Shooting line of sight

[pw]

A quick and easy question this time...

When shooting do hills have any effect on line of site in terms of elevating attackers and allowing shooting in two 'ranks'. Similarly would a unit on a hill be able to fire in two ranks at units below the hill?

You can probably guess I'm coming to Warmaster from Warhammer Fantasy!

Thanks for your patience with this nonsense!

[Guthwine]

The quick and easy answer: No.

Standart missle troops can only shoot at what they see, the only exception are artillery units. An artillery unit on a hill can shoot over friendly units if they are positioned on a lower level.

[spiritusXmachina]

True. And pw, don't forget, in WM your first base of bowmen already includes a "second rank" - look at the models!

But that leads me to another question concerning line of sight.

Let's take cannons on a hill - how do different terrain pieces influence their line of sight in your games?

Last time we had a discussion in play and we decided that you cannot see over a wood but over a wheatfield you can.
What about swamps, fences, houses? Surely it would feel strange if a fence does obstruct line of sight completely for units on hills...

What's your opinion...

[Guthwine]

Well, it says in the rules that you can shoot over terrain features as well. Which is fine for fields, houses and so on but it seems a bit strange when it comes to woods.

[Lex]

Well, it says in the rules that you can shoot over terrain features as well. Which is fine for fields, houses and so on but it seems a bit strange when it comes to woods.

For the sake of argument I would probably restrict this to shooting over LINEAIR terrain, and not allowing them to shoot over stuff like buildings etc. That would be oversymplifying the LOS-"shadow" issue, but be easy to remember and playable.

So NO shooting over ground++ lineair features like fences or hedges when on the same level, but ok to shoot over then having either positive or negativ eelevation

[Answer_Mod_Ithoriel]

I've always found that a few moments discussing how terrain is handled before starting saves lots of time during the game. I've never had a problem agreeing these things with opponents ... ymmv 

As long as both sides know what to expect and neither side is much disadvantaged by what's played I don't think it matters too much about the fine detail. The rules cover much of the obvious stuff anyway.

Mike

[spiritusXmachina]

That's a good way to do it. But I find it even better to have some guidelines beforehand (like we try to have at tournaments) - so you don't have to discuss every bit of terrain again and again. We have defined most of the terrain pieces around here but this line of sight-issue is one of the loopholes.

[jchaos79]

In our case depends on the scale of the battle. For example, If a hut represent a village and a unit represent a whole regiment, then a simple hut model blocks the line of sight. If the scale is minor, and a hut model represent only a structure and a unit is bunch of mens then it doesnt block the line of sight from a high level.

These details are talked between players before the game, scenery by scenery.

Thats the way we do,

cheers