like many we see, having forced mobility is something I long for like when I play other games.

Forcing people to find good shooting locations rather than simply selecting one of many targets in the distance. Forcing people to choose zones to cover rather than simply seeing most of the enemy.

I personally find Line Of Site terrain to create scenarios like this and as a result I would like more of it.

I am also used to games like FoW where too much cover simply prevents you from shooting or a mix of factors that work against your shooting ability. I find restricting shooting from a "choose your target" down to a situation where you have to try maximize your shooting potential through movement and position which makes it much less forgiving.

Just my taste. Less cover saves, more no shooting zones (provided by LoS blockers).

Exalted

Before exalting let me say something: Strength 9, AP3, Barrage, Ordinance, 36"-120".

 Swastakowey wrote:
I can see your point, but I personally would rather forces have to meet in the middle over what we have now. I will admit I play 500-1000 point games so my battlefields arent full of men like many we see, having forced mobility is something I long for like when I play other games.

It's probably better with smaller games since you don't have to pack everything into a tiny space, but the clear trend right now is that 1500 point is a small game and 1750-2000+ is the standard. So the rules have to reflect that.

Forcing people to find good shooting locations rather than simply selecting one of many targets in the distance. Forcing people to choose zones to cover rather than simply seeing most of the enemy.

But the problem here is that 40k's melee units/armies are balanced around the current terrain rules. Blocked LOS and "meet in the middle" gameplay means that assault armies dominate because shooting armies can't get any effective shots before the melee units get into charge range and start wiping whole units off the table. Unless you've got barrage weapons the game is reduced to spending a turn or two doing nothing, and then removing models while a bunch of melee fighting happens in a 6" strip of deployment zone. The ability to camp in your own deployment zone and have good shots across the table is the only thing that allows a shooting army to be a viable strategy.

I am also used to games like FoW where too much cover simply prevents you from shooting or a mix of factors that work against your shooting ability. I find restricting shooting from a "choose your target" down to a situation where you have to try maximize your shooting potential through movement and position which makes it much less forgiving.

Two problems with that comparison:

1) The scale is very different. Those restricted shots in FoW are the equivalent of cross-table shots in 40k. Restricting 40k's shooting distances with blocked LOS only emphasizes the ridiculous scale problems with weapon ranges.

2) 40k doesn't have the rule depth to support this kind of gameplay. There aren't any rules for suppressing fire, movement speeds, reaction shots, etc. Imagine a heavy bolter team camped at the end of an alley between two buildings: they won't be able to see a very large area, but the area they do cover is going to be pretty well secured and attacking them will be incredibly dangerous. And in a good game that's how it would work, they'd be able to react immediately to anyone foolish enough to enter their field of fire, and anyone trying to move up that alley would have to dive for cover and slowly advance from cover to cover with their own suppressing fire giving them occasional brief moments of safety. But in 40k it doesn't work like that. A nasty assault unit can move out from behind the LOS-blocking building, move up the alley, declare a charge, and slaughter the heavy bolter team before they can do more than throw a few ineffective snap shots at their target. So effectively by restricting LOS you've just turned that unit into a useless paperweight until they die.

And the solution to the above is not to buff over-watch or add reaction shots, because sweet jesus balls would tau be broken under that.

Ventiscogreen wrote:
And the solution to the above is not to buff over-watch or add reaction shots, because sweet jesus balls would tau be broken under that.

This is a tangent, but... If the game did I-move-you-move-I-shoot-you-shoot, they wouldn't need to add rules for overwatch. It would just emerge naturally.

sand.zzz wrote:
Line of sight disagreements occur in at least half of my games and games I watch. I typically just concede the argument and let my opponent have their way. This really should be addressed by GW in my opinion. The "leave it up to our players" stance isn't the best answer to everything.

True LoS is an absolute nightmare. Most of the time our judges are called are LoS cases. It's a bloody mess.

 Crablezworth wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
I can see your point, but I personally would rather forces have to meet in the middle over what we have now. I will admit I play 500-1000 point games so my battlefields arent full of men like many we see, having forced mobility is something I long for like when I play other games.

Forcing people to find good shooting locations rather than simply selecting one of many targets in the distance. Forcing people to choose zones to cover rather than simply seeing most of the enemy.

I personally find Line Of Site terrain to create scenarios like this and as a result I would like more of it.

I am also used to games like FoW where too much cover simply prevents you from shooting or a mix of factors that work against your shooting ability. I find restricting shooting from a "choose your target" down to a situation where you have to try maximize your shooting potential through movement and position which makes it much less forgiving.

Just my taste. Less cover saves, more no shooting zones (provided by LoS blockers).

Exalted

Agreed, this makes for a far more interesting game than mass cover saves (and ignores cover shenanigans).