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All seems fairly sensible to me. The Heavy Cover rule is counter-intuitive, but its basically a boon for charging units - and since we all like assaulting armies and not evil castle builds we can all agree that's great.

The obscuring rule just seems to be saying that the terrain feature blocks LOS unless you are in it. Which again seems sensible enough to me. It might not matter if you were used to using polystyrene bricks - but it makes a big difference for all GW terrain. I don't really get the lament that your flying Hive Tyrant can still be shot in his wing tip if it pokes out the side - sucks to be him I guess? Find something bigger to hide behind. At least he can't be shot straight through it.

The fact you will be able to shoot aircraft and knights etc and they may not be able to shoot back? Excellent.

But as people have said - hard to see how this helps hordes. Yes, it will be nice that units with a 5+/6+ are more likely to be in light cover than they are in terrain at the moment (depending on how free you are scattering obstacles across the table). But it will in turn also mean units with a 3+ save are more likely to be in cover. You can't really square that issue with maths.

Going back to cover=5++ would perhaps have been better, even if I was never really a fan of that rule.

Tyel wrote:
All seems fairly sensible to me. The Heavy Cover rule is counter-intuitive, but its basically a boon for charging units - and since we all like assaulting armies and not evil castle builds we can all agree that's great.

The obscuring rule just seems to be saying that the terrain feature blocks LOS unless you are in it. Which again seems sensible enough to me. It might not matter if you were used to using polystyrene bricks - but it makes a big difference for all GW terrain. I don't really get the lament that your flying Hive Tyrant can still be shot in his wing tip if it pokes out the side - sucks to be him I guess? Find something bigger to hide behind. At least he can't be shot straight through it.

The fact you will be able to shoot aircraft and knights etc and they may not be able to shoot back? Excellent.

But as people have said - hard to see how this helps hordes. Yes, it will be nice that units with a 5+/6+ are more likely to be in light cover than they are in terrain at the moment (depending on how free you are scattering obstacles across the table). But it will in turn also mean units with a 3+ save are more likely to be in cover. You can't really square that issue with maths.

Going back to cover=5++ would perhaps have been better, even if I was never really a fan of that rule.

I suppose there's still the Defensible trait. That could be something like an old school 4+ cover save, but I'm beginning to doubt it. I think today was a bit details-light because otherwise keen minds would have figured out this terrain system still disproportionately benefits elites over hordes.

Something is screwed every edition, and it's GW's idea to conceal what it is until the maxmum number of people buy in.

Racerguy180 wrote:
There is a huge difference between a Guardsman and an Intercessor. as such, there should be a huge difference in how beneficial cover is to the respective infantry.

The increase to durability should be proportional to their base durability, but it isn't. Something like a FNP save would provide a flat, consistent durability bonus. A Guardsman with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, and an Intercessor with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

Instead, a Guardsman in cover is 33% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, while an Intercessor in cover is 100% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

That just doesn't make sense.

A.T. wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
There's all sorts of junk. Defensible, breachable, exposed...I'd bet quite a few more in the book.

Is it me, or is GW piling a particularly large number of caveats, exceptions, and special cases into everything they can.

8th edition was bad enough with every unit obscured under five layers of faction/aura rules, strategems, unique special rules, and so on, but at least cover was just cover and you didn't have to individually count the models in the unit before each shot.

Well, even in 8th you had ruins, babed wires, tank traps, barricades, woods, containers all with their own rules that were easy to forget. It seems to me they're streamlining those a bit now.

 catbarf wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
There is a huge difference between a Guardsman and an Intercessor. as such, there should be a huge difference in how beneficial cover is to the respective infantry.

The increase to durability should be proportional to their base durability, but it isn't. Something like a FNP save would provide a flat, consistent durability bonus. A Guardsman with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, and an Intercessor with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

Instead, a Guardsman in cover is 33% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, while an Intercessor in cover is 100% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

That just doesn't make sense.

Not defending the mechanic, but you could imagine that heavier armor protects you from spalling debris that's being blasted around as the cover you are behind/in/under is getting blasted to bits.

 catbarf wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
There is a huge difference between a Guardsman and an Intercessor. as such, there should be a huge difference in how beneficial cover is to the respective infantry.

The increase to durability should be proportional to their base durability, but it isn't. Something like a FNP save would provide a flat, consistent durability bonus. A Guardsman with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, and an Intercessor with a 5+ FNP would be 50% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

Instead, a Guardsman in cover is 33% harder to kill than a Guardsman not in cover, while an Intercessor in cover is 100% harder to kill than an Intercessor not in cover.

That just doesn't make sense.

That really depends on what weapon is shooting you since a 5+++ does little to help W1 models against D2+ weapons - especially considering the increased chance for blast weapons to come their way.

In doing so you'd advantage Intercessors more than IS I would imagine.




Of course this doesn't apply evenly to units with a 6+ save and other considerations, but it isn't a simple "x would be better".

I hope that defensible means you can't draw LoS through it, even if it has windows etc.

It seems odd as a mechanic they functionally a human running around naked ( no armour save ) gets no real benefit from standing in the open or standing in a building, given the prevalence of AP-1

If that doesn’t seem stupid to some people, I reckon you play a power armour army.

Karol wrote:
I hope that defensible means you can't draw LoS through it, even if it has windows etc.

Not likely. More like some other esoteric defensive buff.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tulun wrote:
It seems odd as a mechanic they functionally a human running around naked ( no armour save ) gets no real benefit from standing in the open or standing in a building, given the prevalence of AP-1

If that doesn’t seem stupid to some people, I reckon you play a power armour army.

It makes sense, because a big machine gun can go through concrete.

tulun wrote:
It seems odd as a mechanic they functionally a human running around naked ( no armour save ) gets no real benefit from standing in the open or standing in a building, given the prevalence of AP-1

If that doesn’t seem stupid to some people, I reckon you play a power armour army.

But they do get a save against AP0. Spore Mines are "naked" and start with a 7+ save, improved to 6+ in cover.

But where is it?

Defensible is almost surely the garrison rule from AoS and from Apoc.

If you can fit all your models inside the terrain, you garrison it. Auras garrisoned inside affect all models garrisoned but nothing outside. You can fight in melee or shoot from any point of the terrain. All your models can get attacked in melee by someone touching the border of the terrain.

 Togusa wrote:

Spoiler:

But where is it?

Do you think assault rifles only shoot 40 meters too? Or perhaps the game involving our collectible plastic models is played with some understanding that the mechanics require some amount of abstraction.

 Togusa wrote:


But where is it?

You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead, because horizonal LOS is based on TLOS. But move him back 1mm to the right, so his claw is behind the terrain but his whole upper body is still exposed in plain view above the barrier...ha ha, he's invisible, because vertical LOS is not TLOS.

Repeat with flyers for especial hilarity: the leman russ can shoot the flyer, but the flyer can't shoot the leman russ, even though they're both in plain view of one another.

And people complained about ITC's "first floor of a ruin blocks LOS" rules. These are going to be great.

tulun wrote:
It seems odd as a mechanic they functionally a human running around naked ( no armour save ) gets no real benefit from standing in the open or standing in a building, given the prevalence of AP-1

If that doesn’t seem stupid to some people, I reckon you play a power armour army.

No "real" benefit? Believe it or not, there's still plenty of AP0 weaponry that gets used.

Assuming there are zero other terrain keywords (which we know there's more) that will help the poor, innocent 4-6 point infantry model who wasn't hurtin' nobody, this isn't even a change from the current edition.

Cover really ought to work like this:

When shooting at a unit in cover, first roll to hit. After rolling to hit but before rolling to wound, roll a D6 for each successful hit. On a roll of a 6, the hit is absorbed by the cover and the attack sequence ends. Then proceed with the rest of your attacks.

That way everyone gets precisely the same benefit from being in cover - a 16% reduction in the amount of hits.

The downside is this adds one additional step when shooting at units in cover.

yukishiro1 wrote:

You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead

You mean, just like shooting through three layers of windows at a claw in the last edition?

 Insectum7 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead

You mean, just like shooting through three layers of windows at a claw in the last edition?

Definitely. The difference is this time we're combining the silliness of TLOS for horizontal shooting with the different kind of silliness of non-TLOS for vertical shooting.

Layering two different types of silliness on top of each other and having one rule apply horizontally and a different rule apply vertically doesn't make the overall system less silly, it makes it more silly.

Now everybody will be putting their models in the "don't shoot, bro!" pose with both arms directly above their heads if they want to model for advantage, instead of whatever silliness they used to do.

At some point, you just have to admit you're playing a miniatures game with little toy soldiers, and not an exact military simulation.

Quasistellar wrote:
At some point, you just have to admit you're playing a miniatures game with little toy soldiers, and not an exact military simulation.

Definitely. But that's an argument for either just picking TLOS and sticking with it, or not picking TLOS and not sticking with it. Not for a convoluted flowchart with rules about when to use TLOS and when not, when you use it horizontally but not vertically, when you use it for both, when you use it for one model drawing LOS to the other but not for that model drawing LOS to your model, etc etc.

yukishiro1 wrote:


You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead, because horizonal LOS is based on TLOS. But move him back 1mm to the right, so his claw is behind the terrain but his whole upper body is still exposed in plain view above the barrier...ha ha, he's invisible, because vertical LOS is not TLOS.

Repeat with flyers for especial hilarity: the leman russ can shoot the flyer, but the flyer can't shoot the leman russ, even though they're both in plain view of one another.

And people complained about ITC's "first floor of a ruin blocks LOS" rules. These are going to be great.

Ah, yes. Let's have terrain that is so abstract and models so homogeneous that no one will ever be confused again. Or we can just pivot the models a little and stop complaining about everything.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead

You mean, just like shooting through three layers of windows at a claw in the last edition?

Definitely. The difference is this time we're combining the silliness of TLOS for horizontal shooting with the different kind of silliness of non-TLOS for vertical shooting.

Layering two different types of silliness on top of each other and having one rule apply horizontally and a different rule apply vertically doesn't make the overall system less silly, it makes it more silly.

Now everybody will be putting their models in the "don't shoot, bro!" pose with both arms directly above their heads if they want to model for advantage, instead of whatever silliness they used to do.

Hahaha, its gonna be good to trigger all the gunline armies with that rule, LOVE IT! And if they whine, im fine with trading it for removal of fallback. Im not unreasonable.

Quasistellar wrote:
At some point, you just have to admit you're playing a miniatures game with little toy soldiers, and not an exact military simulation.

wait....were not playing an exact simulation down to the smallest detail?

Unfortunately, some cant come to that realization.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:


You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead, because horizonal LOS is based on TLOS. But move him back 1mm to the right, so his claw is behind the terrain but his whole upper body is still exposed in plain view above the barrier...ha ha, he's invisible, because vertical LOS is not TLOS.

Repeat with flyers for especial hilarity: the leman russ can shoot the flyer, but the flyer can't shoot the leman russ, even though they're both in plain view of one another.

And people complained about ITC's "first floor of a ruin blocks LOS" rules. These are going to be great.

Ah, yes. Let's have terrain that is so abstract and models so homogeneous that no one will ever be confused again. Or we can just pivot the models a little and stop complaining about everything.

What a strange response. How does pivoting the models fix any of the issues here? Also, you technically aren't allowed to pivot models under the rules, you have to pay movement for any time one part of the base starts in one place and ends in another. Everybody does it anyway in 8th as long as the model's base is round, but technically, it's violating the rules.

If you favor non-abstract terrain and models, presumably you want to just stick with the TLOS rule in 8th, right?

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:


You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead, because horizonal LOS is based on TLOS. But move him back 1mm to the right, so his claw is behind the terrain but his whole upper body is still exposed in plain view above the barrier...ha ha, he's invisible, because vertical LOS is not TLOS.

Repeat with flyers for especial hilarity: the leman russ can shoot the flyer, but the flyer can't shoot the leman russ, even though they're both in plain view of one another.

And people complained about ITC's "first floor of a ruin blocks LOS" rules. These are going to be great.

Ah, yes. Let's have terrain that is so abstract and models so homogeneous that no one will ever be confused again. Or we can just pivot the models a little and stop complaining about everything.

What a strange response. How does pivoting the models fix any of the issues here? Also, you technically aren't allowed to pivot models under the rules, you have to pay movement for any time one part of the base starts in one place and ends in another. Everybody does it anyway in 8th as long as the model's base is round, but technically, it's violating the rules.

If you favor non-abstract terrain and models, presumably you want to just stick with the TLOS rule in 8th, right?

No, i'll stick to not using grossly misrepresented memes to make an absurd point - the KoS is not that tall and pivoting is hardly a hassle. If you guys can't communicate your intention with your opponent I've got nothin'.

yukishiro1 wrote:

Spoiler:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:


You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead, because horizonal LOS is based on TLOS. But move him back 1mm to the right, so his claw is behind the terrain but his whole upper body is still exposed in plain view above the barrier...ha ha, he's invisible, because vertical LOS is not TLOS.

Repeat with flyers for especial hilarity: the leman russ can shoot the flyer, but the flyer can't shoot the leman russ, even though they're both in plain view of one another.

And people complained about ITC's "first floor of a ruin blocks LOS" rules. These are going to be great.

Ah, yes. Let's have terrain that is so abstract and models so homogeneous that no one will ever be confused again. Or we can just pivot the models a little and stop complaining about everything.

What a strange response. How does pivoting the models fix any of the issues here? Also, you technically aren't allowed to pivot models under the rules, you have to pay movement for any time one part of the base starts in one place and ends in another. Everybody does it anyway in 8th as long as the model's base is round, but technically, it's violating the rules.

If you favor non-abstract terrain and models, presumably you want to just stick with the TLOS rule in 8th, right?

So pivot the model at the end of your movement to try and conceal it as best you can. This isn't rocket science.

 Insectum7 wrote:
So pivot the model at the end of your movement to try and conceal it as best you can. This isn't rocket science.

Nobody's asking how to play the game with this weird hybrid TLOS-for-horizontal-but-not-for-vertical-except-oh-wait-sometimes-for-vertical-too-but-not-reciprocally.

The question is, why? Why should someone's vertical ribbon sticking up in the air be ignored, but someone's horizontal ribbon sticking out to the side be a good opportunity to blow them to kingdom come? It seems like splitting the baby in a way that means that it doesn't make sense no mater how you look at it.

TLOS makes a certain kind of sense. It leads to silly results with modeling, but at least it's consistent, and it's easy to apply.

Ignoring TLOS also makes a certain kind of sense. It can also lead to silly results, but it's also consistent.

Now we have a bizare hybrid system where sometimes one model is using TLOS to the other while the other cannot use TLOS back, and where both models may be using TLOS differently horizontally and vertically.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:
So pivot the model at the end of your movement to try and conceal it as best you can. This isn't rocket science.

Nobody's asking how to play the game with this weird hybrid TLOS-for-horizontal-but-not-for-vertical-except-oh-wait-sometimes-for-vertical-too-but-not-reciprocally.

The question is, why? Why should someone's vertical ribbon sticking up in the air be ignored, but someone's horizontal ribbon sticking out to the side be a good opportunity to blow them to kingdom come? It seems like splitting the baby in a way that means that it doesn't make sense no mater how you look at it.

TLOS makes a certain kind of sense. It leads to silly results with modeling, but at least it's consistent, and it's easy to apply.

Ignoring TLOS also makes a certain kind of sense. It can also lead to silly results, but it's also consistent.

Now we have a bizare hybrid system where sometimes one model is using TLOS to the other while the other cannot use TLOS back, and where both models may be using TLOS differently horizontally and vertically.

Yeah it's definitely bizarre and doesn't sound good at first glance, especially in the new light of having a model based cover and additional ways of getting it...

yukishiro1 wrote:

Karol wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:


Yeah. But if you can draw a LOS to some spear hanging off the side, you could shoot at it just fine. It's only if the spear is directly above that it would be blocked.

Doesn't seem to work that way.

No, that is what it says. Read it carefully: if you can draw a straight line from your model to any part of their model without hitting the building, you can shoot at it. So if there's a spear or a gun or something hanging off the side, you can fire at them even if 99% of their model is obscured by the sillhouette. It's only if the spear/rifle etc is pushing up over the top that obscuring blocks it.

While hiding a huge mob of Ork Boyz or a swarm of gaunts from a Leman Russ will be difficult, you can still try to make it harder for multi-model units in the enemy's army to target you with all of their models. That spear? Might not be visible to all of the Centurions or Obliterators who want to fire at it.

Spoletta wrote:
Defensible is almost surely the garrison rule from AoS and from Apoc.

If you can fit all your models inside the terrain, you garrison it. Auras garrisoned inside affect all models garrisoned but nothing outside. You can fight in melee or shoot from any point of the terrain. All your models can get attacked in melee by someone touching the border of the terrain.

My guess, too. Also, defensible from Apoc grants a "natural 6 always saves", so a backdoor 6++.

yukishiro1 wrote:

 Insectum7 wrote:

yukishiro1 wrote:

You can make this picture even better, by making the 5" thing not infinite length. Them move the KoS 1mm to the left, so part of his claw extends horizontally beyond the terrain piece- and boom, that guy is dead

You mean, just like shooting through three layers of windows at a claw in the last edition?

Definitely. The difference is this time we're combining the silliness of TLOS for horizontal shooting with the different kind of silliness of non-TLOS for vertical shooting.

Layering two different types of silliness on top of each other and having one rule apply horizontally and a different rule apply vertically doesn't make the overall system less silly, it makes it more silly.

Now everybody will be putting their models in the "don't shoot, bro!" pose with both arms directly above their heads if they want to model for advantage, instead of whatever silliness they used to do.

So good!
But multiple layers of silliness is GW rules writing in a nutshell, isn't it?

Did you really sugest makng a whole extra roll fishing for 6's to see if cover absorbs damage... Okay... And I thought GW had a hard on for 6's fishing as a mechanic.

These rules are great more or less so far. It looks like you can advance a model right up to the wall so it cant be seen. Like when you paintball and you are rushing to that barricade...

So you have the option to give up shooting (or not if assult) to get protected by cover. Sounds legit. Next turn you can walk into the cover to fire and get cover or bide your time. Its almost like you have to make tactical manoeuvring decisions because it no longer matters where your models are unless you have some sort of universal magic L shaped terrain..

Obviously depending on terrain this makes a lot of sense.

My wraithlord can finaly not die to a sneeze on the 1st turn. Im happy. The blob of 20 guardians might not be fine due to the blast rules but oh well.

I would have liked it if the terrain also impeded movement as well in the difficult terrain sense so you can benefit from cover but then you will have to pay the movement price when you want to move through it to add another layer of cost v benefit but so far so good. Its an improvement.

BUT also i cant help thinking this is GW sneaky way of ensuring TO's buy uniform terrain from them to set up tables.