I just thought I'd get other opinions on this.

One of my personal bugbears with the Tau list is the issue of LOF stretching. By this I don't mean range stretching (which I accept as part of the game) but using weapons that don't require LOF to in effect allow the Tau to fire over buildings and around corners. This to me seems like an unintentional quirk of the rules and not really something they intended.

My understanding of the hit allocation rules is that you rolled to hit and then spread those hits out amongst all the units which were viable targets (i.e are within range and LOF) of all the shooting units. (Please correct me if I'm wrong)

This implys that if you are firing with a unit that does not require LOF to the target (e.g. indirect fire or Tau Guided Missiles) as well as say an imperial guard infantry unit (as a hypothetical example) then the guard infantry would in effect also be able to ignore LOF restrictions and place hits on units that were out of its direct LOF.

I understand and accept the point about abstraction underpinning range stretching but I think LOF stretching is the straw that broke the Dromedary. LOF stretching allows Tau Fire Warriors to pull of shots that Lee Harvey Oswald would be proud of (I like and admire J.F.K. Too soon?).

Do other people take issue with this? Is is it even a problem in other lists? Can anyone see a way in which this can be taken advantage of in lists other than Tau (I'm interested to see what people can come up with. Surely there must be an orkish exemplar.)?

Not sure about this, but I thought that for shooting to claim some special rule, all units firing had to have the ability; so for Disrupt, all had to have Disrupt etc. In this case I would have thought that all weapons had to have Indirect, thus avoiding the issue you describe.

The shooting rules state basically that you decide what to fire when you have more than one weapon type.



Ignoring speed rolling practices, this means each hit is well defined, i.e. I'm the hit inflicted by the roll representing the second shot of unit 3 in this Devastator Detachment and could hit unit 1, 3 and 5 of the target formation.

Than you allocate hits


Sadly "enemy" isn't further specified.

So it is open to a bit of interpretation. I'd say it should be "the enemy which inflicted this hit". Most people agree that it is not any enemy, but at least an enemy which took part in the rolling of that batch of dices to which the hit belongs, but "the enemy which inflicted this hit" makes the most sense.

The hit must be allocated to an unit, which the shooter could see and reach. So a direct hit can never be allocated to an "indirect" target or a target out of range. And when you roll your dice individually, than you know whether the hit was direct or indirect or whatever. By the way you also know this when speed rolling, because you roll ordinary and barrage shots separately.

Hits by barrages are always allocated to units under the template, regardless of the number of hits already allocated to them. Ignoring speed rolling, each unit would have to be rolled for, so it's definitely known which unit under a template is hit.

Still there are some potential problems deriving from the order in which hits are allocated.

To solve them the easiest way is to say that the hits have to be allocated in a way so that the biggest number of units will be hit (This is done in accordance to the FAQ ruling about allocating AP and AT hits on LVs mixed with AV or INF targets).

This leads to: Allocate barrages first, and than allocate ordinary hits in reverse order of the number of potential targets of each hit. I.e. First the barrages, than the hits that could only harm the first three units and than the rest of hits which could harm all units.

Speed rolling. All units that can hit the same targets and have the same to hit value and weapon type can be rolled together and allocated in one go.
Very often you will realize that only a minority of the shots has a limited group of targets and that you will always be able to allocate the hits of the minority. In such a case it makes no difference when you roll these dice together with the majority's dices.

Regards
Stephan

Actually hits can be allocated to targets out of range of the firing unit. It's a practice commonly refered to as range stretching and I've been told on several occasions by people much more informed than I that it was an intended part of the hit allocation system. It is one of the most commonly debated rule interpretation and has led to groups around the world having very different experiences with the same list.

Essentially as hits are pooled they can be allocated to any unit that was in range and LOF of any firing unit. Example in a Fire Warrior unit there are 2 AP shots at 15cm and one at 30cm. Range stretching means that so long as the FW's are within 15cm and LOF of 1 enemy unit any hits caused by the 15cm shots can be spread up to 30cm (as in this example that is the range of the longest of any unit firing) that at least 1 FW unit can draw LOF to.

The example that has me worried is a mech FW formation using its guided missiles to stretch the range up to 90cm and as guided missiles don't require LOF, allowing the FW's to shoot over/around terrain.

What I am really hoping for with this topic is that someone will please tell me that this does not also extend to non-LOF weapons such as indirect fire and Tau guided missiles.

Ginger's statement was a good start but I thought that that case was purely about the effects of barrages and not about target availabilty.

Gingers statement is true for mixed barrages. But this is the only case when you have to mix different kinds of weapons into a single to hit roll per target unit.

Please note I'm not talking about playing with friends and using house rules or games for which you already agreed on some interpretations, but about games by the book with "unfamiliar" players, like tournament games, where you have to have a set of rules, which is the same for everybody so you can sit down and start playing without the need of negotiation. And that set of rules should be the rule book plus a list of published house rules or interpretations from the organizer.

The old killer argument, when you can't base something on the rules than "it is intended that way" or "every body plays it that way".

I can't see any reason why you would want to stretch weapon ranges intentionally. Why have ranges, if you don't care anyway ? Why have a LOS and than get rid of it by mixing a single indirect weapon, orby having a single unit lurking around the corner ?

If it would have been intentionally, it would be in the rules.
Also I don't see that the game gets better, by putting a Hunter in my Land Raider Detachment to maximize their firing range. I only see another way to make it easier to win against an unexperienced player by stretching the rules and maximizing the lists - replacing tactics with exotic (depending on the viewpoint) rule interpretations.
If you want to hit "deeper" into the formation get closer, and if you can't, you most likely made a mistake in the turn before, or your opponent outsmarted you. Don't bent rules play smarter.

Rolling as many dices together and allocating them in a batch is IMHO no rule, but only speed rolling. And that's what we also do, but if units/weapons can only see and reach parts of a unit, they form their own batch/salvo and are allocated only to units they can reach and hit.

No matter what, when somebody would start stretching ranges and rules with me (without having agreed on it or being in the rules pack), I'd insist we play it by the book and have him roll every dice one by one, putting the "hits" beside the unit on which behalf the roll was made and after rolling all dices, have each single hit allocated by the rules in the book - read to a target unit in LOS and range by the unit which inflicted the hit.

Of course if the agreed rules state that you may stretch ranges I will do so, but IMHO it makes the game worse.
But making the rule known before, would defeat the purpose - to gull your opponent. Because if both players, know the rule, both can exploit it and than the advantage is gone.

Regards
Stephan

Actually range stretching is in the rules. It isn't a house rule. It is an effect of applying the shooting rules as written.

See the below thread for a discussion of range stretching and its implications.

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=18887&p=370128&hilit=range+stretching#p370128

Back to the OP, 1.9.2 lists range and LOF as being required for a *unit* to fire. If a unit doesn't have LOF to a target formation then I am not sure how it could be allowed to fire.

Could you give an example of what you are referring to?

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

Sorry I screwed up the explanation of what I meant by LOF stretching. I was assuming that the formation could draw LOF to 1 unit in the enemy formation.

The example I've seen and what prompted this post was a mech FW company. In this example the FW's were in range and LOF of 1 marker lit unit the other units in the enemy formation were behind terrain features. Can any hits caused by the FW's be spread to the hiding units as they are valid targets for the guided missiles on the devil fish/skyray?

Another example is a HH formation which is within range and and LOF of 1 unit but the rest are hidden. Can the hits caused by the HH's railguns be spread as the other units are valid targets of the guided missiles?

1.9.6 requires that a target unit be in range and LOF of an enemy. If your target formation has only one unit that fulfils that requirement then it only has one unit that can be assigned hits.

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

1.9 requires that the unit be in range and LOF of one enemy unit to be able to fire. Hits are allocated to all units which are viable targets to the shooting formation. LOF and range have not effect on hit allocation only on which units are able to fire so long as 1 unit in the shooting unit has range and LOF to it. This is what allows range stretching.

In my examples all the units could be considered to be within LOF as guided missiles do not require LOF in order to shoot. Therefore they are viable targets for the shooting formation.

Not the case at all.

1.9.6 states
"You must allocate hits inflicted on your formation against targets that are within range and line of fire of the enemy."

If a unit is not in range and LOF of an enemy that it can't be allocated a hit.

If only one unit in a formation is in range and LOF of the firing formation then only one can be hit.

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Guns don't break formations. Blast Markers break formations.

However if non-LoS weapons (such as guided missiles) are introduced, then "in range and LoS" would include those models that were not in LoS, but were in range of the non-LoS weapon, no?

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SG

Ghost's Paint Blog, where everything goes that isn't something else.

Again sorry. Didn't explain myself properly. This discussion really needs diagrams. I meant that so long as 1 unit can trace LOF and range to a unit it can be allocated a hit. What I meant by that is that hits are not tracked individually but pooled. Say a formation is hiding behind terrain with one unit exposed in front of the terrain and only one unit in the shooting formation has the movement to position itself so it can draw range and LOF to 6 enemy units the rest of the formation can are only in range and LOF of the exposed unit. The hits caused by the shooting formation in this example can be spread amongst 7 units attributed front to back. The hits caused by the shooting units that can only draw range and LOF to the exposed unit are not limited to that one unit because one unit in the formation can see an additional six units and therefore the hits can be spread onto the hidden units. That is what I meant. I hope I was clearer this time.

But spectral ghost's question is what I'm really worried about. I'm not sure the game designers really thought about that possibility.

The way it has always been played for my groups is that units can only hit models they can see. So if one unit in a formation can hit all of the formation then only it has the entire formation as a possible target.

The idea that somehow the inclusion of a single unit in a formation that does not require LOS would allow the rest of the formation to suddenly see through the blocking terrain or objects to allow them to hit is contrary, IMO, to the rules as written.

Special Abilities only apply to the units which have then and not the formation as a whole.

I am not familiar with the Tau and how their Marker Light systems work though

Maybe this is a Tau issue? I'm not really aware of any other army that has this problem.

I think the rules as written and the FAQ don't cover this for the same reason. I don't ever recall anything like this coming up in any game that I have played.

I've never played a game with the Tau though in any incarnation of the Tau lists.

Can you give a specific example using an actual formation from an army list?