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Had a situation come up the other day. My fire prism blasted a tightly packed squad of chaos marines that was partially in a forest and partially behind the forest. I hit 2 models squarely and partialed 2 models behind the forest, and actaully I got a partial hit on another CSM from another squad that was behind the forest, but one model of that 2nd squad was in the forest and a legal target.

1. Can all three CSMs that were behind the forest be killed? (All models behind the forest were LOS blocked no argument from me or my friend)

We agreed yes with a 5+ forest cover save for everyone, but we both admitted we were just guessing.

2. If I had a flamer template does that change the answer at all?

Killed, no. Hit, yes.

GW's rules aren't exactly written too well on this subject since they seem to sometimes use the words template and blast synonymously and other times they mean they are two separate things entirely. They also confused us with the ordnance rules as well until the FAQ came out.

Basically, when firing say a frag missile into a large unit you can roll to hit before even bringing the template out as long as the firing model has range and LOS to at least one member of the target unit. In fact, let's say he does only have LOS to one member. Then, after a successful hit is scored the attacking player is free to place the template anywhere on the target unit he wishes. He may even place the template out of LOS and range of the weapon and do it in a way that it affects other models from other units as well. The only rule here is that the center hole must be over the base of a model in the target unit. Let's say after rolling for partials 3 hits are scored on the target unit and a hit is scored on another unit nearby. Now we roll for wounds with 3 dice on one unit and 1 die on the other. Let's say all 4 die successfully wound. We roll the same number of saves and let's say 2 saves are failed from the target unit and one is failed from the other unit. Now, we refer to the removing casualties rules where it tells us that only that single model in the target unit can be eligible as a casualty even though 2 wounds were caused on the unit. The wound on the other unit is lost as well assuming the other unit was out of LOS and range. So with this in mind it makes some of that dice rolling pointless, but that's what the rules are.

With flame templates the book tells us how we are to place the template so that much is taken care of. The same rules apply to casualty removal though. So if 3 wounds are caused but only 2 models are in LOS the third wound is lost.

Indirect and ordnance go another route as well by making the attacking player place the template before rolling any dice. These do not follow the normal casualty removal rules, but cover saves are to be determined depending on the result of scatter for indirect.

First off, the Fire Prism doesn't use a template, it uses a blast marker.

Both templates and blasts can hit models that are out of LOS.

Casualties, however, must come from within range and LOS.

The template or blast marker merely tells you how many models in the unit are hit.