At ItB I came across an interpretation of the rules I had not come across before and don't see any precedent in the rulebook or FAQ for so I wonder where else this is played.

The situation was essentially one formation popped up to shoot at another already popped up formation. Each formation was behind a piece of terrain which of course it could see over due to being popped up. If you pop up you can both see and be seen by units that are further away from the terrain than you are, so I was surprised to hear my opponent say the attacking unit could not shoot at the popped up one because it's not possible to use pop up to see over more than one piece of terrain.

I have not come across such a limitation before and am not sure where it comes from. There are two issues as I see it:
1. The rules do not mention a limit, only that terrain doesn't block line of sight if it is closer to the popped up unit.
2. In this case it was actually because the target was popped up that the terrain it was next to didn't block LoS, rather than because the shooting unit was "seeing over" both pieces.

Here's the relevant rules section:

To my mind this means two popped up units will always be able to fire on each other if they are in range, as it's impossible for terrain to be further away from both formations at the same time.

Thoughts? Particularly from the London group? I figure this could be quite important for tau and especially squats with their support craft.

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Ooh, that might have been played incorrectly. My suspicion is that when you and Mark asked me I was thinking of a non-popped up unit firing on a support craft (where one of the 2 pieces of terrain is almost always nearer the non-popped up unit thus blocking LOS) I use that one a lot to hide overlords from shadowswords. Apologies, I hope it didn't have a serious impact on your game.


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That's how we reasoned it the few times it occurred

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Agreed Jimmy and Kyrt.
That part of the "popped up" rule only applies to shooting at a target on the ground beyond a single piece of terrain. (Obviously it cannot shoot at something beyond a second piece of terry).

Two "popped up" units/formations can shoot at each other across all intervening terrain (unless specified otherwise at the start of the game).

Support Craft are always "popped up" and therefore can always be seen and shot at from anywhere across all terrain. It is one of their main weaknesses.

Sounds like you've been had by a right dodgy geezer

Hah not quite how I would put it


Just to be clear ginger, are you saying there is a 1 piece limit? As myself I dont see any reason why you cannot shoot at something beyond a second piece of terrain, so long as you are closer to it than the target is.

Likewise just to be clear, I agree two popped up units should be able to see each other from anywhere but support craft cannot be seen by everything all of the time - popped up units yes but normal units will still be blocked by (and can hide behind) terrain that they are closer to.

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Not quite Kyrt. What I meant is that the distance between the unit and the further piece of terrain is likely to be large, making the corresponding 'shadow' beyond that terrain equally large and quite likely to extend beyond the edge of the table.

Ok great it seems everyone agrees so far, probably just confusion and misunderstanding on the day.

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We've always reasoned that we measure to the edge of the intervening terrain closest to the target and if the popped up shooter is closer to it than the target then the target us visible. We assume that the shooter will logically be able to see over all other intervening terrain as well. We have units on hills use the same method to determine their LOS over terrain.

I've never used support craft but thought that they just counted as popped up all the time so uses the same LOS method rather than the aircraft method of just ignoring all terrain for LOS purposes

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I'd say it's exactly that. I was probably still in shock after facing Richard's necrons when you asked me!

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Out of interest, is the hill thing a generally accepted convention? It came up twice at ITTB and one opponent played it that way, one didn't.

One other thing i have come across in the past is applying a -1 for partially obscured when the popped up shooter and target are equal distance from the terrain piece (usually when both are hugging it).


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Oh and again for clarity, do you measure the distance to the target from the far side of the terrain or the side nearest the shooter?


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We measure to the closest part of the terrain, like you would for a unit shooting at another.

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The -1 modifier for equidistant units rule is straight from the rulebook.

We measure to the nearest part of the hill, to answer what the rulebook says which is "which is the closest unit to the terrain?" I can see why you might measure to the part of the terrain that the line of sight would cross (rather than any part of it) but it's not technically what the rulebook says and could be a bit complicated.

The popped up on hills convention is not a UK wide thing. I actually suggested it a couple of years ago for EpicUK events as it makes being on a hill worth doing, but I was not aware that anyone played that way until very recently. I think it could change the game in a small but significant way for units such as shadowswords and titans.

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Sorry, Didn't explain very well. I am being deliberately pedantic : but as with various items previously when questioned, it was found people did subtlety different things while all believing they were following the RAW thanks to the loose way the rules are written.

We measure from firer to near side and then from far side of the terrain to the target - critically along the line of fire. Which i "presumed" is what everyone does ? Certainly those i have played at EUK events.

Case in point - from the sound of Kyrt's description above, they measure shortest route direct to the terrain - not along the line of fire - which must be odd for long terrain pieces which are at an oblique angle to the line of fire ? But i can see why this would be easier.

Both of these are fine, and i appreciate it is abstract to keep it simple, but it does mean the depth of the terrain is irrelevant to visibility. Or to put it another way - skimmers must have to pop up 10/20 time as high to see over a 5cm wall 1mm deep as to see over a 20cm deep wood which is also 5cm high. This seems counter intuitive. Arguably the furthest most "lip" of the terrain is the important factor - what the unit is having to see over. It would be no harder to measure both distances to the furthest edge as it is to measure to two different sides (arguably easier). It would of course decrease the effectiveness of skimmers somewhat (though as an Eldar player i am regularly moaned at that the pop-up rules are OP anyway).

Otherwise, using hills as pop up is a great idea. Also good for allowing shooting over war engines. We do it locally, just inquiring to see how widely accepted it is?

And yep, just checked. -1 is explicit in the rules. My bad.