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This came up in a game the other day and I can't seem to find the relevant rules clarifying. If someone could point me in the right direction it would be much appreciated.

I shot a blast weapon at some tyranid gargoyles, drawing line of sight to their body (not their wings and tails per the rules). After scatter, the blast lands over a ton of wings and tails but no bases.

Do the clipped wings and tails not count as hits with the blast weapon? Pg. 371 indicates that any model partially under takes a hit. My opponent insisted that wings and tails don't count as part of the model for this purpose, which seems silly considering coherency was measured from the wingtips to maximize spacing....

Coherency is measured from the base, not the wings nor tails.

Well that would have put them fairly out of coherency. Can someone please point me to rules sections that shows that wings/tails are ignored when it comes to partial coverings via blast?

I think this current discussion covers your situation:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/614481.page

They were probably referring to the LOS rules: "...will be visible of a model is a weapon, banner or other ornament he is carrying. In these cases, the model is not visible. Similarly, we ignore wings, tails and antennae even though they are technically part of a model’s body. These rules are intended to ensure that..."

Russian Roulette wrote:
coherency was measured from the wingtips to maximize spacing....

Well that is completely wrong! p10 - Measuring Distances.

@ Ghaz Thanks thats pretty helpful

So line of sight was followed correctly, but for the hits themselves wings should have been discounted because of the wording under the LOS section? That doesn't seem very clear....

It explicitly says any part under the blast...which means I've been misplaying thunderfires and termagaunts too I guess....

Permission to ignore them for Line of Sight purposes, and even then only in specific situations, is not Permission to ignore them for all purposes.

Russian Roulette wrote:
..., but for the hits themselves wings should have been discounted because of the wording under the LOS section? That doesn't seem very clear....

The reference to the LOS rules was just pointing out where the confusion may have come from. That, and the fact that in previous editions blasts had to be over the base.

As was discussed in the thread Ghaz linked to, in the current edition there is no requirement for the blast to be over the base. Just for the model to be at least partially under the template.

Having part of a wing under the template would qualify as part of the model being under the template, because no rule tells us to ignore the wings for that purpose.

No, but it is permission to ignore them for the purposes of assigning wounds to them, since you have to use LOS in order to do so...

When determining if the Model meets the Line of Sight requirements within the Wound Allocation step of the process, assuming no Special Rule changing the situation, then I will agree that your sentence is correct.
However, what does that have to do with determining the number of Hit's generated by a Special Rule?

As a side note;
Blast Markers have permission to ignore Line of Sight requirements within Wound Allocation anyway....
With that broken 'empty the pool' rule clearly being ignored, of course.

Very little. But as per the OP: the blast marker scatters over a bunch of wings and tails but no bases. So far as assigning hits goes you'd do so based on the number of models. However immediately after that you'd discard each and every hit because none of them were assigned to a model the firing model has LOS to. It seemed relevant to the OPs concern to display how that would play out in it's entirety, not just to the 'to hit' section of the shooting phase.

The firing model had LoS to the models, the blast marker scattered...

NeoRealistic,
You have a two core problems with your statement, even ignoring the fact the Models are themselves in Line of Sight in this scenario:
1) Hits are only Allocated if we are shooting at a Vehicle, and even then they would be Allocated only after being generated by the Blast Marker Special Rule
2) Blast Markers, scattered ones in particular, have instructions informing us to Allocate regardless of Line of Sight and Range

 Neorealist wrote:
However immediately after that you'd discard each and every hit because none of them were assigned to a model the firing model has LOS to.

Where are you getting that they don't have LOS from?

Being under the marker or not doesn't determine LOS.

I was going with the LOS rules for that. Notably the one I quoted above which indicates it cannot be drawn to wings or tails, in combination with the rule about how to assign wounds to a given model.

Ok... But not being under the blast marker doesn't mean that the firing unit can't see them.