Line of sight

[Vextol]

This may be a silly question, but how does everyone handle line of sight? 

I think the proper way to do it is to squat down and if you can 'see' any of the model from the perspective of the model you're shooting with, you can shoot then.  Is this correct?  Is this how most people play it or is there an accepted alternative? 

I personally would really like this rule to go away.  It's very awkward and so subjective.  I like the idea of straight, uninterrupted line from base to base and the model can "see".  

I also think it would be cool if monsters blocked line of sight in this way.  It's (I think) only a negative to be a monster.  Some positive aspect would be welcome.  As it is, monsters frequently could block los but you can usually see through their legs. This seems dumb because in a fantasy setting, you would be lobbing your shots and not shooting them like a laser. 

 

[Killax]

Topic comes up quite often!

I think that for personal games some common sence revolving around the body and arms of the model is ideally applied.

[Vextol]

26 minutes ago, Killax said:

Topic comes up quite often!

I think that for personal games some common sence revolving around the body and arms of the model is ideally applied.

Sorry!  Upper right hand corner, magnifying glass and all that 

So in tournaments, things like wildwood don't block Los most of the time?  If you're positioned such that you can technically "see" through two sets of windows, you can shoot a bunch of arrows through those windows? 

Feels silly that if you're an inch behind forest cover, you're open to be shot by everything, but take one step forward and now you get a +1 to save.  I understand "the cover is a representation and when you're in it your can hide behind trees" except that's so inconsistent.  Behind it you have to adhere strictly to the specific model dimensionality in the real world, but in it you get to pretend it's a bustling forest 

[Killax]

No worries, I think its only a great question. It would also be great if GW adressed this stuff in GH2018 for example or other rules maby!

[chord]

I usually bend down to see if it's not obvious.  Remember Line of sight is per model not per unit

[Aegisgrimm]

I really never understood why things like forests didn't stay as the area terrain effect that was essentially "If a model is inside the terrain borders, it has cover against models outside of the terrain.  Models either outside or inside of forests can draw LoS through up to 6" of forest, and forests also completely block line of sight to units on either side of them".

Honestly, it's a rule that I have actually ported into games that do not have clear LoS rules over the years (Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok and One Page 40k/Fantasy, to name two), and it always makes sense to all players and holds up, rather than this True Line of Sight nonsense where as long as you can thread LoS through tiny cracks in terrain, everything's kosher. 

Area terrain always made more sense to me, as well as being crystal clear where that terrain does and does not have effects.

[Kamose]

This question comes up so often because there's a conflict because the rules complexity the GW wants the game to include and the rules complexity that experienced gamers (nearly everyone on this forum) want to have.  Experienced players i.e. any player with a working knowledge of the ruleset of any tabletop game, feel able to handle additional complexity.  Most of the time they are right and additional complexity would add rather than take away from their enjoyment.  GW clearly value simplicity over attempts at realism and trust the players to explain away any inconsistencies.  They're promoting simplicity and ease of play in this instance to allow new players to get learn the rules with a minimum of confusion.  More experienced players can layer on additional rules as they like but new players don't have that luxury.  Moreover experienced players are better able to  create house-rules than new players hence your examples, base to base line of sight or monsters that block of sight.

I wouldn't expect this to change in future editions.  GW will certainly add new terrain pieces with their own Warscroll rules but the most we can expect in the main rules is perhaps intervening terrain to grant cover.  Even that seems unlikely because of the difficultly of wording such a rule.  I give you the "Barricade" rule on the Walls and Fences Warscroll as an example.  A 48 word sentence needed to explain that your models can hide on the other side of a wall.  My advice is to just house rule what seems best to you and your mates. 

[Aegisgrimm]

Yeah, lots of games I have played usually treat a wall as an obstacle where a defender gains cover if they are being shot at by an attack which crosses that wall, unless the attackers are within "x" distance of that wall (usually something like 1/2 an inch).  Melee across a wall usually never counts as two models on either side of one count as base to base.

[Jamopower]

4 hours ago, Aegisgrimm said:

I really never understood why things like forests didn't stay as the area terrain effect that was essentially "If a model is inside the terrain borders, it has cover against models outside of the terrain.  Models either outside or inside of forests can draw LoS through up to 6" of forest, and forests also completely block line of sight to units on either side of them".

Honestly, it's a rule that I have actually ported into games that do not have clear LoS rules over the years (Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok and One Page 40k/Fantasy, to name two), and it always makes sense to all players and holds up, rather than this True Line of Sight nonsense where as long as you can thread LoS through tiny cracks in terrain, everything's kosher. 

Area terrain always made more sense to me, as well as being crystal clear where that terrain does and does not have effects.

Yeah, this is how we play forests in all games as well. Would be nice to have a division of hard cover (+1 to save) like walls and soft cover (-1 to hit) like tall grass and shrubberies in the game, but it's also easily house ruled.

 

I think it would be beneficial for the game to play the units on the battlefield similarly. i.e. you can't see through other units unless you are taller. Wouldn't do anything against skyfires, but would be a lot more "realistic". With the rules as written, it's usually not even worth to scoop down to model's perspective, as you always see through units and most of terrain, unless you have solid walls.

 

Ruleswise it's easy to understand why they don't bother with writing line of sight rules, as common sense is hard to write on paper. Especially for a game where certain minority of players is especially good at nitpicking small loopholes in the rules for their supposed advantage.

[Gaz Taylor]

48 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Ruleswise it's easy to understand why they don't bother with writing line of sight rules, as common sense is hard to write on paper. Especially for a game where certain minority of players is especially good at nitpicking small loopholes in the rules for their supposed advantage.

Yup. Plus it's tricky writing complex or descriptive rules about LOS works. I remember playing 4th edition of 40K which had a fairly good LOS system and quite a few players seemed to not understand how it worked so just did True Line of Sight. Personally I quite like how it all works now as if you have two players who aren't trying to pull one over each other, it works very well. 

I can see why some players want or need to have the rules explained as much as possible but again as long as you have two players who aren't being silly or bending the rules to win at all costs, TLOS works.

[Jamopower]

Yeah, the LoS system was at it's best in 4th edition 40k. Priestley has also taken it to his other games at Warlord games in more or less similar form.

One additional thing in writing rules for terrain, is that it tends to vary quite much between the gaming groups. I have played with everything from terrain made from books and cardboard boxes (open ones were ruins :)) to fully modeled boards and even with natural terrain at the garden. It's hard to cover everything.

[ledha]

5 hours ago, Aegisgrimm said:

I really never understood why things like forests didn't stay as the area terrain effect that was essentially "If a model is inside the terrain borders, it has cover against models outside of the terrain.  Models either outside or inside of forests can draw LoS through up to 6" of forest, and forests also completely block line of sight to units on either side of them".

Honestly, it's a rule that I have actually ported into games that do not have clear LoS rules over the years (Confrontation:Age of Ragnorok and One Page 40k/Fantasy, to name two), and it always makes sense to all players and holds up, rather than this True Line of Sight nonsense where as long as you can thread LoS through tiny cracks in terrain, everything's kosher. 

Area terrain always made more sense to me, as well as being crystal clear where that terrain does and does not have effects.

it's a good rule until a sylvaneth army pop forest in the middle lane of the map and completely shutdown a gunline, leading to an auto-win

[Gaz Taylor]

12 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

Yeah, the LoS system was at it's best in 4th edition 40k. Priestley has also taken it to his other games at Warlord games in more or less similar form.

It was a great system but again, some players struggled with it. I'm not surprised to see it in other systems but too be honest, I like how it works now in GW games. So simple an I've never had any issues

14 minutes ago, Jamopower said:

One additional thing in writing rules for terrain, is that it tends to vary quite much between the gaming groups. I have played with everything from terrain made from books and cardboard boxes (open ones were ruins :)) to fully modeled boards and even with natural terrain at the garden. It's hard to cover everything.

Yup. This is another reason not to go into massive amount of detail about it because you will never cover anything. It's a beauty of game design when you think about how good true line of sight really is, as it lets anybody with anything in their terrain collection play without having to modify anything.

[stato]

1 hour ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Yup. Plus it's tricky writing complex or descriptive rules about LOS works. I remember playing 4th edition of 40K which had a fairly good LOS system and quite a few players seemed to not understand how it worked so just did True Line of Sight. Personally I quite like how it all works now as if you have two players who aren't trying to pull one over each other, it works very well. 

I can see why some players want or need to have the rules explained as much as possible but again as long as you have two players who aren't being silly or bending the rules to win at all costs, TLOS works.

Its crazy how many 'rules' questions pop up on here where people seem to need definitive resolution.  Ive only been playing 1 year now but played lots of tournaments against a variety of players, and 99% of the issues raised on here never come up.

LoS takes no-more than a glance, often my opponent pointing out some ive missed or reminding me some 'should' be out of sight because he placed them in a way to be out of sight and we agreed they would be when he placed them (its good practice to discuss with your opponent what you are doing as it save time faffing to get model placement mm perfect).

[Gaz Taylor]

23 minutes ago, stato said:

Its crazy how many 'rules' questions pop up on here where people seem to need definitive resolution.  Ive only been playing 1 year now but played lots of tournaments against a variety of players, and 99% of the issues raised on here never come up.

Yup. I think it's a mentality sort of thing. I manage a team of IT engineers and some of them can be very much like this. I'm not and just need the high level details and I'll make it work. Same with films, comics, books - you can nit pick stuff but you don't need to. Enjoy it  

[Jamopower]

The LoS rules as they are now don't cause issues, but they lead to strange situations, like crossbowmen shooting through a bunch of models to a wizard behind them, as it is almost impossible to cover the whole line of sight with abstract formed models that have all sorts of holes between their legs etc. This is of course not a problem, if you don't think too much in or take in to account abstractions like that the warriors would actually move around. I however like more the abstractions where you have stuff blocking the LoS on the table while it doesn't actually do so when looking at it, as it's not practical to model the undergrowth to a forest etc. But one of the great things in AoS, is that it's easy to tweak according to local taste with house rules.

[tolstedt]

8 hours ago, Aegisgrimm said:

Yeah, lots of games I have played usually treat a wall as an obstacle where a defender gains cover if they are being shot at by an attack which crosses that wall, unless the attackers are within "x" distance of that wall (usually something like 1/2 an inch).  Melee across a wall usually never counts as two models on either side of one count as base to base.

There are rules for walls and fences in the app!

[tolstedt]

1 hour ago, Gaz Taylor said:

Yup. I think it's a mentality sort of thing. I manage a team of IT engineers and some of them can be very much like this. I'm not and just need the high level details and I'll make it work. Same with films, comics, books - you can nit pick stuff but you don't need to. Enjoy it  

Humans like to get things perfect.  The question posed is one about the way things "should" be and what is ultimately fairest and balanced and the best way to play the game.  

Rarely do questions like this have immediately apparent functionality.  I don't feel this makes them not worthwhile.  It is a forum to discuss the game after all.  It's fine to talk about things.  And if we are talking about what is "needed", playing the wargame at all certainly isn't something we "need" to do, so this seems unfair as a qualifier.  The other qualifier of enjoyment?  Who can say how much OP enjoys the discussion he started.  You'd have to ask him about enjoyment.

1 hour ago, stato said:

(its good practice to discuss with your opponent what you are doing as it save time faffing to get model placement mm perfect).

Agreed.  I find that simply announcing your intent with things like movement is the way to go.  "I want him to be outside of 3" so he's not tagged in combat"  "Can you see him around the corner of the building?  No?  Good!"  It's especially important around objectives.  And does save tons of time.
 

[Gaz Taylor]

36 minutes ago, tolstedt said:

Humans like to get things perfect.  The question posed is one about the way things "should" be and what is ultimately fairest and balanced and the best way to play the game.  

Rarely do questions like this have immediately apparent functionality.  I don't feel this makes them not worthwhile.  It is a forum to discuss the game after all.  It's fine to talk about things.  And if we are talking about what is "needed", playing the wargame at all certainly isn't something we "need" to do, so this seems unfair as a qualifier.  The other qualifier of enjoyment?  Who can say how much OP enjoys the discussion he started.  You'd have to ask him about enjoyment.

Sorry I should have added "In My Opinion"  

It's a mentality thing. I don't need to get caught up in the details why something works, just that it's fun for both players. But I know some people need to know that something is water tight to before they get enjoyment out of it or that they get pleasure from the discussion about having something locked down in the rules. 

[Vextol]

3 hours ago, Gaz Taylor said:

I's a mentality thing. I don't need to get caught up in the details why something works, just that it's fun for both players. But I know some people need to know that something is water tight to before they get enjoyment out of it or that they get pleasure from the discussion about having something locked down in the rules. 

My mentality is that I enjoy painting models and I enjoy the competition of the game. 

Football is great fun, fun to throw the ball around and fun to play.  However, if touchdowns are scored when you get "close enough" to the end zone, sure, it could still be fun, but the competition wont feel fleshed out.  Now, some people may not like that it's a serious game.  Maybe they like the abstract nature of "close enough" but competitively, close enough always feels off.

This is my primary issue with the idea that 'simple is better' and 'just don't worry about it'.  Players who like that always have that option regardless of rules.  People who want more precision are left to their own devices.

So, the decision is who to accommodate.  Obviously both sides will never agree.  I think clarity should be supported over simplicity for the above mentioned reason and because of this:  people often play with players who share their opinions on how to play.   Open players are much more likely to come to an agreement on "house rules" than competitive, strict, by the rules players (trust me ) and if you're playing for the competitive nature, you never feel quite right if you are the one making the changes.

And as I brought up, even playing the simple official rules has to sit a little off with people.  You can see me behind trees but you can't see me in them?  It's a switcheroo from imagination to physical representation.  It should be a narrative players worst nightmare! 

Long segway, but TLOS is a mechanic that can be quickly wrought with issues regardless of how "Easy" it is to do.  An official option of more definitive sight blockers and calculable vision would be highly appreciated.  I'd even be fine with AOS-simplified and AOS-complex.  Don't call it beginner and advanced because that's both not true and it has a patronizing feel. Or have variable mods you can interject into the base rules that are still "official" that clarify, or complex-ify some areas of concern to players. 

I don't need hand holding, but golf is a lot more fun for me when I don't have to make the course myself.  Well, that's just a lie.  Golf is never fun for me 

[AdamR]

5 minutes ago, Vextol said:

 

Long segway, but LOS is abstract, regardless of how "Easy" it is to do. An official option of more definitive sight blockers would be highly appreciated.  I'd even be fine with AOS-simplified and AOS-complex. 

Is it not definitive already? If you can see it, you can shoot it. No grey area's. It may harm your verisimilitude if your hero is killed by being shot in their banner/wing/sword/etc but that's a separate issue.

[Vextol]

6 minutes ago, AdamR said:

Is it not definitive already? If you can see it, you can shoot it. No grey area's. It may harm your verisimilitude if your hero is killed by being shot in their banner/wing/sword/etc but that's a separate issue.

No, because a shift one way or the other, often by less than 1/4 of an inch, can be the difference between visibility and concealment. 

And it doesn't address the issue of things like windows-odd that an arrow can shoot straight through three sets of windows, forests, which give you saves when you are in them but not behind them, tree canopies, which you can see through but you'd be damned to fire an arrow successfully through a tree in reality, and things like planks on fences and gigantic models in front of you which you can see through legs and crooks in elbows.   

All of these you can see through but should really offer some kind of protection.  And if you can't see through most of them, a slight head tilt one way or the other will offer you the ability to see.

[AdamR]

To use you're earlier football analogy, if the ball was  1/4" short, it wouldn't be a touchdown either. Or in game if your charge is 1/4" short, you're not moving. I don't see how this is any different?

[Vextol]

13 minutes ago, AdamR said:

To use you're earlier football analogy, if the ball was  1/4" short, it wouldn't be a touchdown either. Or in game if your charge is 1/4" short, you're not moving. I don't see how this is any different?

Because those are measurable.  A crouch down peek is not a measurable means of determining something.  If I shift a bit one way or the other, with my head mind you not the model, it can mean the difference between hiding someone and getting them dead 

It's not even intentional or aggressive.  It's sometimes just not clear (ha! ). 

 And I know, you could always just give the benefit of the doubt, but, again it gets back to the idea of competition.  I'd like to not give the benefit of the doubt because I don't have to. No doubt means no benefit required.  Then everyone can feel like there wasn't a particular "call" that changed the outcome of the game.  And I know, dice are so random it doesn't matter, but that's just it, they are random.  No blame given! And I know, I'm a bad player if one line of sight call changes the outcome of the game and all that, but it comes up pretty often at my table, especially with interesting terrain. 

And I know... It's just a game 

[stato]

24 minutes ago, Vextol said:

This is my primary issue with the idea that 'simple is better' and 'just don't worry about it'.  Players who like that always have that option regardless of rules.  People who want more precision are left to their own devices.

So, the decision is who to accommodate.  Obviously both sides will never agree.  I think clarity should be supported over simplicity for the above mentioned reason and because of this:  people often play with players who share their opinions on how to play.   Open players are much more likely to come to an agreement on "house rules" than competitive, strict, by the rules players (trust me ) and if you're playing for the competitive nature, you never feel quite right if you are the one making the changes.

And as I brought up, even playing the simple official rules has to sit a little off with people.  You can see me behind trees but you can't see me in them?  It's a switcheroo from imagination to physical representation.  It should be a narrative players worst nightmare! 

 

Who to accomodate? Well GW have chosen, and they designed a game that supported a simplistic view of the written rules.  If more people just accepted them or have discussion with this approach in mind then it is easy to resolve. 

Also, is it written you cant be seen in a citadel wood? yeah you get +1 save but i can still see you.  Hide a small character behind a tree? fine I cant see you unless I move around the tree, simples.