Do you still play the 10cm rule if in terrain? I'm guessing not.

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No.

Cover saves as normal

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We've been using these rules for 5+ years now, with NetEA lists, without game breaking problems.

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I have to agree with Onyx from the rulebook it seems like true line of sight was intended. Except for area terrain which is more abstracted, which I guess is what creates the different interpretations.

I don't think we've actually formalized this when we've played. I think we have mostly played it using the infinite high for things with bases (area terrain), but buildings without a base have been treated as being what they are basically.

If it's possible to get a wider agreement, then I'll happily play that way.

I would prefer hills to be treated in an abstract way. They're often made like an abstract representation with short slopes on the sides and then a big flat plateau on top, and not like your natural hill.

Using the rules for poping up and intervening terrain seems like a reasonable way to me and one that I would be in favour of.

We played for the first time using Borka's suggestion that hills count as "popped up" including the rules for shadow zones - simple quick and by far the most satisfying way I've ever played hills in epic. Gets my vote.

We also play it similar to Borka for some reason, we do not use popping up on hills though. (If it has a base its area terrain, single buildings block TLOS...)
Things get trickier when there is no strict scale (early thunderhawk compared to the forgeworld one...) And no rules on basing anything but the foot soldiers. (Is there anything wrong with me modeling a jumping Titan with all its weapons in its head for higher TLOS while still claiming cover save from a small (area) ruin barely covering the left toe? )

Would be nice if we can come to an agreement on what rules to use, at least for playtesting and as a base for what to use in tournaments.

^figured out my next titan-thanks^

I really dig the hill popup Borka. Elegant

Yes I agree that buildings have gaps to shoot through. That's part of the tactical allure. I still see that as area terrain however. The area is simply the base of the building itself. The issue is that mixing scales is a real problem and you cannot "fix" it by fiat. There's a lot of conventions that require the agreement at the setup and common sense of both parties and agreement what's going to be what.

For instance we've got a boatload of resin FW buildings. The squat flat ones we treat like woods and skimmers interact, if you're on it you're in it. If you're popped up or a titan then you can see over if you're closer. If you're touching it and behind it, your out of LOS.


We've got other buildings we use as infinitely tall for LOF purposes. It's completely obvious when playing what is which. The taller ones are in no way taller than my proxy reaver but they're so not inscale with each other that trying true LOS seems gamey.

This is exactly why the 5 minute warm up exists. I don't see how we could possibly legislate to that level of detail unless the ERC wants to attend the game. Which is totally fine with me. Dave, I've got beer, when can I expect you?

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This is the problem that I have with using true line of sight.

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In terms of the rulebook it seems to me that it was never really thought through in detail, I get the impression the original play testing group had their own convention and what we've got in the rulebook is an incomplete attempt to write it down. Basically TLoS for between terrain pieces, but abstracted area terrain within. And again TLoS when considering height, except for pop up which is abstracted. It's no wonder each group has developed their own interpretation and tweaks.

I think what's happened in the UK is partly just a liberal application of area terrain (ie buildings and ruins are treated no differently than woods) which is completely consistent with the rulebook, but height has effectively removed from consideration by abstracting it out, probably inspired by the precedent of pop up. Note that TLoS -is- used in two dimensions (ie drawing a line between two models to check if intervening terrain obscures LoS), it's just that the heights of models don't ever come into it.

I do quite like the idea of using the popup rules for hills, I think that would fit just fine into the UK meta - simple, quick and unambiguous.

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I know you're using this as an extreme example, but I also think it's not really a good one, or perhaps you misunderstand slightly. To be clear, not every terrain piece has to block LoS, and personally it would seem weird to me to count that one as doing so. I would treat it as rubble: cover for infantry inside it but no LoS implications. If something should block LoS it is normally very obvious, and for those pieces it really doesn't seem odd at all that a unit, even a titan, should have trouble shooting through it. Buildings, woods, ruins and hills - all are very plausible. Rubble, craters, scrub, minefields - clearly not. No doubt we could think of examples that are less clear (landing pads?) but it just doesn't seem to come up.

Basically, here something either blocks line of sight or it does not - there's no in between. But that's not the same as saying all terrain blocks line of sight.

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Earlier in the year in a conversation with Kyus, it was said that the above type of terrain would block LoS in the UK tournaments as a simple way to make things easier.

Personally, I think the rule book is absolutely clear about TLoS. The quotes I've shown make it very clear what the original intention was (is).

I don't mind if players around the world have evolved their own interpretation of the rules but I think I've shown very clearly what the rule book says about it and what JJ intended. At the very least, terrain having infinite height has never been in the mix as far as the rules are concerned.

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Sure I don't think the intentions of the rulebook would be disputed too much, certainly as far as infinite height (or more accurately "higher than the tallest unit") is concerned. As I said earlier in the thread, I would never want to represent our way as "the right way" and is why I'm skeptical NetEA really could enforce such a thing. Maybe people would accept it for playtesting only, but then what is the point in getting a list Approved if it has not actually been tested in the environment that you will use it once it gets that approval? In worst case, the list could be balanced for a meta that nobody actually plays.

The pic I got from the link is a drawing of a building, which would certainly (and surely justifiably) block LoS. Assuming you're referring instead to the low terrain higher up the thread with the monolith on it, I agree with kyuss that I'd expect this to be discussed in the 5 minute warm up and it'd be upto the players what to treat it as. As is mentioned in the thread, normally we use woods, ruins and buildings so it is correct to say that normally all terrain blocks LoS, but things like swamps and scrub are not common occurrences so would be discussed on their own merit. As he said, we would generally not play roads as blocking LOS for example. He does say he'd play that low terrain with the monolith as blocking LOS for simplicity, I would probably disagree. But it probably wouldn't make all that much difference in the game because it's quite hard to hide from all angles behind such a small terrain piece, and we wouldn't place two low pieces touching like that (especially if they were being treated as LOS blocking). However, you're still right that TLoS would produce a result that is more reflective of how each individual terrain piece relative to each unit. We effectively take height out of the game almost entirely and that ain't in the rulebook.

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It is a very common UK wargaming convention for smaller scale games (2-15mm). As models are abstracted (the base size is key, not the models on it, for example 3 bases of 6 men each is a battalion of 600 effectives.

The squares of card are indeed fairly common as well Been using them for as long as I have done 6mm WW2 (umm, 2 decades now? Yea gods).

It allows you to mark out an area of terrain and then you shift the buildings around inside to help bases of troops move through.

And of course, it is not really infinatively high, just so high only skimmers, flier and artillery can fire over it, and jump pack leap over it

It also saves us from having to model terrain properly.

I could do TLOS if the ground scale matched the model scale, as with a skirmish game. However if you want to play TLOS, you would have to concede you are playing in a battlefield 0.35 miles by 0.23 miles - assuming 1mm = 1 foot as per the model scale. Or 1829 feet by 1219 feet. And that our hills are 30 foot high etc.

I pretty much agree with what you're saying, Onyx, however I'm also pretty sure JJ did not foresee the use of true scale forumware in a game he produced either so I think an argument could be made for the need to alter the statement you quoted. As Tiny-Tim's pic and this diagram shows it becomes an issue. Please excuse the terrible paint diagram! The "Reavers" are supposed to be equidistant and the hills are not assumed to be higher than the building

Interesting thread and discussion!
I'm pretty flexible and easy going with what terrain and what people prefer.

My own personal preference is for buildings to be on an area base for simplicity and so they can be moved around to place models as needed. I like true LOS for large WE like titans but blocked for other units to keep things quick and simple.

Any attempt to standardise for playtesting seems obviously doomed to failure IMO and not really needed or helpful anyway. The terrain is only one of very many variables that differ and it's best to focus on the lists and leave it up to players preference.