Apologies, massive thread hijackOnyx wrote:
It also seems that some players don't fully understand the Support Craft rule. A Support Craft is not always visible from any part of the board (as planes are). Support Craft still follow the rules for Skimmers so if a Support Craft is nearer to any intervening terrain than the firing unit, it is not visible (something thst should be fairly easy to set up in deployment).
That's confused me. Specifically the phrase I've highlighted. I think it's the other way round: if the support craft is further from the intervening terrain it is not visible.
Just to clarify with a few (ascii) pictures (viewed as cross sections).
normal unit (NU) shooting normal unit:
NU_______|TERRAIN|_______NUline of sight blocked regardless of the distances to terrainIf a skimmer (SK) is down it behaves like a normal unit.
If popped up, there is a
shadow area behind terrain that it can't see. Specifically, if the target is closer to the terrain than the skimmer, it is in this shadow:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~SKN3__N2___N1__|TERRAIN|_________......<--x-->.........<--x-->........SHADOW..........N1 (no LOS): is closer to the terrain than the skimmer, thus it is in the shadow. So there is no line of sight between the two
N2 (in cover): is at equal distance, so there is line of sight but both count in cover
N3 (LOS, aka visible): is outside the shadow (further than x from the terrain), so there is line of sight
That's all from the skimmer's perspective. But it sets up line of sight conditions that are symmetric (if I can see you, you can see me).
Support craft are skimmers that are permanently popped-up (with the specific exception for transport-skimmers being able to embark/disembark and transported units getting saves).
As I read the skimmer and support-craft rules, if we want to keep the support-craft safe we need to think about the above in reverse... from the perspective of normal units. That means keeping the support-craft as far away from terrain as possible:
..................VISIBLE~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~S3~~~S2~~S1NX_______|TERRAIN|_____________..<--x-->.........<--x-->......S3 (LOS, aka visible): Normal unit X (NX) is, from S3's view, outside S3's shadow. So S3 can shoot NX and NX can shoot S3 (by symmetry)
S2 (in cover): NX and S2 are equal distance. So both can shoot each other (with cover modifier)
S1 (no LOS): NX is closer to the terrain than S1. So NX is in S1's shadow - S1 can't shoot NX which must mean NX can't shot S1 (by symmetry). There is no line of sight between these two
With support-craft, you want them to be further away from the terrain than the enemy units... then they can't see each other?
To summarise, you can effectively think of this as:
Popped-up skimmers have blind spots within their weapon-range when shooting at normal units
Normal units shooting at popped-up skimmers may have their weapon-range reduced
