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 BaconCatBug wrote:

 Hanskrampf wrote:

 BaconCatBug wrote:
A slightly more accurate diagram:

Spoiler:

I often agree with you, but are you sure you read the rule correctly this time? Because your diagram is kinda useless? The line passes over the terrain = target gains cover.

My point is the "every part of at least one model's base" is an impossibility because the base itself blocks those lines, unless the lines can go though models.

Well didnt those gus you're arguing with just repeatedly point out that this is the case? You're a decent rule lawyer. Lawyer the rule as written. Can't the line go through models and bases if specifically only dense terrain is listed as able to block the line?

Getting a lot of alerts in this thread, lets tone it down please. Lets keep the posting on topic try to avoid the hyperbole, thanks!

the_scotsman wrote:

 Latro_ wrote:
blimey these terrain trait rules....

Is it just me, but i find my self reading these rules about 4 times over in places to get the gist of what they are trying to say?

perhaps its just new rule syndrome, anyone else getting this?

Spoiler:

Yeah, they actually mentioned on-stream just now that there are going to be two forms that the rules take, and this is the longform "full rule". there will also be brief bullet point summaries that mention in short form how the rule works. Probably something like

"If a terrain piece with this trait is 3" or taller, shooting attacks that pass over or through it suffer a -1 penalty to hit rolls. Models claiming Cover from a terrain piece with this trait do not suffer the penalty for that terrain piece."

I updated my original post and more or less wrote exactly that! If this is the case that is great because what it also does is even if their are issues it introduces intention on top of RAW and also makes 90% of the times you need a rule much easier to follow.

Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Nothing new today. They're discussing Inquisitors in the Pariah book.

At one point he actually said that Inquisitors have "total freedom to do what is necessary". That made me laugh given that Inquisitors are one of the most hamstrung lists when it comes to weapon options and actual choices.

You're telling me. Back when 8th launched I wanted to do a heavilly converted army mounted up in Land Speeder Storms to represent the small grav vehicles the Inquisition has in the lore, and back it up with a Repulsor that the Inquisitor would ride in.

Can't do it because of "unit keywords" and then they killed my ability to even put that stuff in the same army as an Inquisitor and their retinue.

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Yea but in reality to stoop low get a model eye view and can see if any of your models can see any of their models NOT blocked by the cover and then (if needed) demonstrate the line.

its not much different from LoS checking

 BaconCatBug wrote:


Lines don't have a length, they are by definition infinite. The term you want is a Line Segment. Also, lines don't have a width, by definition, they are one dimensional objects (their slope).

Dude... lines are two dimensional. But yeah... you guys need to chill. This rule is fairly well explained. I am one of the first to criticize GW for the gak show they are running like now... but the rule is pretty clear.

So, ignoring the terrain rule, that Vertical Engagement Range seems like a good change depending on how high monsters and large walkers, etc can reach.

The fact that Carnifexes were said to have a generous VER makes me think it's 6", as that's how tall most terrain's (made by GW) first level is.
Could be less though.

 puma713 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

The penalties are still on a model by model basis, the whole unit doesnt get -1 to hit though. It's the same as LoS: "These 3 models can see, those two cant", or range. I don't think we've ever had much problem with those cases, so I don't see why this would be any worse. It's usually pretty obvious how many models have a clear shot and how many don't, maybe one on the edge you actually have to check.

 Carnikang wrote:
The fact that Carnifexes were said to have a generous VER makes me think it's 6", as that's how tall most terrain's (made by GW) first level is.

Standard Sector Mechanicus/Imperialis terrain has 5" levels, which is why this 3" thing for dense terrain is odd. It's not half the standard level of their terrain, but is, in fact, the standard level of the old Cities of Death terrain.

But yes, the vertical thing is good. I do hope it's based off of Mechanicus/Imperialis terrain - basically anything standing on the first level or lower - as it'll make fighting in cities for armies like Tyranids a bit easier.

 McGibs wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 McGibs wrote:
The rule says nothing about SEEING. You just have to draw a line. Does the line pass through Dense Terrain (again, regardless of actually drawing LoS through it)? Ok, apply the -1 to hit.

That's not what he's saying.

Look at the line again:

"... subtract 1 from the hit roll when resolving an attack... unless you can draw straight lines, 1mm in thickness, to every part of at least one model's base..."

It says "every part" of the base. Given you can never draw a line to the other side of the model's base, because it's own base blocks itself, it's impossible to ignore dense terrain. And that's not even factoring in that the model itself will block LOS to some of the base, meaning it remains impossible to draw a straight line to "every part" of the base.

Look. I did it.

Spoiler:

This rule is nothing about checking visibility. It's not LoS. This line measurement is just to check if terrain is intervening between two models, that's IT.

This was my understanding, it makes sense to me.

 puma713 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

Nope. You're assuming that the current structure of the terrain rules (whereby all models get it, or all models don't get it) is still in place. It seems like all the terrain rules we've seen so far are by model, rather than by unit.

Well, reading through these last 2 pages was painful. Thank God my coffee tasted good.
Luckily, most people will play the rule with no issues whatsoever.

updated the article with this

the_scotsman wrote:
Nope. You're assuming that the current structure of the terrain rules (whereby all models get it, or all models don't get it) is still in place. It seems like all the terrain rules we've seen so far are by model, rather than by unit.

Well that'll speed things up.

the_scotsman wrote:

 puma713 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

Nope. You're assuming that the current structure of the terrain rules (whereby all models get it, or all models don't get it) is still in place. It seems like all the terrain rules we've seen so far are by model, rather than by unit.

Again, this isn't really that much different than what we're doing now, as someone else pointed out. Can 10 of my 20 Necron warriors see 3 of your 30 orks fully? Then I shoot with 3+ to hit with 10 and 4+ to hit with the other 10.

 puma713 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 puma713 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

Nope. You're assuming that the current structure of the terrain rules (whereby all models get it, or all models don't get it) is still in place. It seems like all the terrain rules we've seen so far are by model, rather than by unit.

Again, this isn't really that much different than what we're doing now, as someone else pointed out. Can 10 of my 20 Necron warriors see 3 of your 30 orks fully? Then I shoot with 3+ to hit with 10 and 4+ to hit with the other 10.

Hmmmm. Actually, you have a good point there. This rule DOESN"T work model to model like the others do, because you don't assign targets of a to-hit roll until after the wound AFAIK. So unlike with the other ones that add +1 to save, it isn't easy to figure out what happens when you have a unit partially in cover.

Welp, I hope that means the general rules for area terrain and obstacles aren't still "every model in the unit must adhere to these strictures" that'd be a real bummer/yet another kick in the teeth to large units.

 puma713 wrote:


Again, this isn't really that much different than what we're doing now, as someone else pointed out. Can 10 of my 20 Necron warriors see 3 of your 30 orks fully? Then I shoot with 3+ to hit with 10 and 4+ to hit with the other 10.

Doesn't matter. It's impossible to see every part of a threedimensional object from a single vantage point (even ignoring the part that sits on the table). Something is always facing away from the point of view.

 puma713 wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

 puma713 wrote:

torblind wrote:
Well, according to "higher standards" of reading rules, it should be fine, shouldn't it?

Another problem is you have to make this check for every single model firing in a squad.

If I bring 20 necrons to shoot at 30 orks in cover, thats a hole bunch of lines that needs to be established before I get to roll any dice.

Not really. You just have to decide if you can see ONE of them. Choose the one that's most visible. If you can't draw lines to the ONE you chose, then the other 29 (if they're less visible) get the -1 to hit.

Only one model needs to fail the check to ignore the penalty.

Nope. You're assuming that the current structure of the terrain rules (whereby all models get it, or all models don't get it) is still in place. It seems like all the terrain rules we've seen so far are by model, rather than by unit.

Again, this isn't really that much different than what we're doing now, as someone else pointed out. Can 10 of my 20 Necron warriors see 3 of your 30 orks fully? Then I shoot with 3+ to hit with 10 and 4+ to hit with the other 10.

Well, today you just need to see something of a model, not to determine if you see all of it, through perhaps opaque terrain, from every model on the firing unit. But yeah. Worst case scenario gets busy, the rest will be fine.

A -1 to hit from cover would be a lot more impactful if it wasn't capped at a max of a -1 to hit no matter what. This means that in a lot of cases there will be no actual penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons as infantry, no real penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing, etc etc.

Hopefully they thought of this, and have allow this -1 to hit to stack on top of the -1 you might get from another source. Otherwise, it's usefulness is going to be quite minor.

yukishiro1 wrote:
A -1 to hit from cover would be a lot more impactful if it wasn't capped at a max of a -1 to hit no matter what. This means that in a lot of cases there will be no actual penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons as infantry, no real penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing, etc etc.

Hopefully they thought of this, and have allow this -1 to hit to stack on top of the -1 you might get from another source. Otherwise, it's usefulness is going to be quite minor.

This rule helps your ork boyz etc the most it seems and is another measure to help get infantry across the board. Their biggest threat is advertised as blast weapons which are usually vehicle mounted, giving the -1 a purpose.

Dudeface wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
A -1 to hit from cover would be a lot more impactful if it wasn't capped at a max of a -1 to hit no matter what. This means that in a lot of cases there will be no actual penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons as infantry, no real penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing, etc etc.

Hopefully they thought of this, and have allow this -1 to hit to stack on top of the -1 you might get from another source. Otherwise, it's usefulness is going to be quite minor.

This rule helps your ork boyz etc the most it seems and is another measure to help get infantry across the board. Their biggest threat is advertised as blast weapons which are usually vehicle mounted, giving the -1 a purpose.

It actually super doesn't though. Like, proportionally, almost all these terrain rules help higher-quality infantry way more than they help lower-quality infantry.

A space marine with a to-hit reroll drops from 88% to hit to 75% to hit, a 15% reduction.

Meanwhile, an ork (say, a SAG Big Mek for example) drops from a 39% hit to a 20% to hit, a 49% reduction.

It's exactly the same as the Light and Heavy cover bonuses, which are far more impactful percentage-wise the better your armor save gets (capping off at 2+) the penalty for -1 to hit is far worse the worse your BS is, again capping off at 6+.

That issue compounds if, as another poster pointed out, it is not possible to have a unit that is PARTIALLY benefitting from this rule. If the general rules for cover are worded like they are in 8th, meaning either the whole unit gets cover and a single model being out of cover makes the whole unit out of cover, this is yet another rule that penalizes larger squads of lower quality infantry disproportionately.

 Latro_ wrote:
updated the article with this

wow they really hate the Triumph of St Katherine.

Yeah this is another bonus for elite infantry and a penalty for horde units. All you need is one model out of the cover and the other 29 models in cover don't benefit from it either, so the bigger your units, the harder it is to benefit from the -1 to hit this gives.

the_scotsman wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
A -1 to hit from cover would be a lot more impactful if it wasn't capped at a max of a -1 to hit no matter what. This means that in a lot of cases there will be no actual penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons as infantry, no real penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing, etc etc.

Hopefully they thought of this, and have allow this -1 to hit to stack on top of the -1 you might get from another source. Otherwise, it's usefulness is going to be quite minor.

A space marine with a to-hit reroll drops from 88% to hit to 75% to hit, a 15% reduction.

Meanwhile, an ork (say, a SAG Big Mek for example) drops from a 39% hit to a 20% to hit, a 49% reduction.

what terrain rules would you propose that would be playable and balanced between orks and marines?

 Mr Morden wrote:

 Latro_ wrote:
updated the article with this

wow they really hate the Triumph of St Katherine.

Well the Triumph already has a native -1 to be hit IIRC so if these don't stack it wouldn't actually make any difference.

 Latro_ wrote:

the_scotsman wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:
A -1 to hit from cover would be a lot more impactful if it wasn't capped at a max of a -1 to hit no matter what. This means that in a lot of cases there will be no actual penalty for moving and shooting heavy weapons as infantry, no real penalty for shooting assault weapons after advancing, etc etc.

Hopefully they thought of this, and have allow this -1 to hit to stack on top of the -1 you might get from another source. Otherwise, it's usefulness is going to be quite minor.

A space marine with a to-hit reroll drops from 88% to hit to 75% to hit, a 15% reduction.

Meanwhile, an ork (say, a SAG Big Mek for example) drops from a 39% hit to a 20% to hit, a 49% reduction.

what terrain rules would you propose that would be playable and balanced between orks and marines?

A FNP style rule (or improvement upon your FNP style rule) would provide exactly the same benefit, but would be much, MUUUUUUUUUUUCH less disproportionate between factions. And if you were concerned with nurgle, just make it not stack with other FNP rules.

The downside is it would take longer to resolve.

Either that, or make it the role of light infantry (because they seriously do not have any kind of effective role at this point, I do not know why you would want to have a light troop choice in this edition in general) that they are particularly good at taking and holding terrain, and make something like the old "4+ cover save" terrain available again.

That is really what I was hoping the "Defensible" trait would be. Instead it's a somewhat less impactful rule for counterattacking or using one particular once-per-turn stratagem.

This is also going to be a rather tedious rule to apply in practice, because although you only need to able to draw to one of the models you're shooting at to negate the bonus against all 30, each individual shooting model needs to try to draw its own individual lines to see if it can do so to any of the opposing models. So if you have a unit of 30 boyz shooting at say 10 marines with a dense cover terrain piece partially in-between, you may have to check the lines for all 30 boyz models and then split up shooting between those that get -1 to hit and those that don't.

 Latro_ wrote:
updated the article with this

Really, they are going all in on just destroying terrain as anything but a hindrance to 18+ wound model's.
I hope they have suitably considered this and not actually raised their points at this point as so far they are gaining nothing and loosing out of in all the rules previews.