What about the part of the rules which says you get -1 to hit if at least half the model is out of sight?

There is not LOS in this instance. Its difficult to claim cover when you're standing in the open and a cliff is in-between you and the firing unit. :-)

Not to say I am necessarily of the opposite opinion in terms of whether the -1 applies in these situations, but why would you think that LOS does not apply, despite the barrage rules saying that LOS is a consideration? Barrages don't have to be fired indirectly, and if LOS to a unit can be obscured by intervening terrain such that a barrage weapon can't fire at all (which it can), I don't see any reason why a partially obscured LOS should obviously not bring about the cover modifier.

Consider the most simple case - a single unit behind a building attacked by a direct fire (barrage) weapon. If it is wholly obscured, the weapon can't be fired. If it is partially obscured, is it really so clear cut that there should be no cover modifier for having to shoot through intervening terrain?

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But that isn't the case being discussed at all

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

It is basicly the same issue.

I'm surprised that everyone is not considering the actual rules and is basicly just saying "We've always done it this way, so that's the right way".

The whole point of bringing this up was to consider if we have all being doing something wrong for years.

Nowhere in the rules does it say you don't get hull down against barrages.

The rules say- if at least half a model is out of sight, you get -1 to hit. Obviously indirect weapons would ignore this as they ignore LOS. You need to be in a piece of terrain to get cover from them. But I can't see any reason why you wouldn't get -1 to hit from direct barrages 'shooting round corners', as at least half your model is out of LOS.

Can anyone dispute this, using the rules, not just past playing experiences?

What I would say is that the LOS restrictions for barrages are different: LOS is effectively granted if a shooting unit has LOS to at least one unit under the template, which creates a large ambiguity in the rules. To be honest in my example of a single unit being targeted by a direct fire barrage, I would find it weird NOT to apply the -1 modifier, and I can't remember anything in the rules to suggest otherwise. But once you start to consider multiple firing units and multiple target units, it gets complicated.

For example, you *could* interpret the rules such that the -1 modifier applies to all target units if, and only if, at least one of the shooting units can only see partially obscured unit(s). Then you start to have all sorts of weirdness where you are forced to place the template to cover certain units and thus take the -1 for everything. OR you could do it on a model by model basis, e.g. "this unit is partially obscured from all the shooting units, so gets -1", but I'm not sure if this reflects the area-effect type weapons concerned.

The problem is that the rules don't say what is the correct interpretation, though someone may come along and post a section of the rules that clear it up...

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I agree with Dave and others, Barrages work differently from direct fire; when you place a template, the only question is whether the target unit under the template is actually in cover or not - and the dice for that unit is modified accordingly.

The definitions of 1.8.4 only apply to direct fire; the target is "in cover" if partially obscured (by a hill etc) as the shots could hit the obstruction rather than the target.

Note, for direct fire barrages, the LOS restriction only applies to being able to set up the template on a unit within the target formation, after that the damage is caused by the barrage weapons so you only get cover if you are actually in it.

The barrage rules are just a bit wonky when it comes to direct fire. You only need LoS and range to one unit under the template when you place the first. So long as you have that then it, and subsequent templates, can go wherever the most units take them. Effectively that overrides needing LoS to every unit hit as with regular shooting and the concealment for hull down. If you don't need LoS to something why would blocked/obscured LoS penalize your dice rolls?

Another way to think about it is there is a bit of a parabolic arc to these shots. Not so much as true indirect fire, but enough so that the shells come down at such an angle where directional cover is of no use.

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Dave

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Actually I think this isn't the case. We can read under the rules for placing extra templates



Line of fire requirements for templates are (like we all know) that you have to have line of fire to at least one unit under the template. The above means this also applies to extra templates, they need to be placed so that the firing weapons/units actually have to have line of fire to at least one unit under them.

cheers

Borka I think you're emphasising that wrong. I've always read it that you can place the subsequent templates anywhere as long as thay are touching the first template, full stop. And that no LoS, placement or range restrictions apply to the subsequent placement.

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SG

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

You might have it right I'm not a native english speaker so I could easily miss that kind of thing, but the text end with "(see below)".

This reference is to the text with the header "Using Barrage Templates"

This text reads
The text talks about templates in it's plural form so I assume that it applies to all templates not just the first especially since the text "extra barrage templates" make a reference to it.

cheers

I think, Borka, that the "no placement restrictions apply" is intended to mean that the information below does NOT apply to extra templates.

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Yeah I see what you mean and that the sentence can be interpreted that way. Which makes it a badly written rule/sentence because it can be read both ways and we have to second guess what the author means.