LOS and Fire Zone Question

[Qapla]

see page 18, last paragraph of the Rule Book.

And the win goes to TOS. Thanks a lot. I can see everything clearly now :shock: .

 

[Bondarus]

see page 18, last paragraph of the Rule Book.

And the win goes to TOS. Thanks a lot. I can see everything clearly now :shock: .

Now the rain has gone.....

Sorry, its absolutely shitting it down outside the window. :lol:

Where's my summer weather godamit?

 

[cordas]

I wanted to ask before, and now that there is a great picture, I will.
So it seems the basic rule is to roll all the unit's dice together. Old Soldier noted an exception for special weapons with special rules. Since many of the weapons have special rules, I thought I'd ask a couple of questions about how people are dealing with those exceptions.
1. Assuming a Ready Action had been given to the M249 prior to firing, how is its "forward facing" determined? If the Fire Zone is partially outside the M249 forward facing, how does that affect the M249? If the centre of the Fire Zone is outside the M249 forward facing, how does that affect the M249? If the Fire Zone is entirely outside the M249 forward facing, can the M249 fire? If the M249 can fire, does it count as moving so that the M249 loses its bonus dice?
2. Assuming the Fire Zone covers targets A, B, C, and D, and the range <= 16", where does the M203 grenade hit?
3. If we change the example so the firing unit is SAS and the M203 on the roof carries an M109 instead and assuming the Fire Zone covers targets A, B, C, and D, can the M109 roll its damage dice against target A?

You can only fire weapons if they have range to the firing point (FP) and line of sight to it. If you want to fire your M203 then the FP for the squad firing has to be within 16" of the model with the M203 or it can't fire. Please remember you can measure at any time so there is no guess work when it comes to determining the FP unless you want to make that the case, and then you have no one to blame but yourself if you get it wrong.

Once you have declared your firing point and worked out who can and can't shoot, you then work out who is in the fire zone (FZ). Any model in the FZ can be hit by any weapon that is fired into the FZ, at this point the weapons range is ignored, it only needs the range to get to the FP, if a model is 6" behind the FP then its in the FZ and can be hit, even if its 6" beyond the range of the weapon. Yes this does mean that guns actually have 6" more range than stated on their card, this is designed into the mechanics of the game. This also applies to the arcs on MGs, the FP has to be within its arc, but models outside the arc of the weapon can be hit if they are in the FZ.

Simply put arc and range are only used when creating the FP and are irrelevant to the FZ.

You can split the fire from your units, this is described in quite a lot of detail on page 19 of the main rule book.

 

[cordas]

see page 18, last paragraph of the Rule Book.

Good catch, I hadn't noticed that either

 

[seanwalsh]

I guess I will need to get the rulebook, then.

 

[Hiromoon]

Course, TOS wins after discovering that bit...if you look on the Evocommand sight, you get a clearer picture of the situation.

 

[cordas]

see page 18, last paragraph of the Rule Book.

OK in the light of this, how do you allocate DD, if different models are shooting at specific models in the FZ then the DD allocation rules go out the window.

Damn this is going to make things difficult. We had all these arguements before the rule book came out, and got a blanket ruling of what was talked about earlier in this topic, now this rule just throws everything out the window. I suppose the only answer to declare your firing order of models, then roll each model (or group of models if they have the same targets) and allocate their hits and work out the effect before going onto the next firing model(s).

 

[retaf33c]

Your DD allocation should be pretty straight forward. Those weapons that can target specific models in a FZ, i.e. snipers and tank shots against armour should have their DD allocated first.

Then start allocating the rest with the highest scoring DD against the model closest to the firing unit. Since you can't allocate a second DD to any one model until all in the FZ are allocated a dice, just skip those that have a die say from a sniper.

If all models within the FZ have been alocated a DD, then you are free to allocate any remaining DD to models as you see fit.

At this point, if you have any DD left, you can allocate them any way you want. This would mean you could pile them all on the unit leader or gunner if you so choose.

 

[cordas]

Your DD allocation should be pretty straight forward. Those weapons that can target specific models in a FZ, i.e. snipers and tank shots against armour should have their DD allocated first.

Then start allocating the rest with the highest scoring DD against the model closest to the firing unit. Since you can't allocate a second DD to any one model until all in the FZ are allocated a dice, just skip those that have a die say from a sniper.

If all models within the FZ have been alocated a DD, then you are free to allocate any remaining DD to models as you see fit.

At this point, if you have any DD left, you can allocate them any way you want. This would mean you could pile them all on the unit leader or gunner if you so choose.

I know what the rule book says about allocating DD, its brillaintly simple, or at least it was until I read the rule that TOS found on page 18....

Note that if some models shooting into a Fire Zone can draw a clear Line of Sight to an enemy model or deprive him of cover, while other models on the same attacking unit cannot, you should roll your Damage Dice seperately for them.

Whats the point in rolling these dice seperatly if you then just the same global allocation rules?
If you don't use the nice and allocation rules on page 17 then how in the blue hell do you apply the damage dice?
Do you apply those dice that where shot at models outside cover 1st, or what?

As I said it was nice and simple until TOS pointed out what it says on page 18. I might suggest that due to some of the complaints made regarding the simplistic nature of damage allocation from the rule sheet, that someone at MGP added this paragraph to the main rule book to give more depth, but didn't think as to how this would impact the game. Personally I suggest getting a black marker and erasing this paragraph and that we pretend it never existed.

 

[retaf33c]

Yikes! I just went back and read that. Not sure how I missed it.

Under the original SST rules, even if only one model in the target unit is denied cover by at least 1 model in the shooting unit, then all models in the target are denied cover. Rather extreme but it was clean.

Now this just made things a little complicated. But here is how I would do it. If you have different color dice for each shooter or group of shooters, that would be great, just roll them all together and allocate as normal. Then when determining results, determine cover bonus based on where the shot was coming from. Granted this could result in a model that is in the open for one shooter getting allocated a die from a shooter that gives it the cover bonus; just call that the fog of war.

An alternative if you don't have different dice is to roll each shot separately as suggested but allocating the DD to the model closest to the shooting model. If you want to resolve the shot before rolling the next, that would be fine, but you should tag the model in some way if it survives so it doesn't get another DD until everyone else in the FZ is allocated a DD. Turning the target model around to face the opposite direction would work.

This two suggestions may not be perfect solutions and far from official, but I think they are fair enough that most people will accept it when it happens during a game.

 

[cordas]

Yikes! I just went back and read that. Not sure how I missed it.

Under the original SST rules, even if only one model in the target unit is denied cover by at least 1 model in the shooting unit, then all models in the target are denied cover. Rather extreme but it was clean.

Now this just made things a little complicated. But here is how I would do it. If you have different color dice for each shooter or group of shooters, that would be great, just roll them all together and allocate as normal. Then when determining results, determine cover bonus based on where the shot was coming from. Granted this could result in a model that is in the open for one shooter getting allocated a die from a shooter that gives it the cover bonus; just call that the fog of war.

An alternative if you don't have different dice is to roll each shot separately as suggested but allocating the DD to the model closest to the shooting model. If you want to resolve the shot before rolling the next, that would be fine, but you should tag the model in some way if it survives so it doesn't get another DD until everyone else in the FZ is allocated a DD. Turning the target model around to face the opposite direction would work.

This two suggestions may not be perfect solutions and far from official, but I think they are fair enough that most people will accept it when it happens during a game.

I dunno neither suggestion really works for me, I just think we should ignore that rule and use the rules we got from the rule sheet.