Shadow of Terrain Question

[MisterWerks]

In this situation, a Freikorp Scout is on top of a 4" square Building.  The dotted line represents the Shadow of the Terrain he's standing on.  He can ignore the fraction of an inch of Terrain between him and Gwyll (to the right), so Gwyll has no Cover when the Scout shoots him.  My question is regarding Athorak to the left.  I have players telling me conflicting interpretations with equal conviction.

Assuming there is ~2" of building between the Scout and Athorak:

1) Is there NO LoS because all the sightlines pass through more than 1" of the Terrain and the target is in the Shadow?

2) Is there LoS because the Scout is technically higher than the Terrain (letting him ignore its Blocking trait) and Athorak has Cover because of the Shadow?

3) Something else I haven't even thought of?

I'm leaning toward option 1 because this is about the Shadow of Terrain and it already bends some normal targeting rules.  The example inset on p18 implies this as well, but like I said: other players are dead sure it's option 2, while some are also thinking it's option 1.

[Adran]

I'm pretty sure it's 1. The rules spell out that the terrain blocks sight lines  to models in its shadow even if you are taller. (Page 18). 

[solkan]

3 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

2) Is there LoS because the Scout is technically higher than the Terrain (letting him ignore its Blocking trait) and Athorak has Cover because of the Shadow?

This option is incorrect because of the following (highlight added)

Quote

When drawing sight lines from one model to another, if either model is in the Shadow of terrain with Height equal to or greater than the Size of that model (even partially), any sight lines that pass through the terrain generating that Shadow are blocked (even if the terrain is being ignored due to its Height, as per the Line of Sight and Size rules on pg. 17).

The Scout does NOT get to ignore the blocking and shadow, in spite of being taller than the terrain.

The reason why that same paragraph doesn't apply to the model on the east side of the building is the next paragraph of the rules

Quote

When drawing sight lines, a model standing on terrain that is casting a Shadow ignores that terrain (and its Shadow) if any single sight line drawn between the two objects passes through 1" or less of that terrain.

In short:

If you are standing on top of the building, you can only draw line of sight through 1" of the building (regardless of how tall you yourself are) to something in the building's shadow (or, rather, something in the building's shadow that is shorter than the building).

It's very much "board game" style line of sight, rather than trying to do some sort of "true line of sight" or peeking over railings.

[SEV]

Also the scout ignore 1" of the terrain but Gwyll doesn't so Gwyll can't shoot at the Scout. 

[MisterWerks]

And since the definition of Shadow of Terrain says it "extends out from the terrain a distance equal to the terrain's Height..." it doesn't cover the terrain itself, right?

Meaning, if both models were on opposite corners of that 4" square building - far enough away they could both use Projectile Attacks - there would be no Shadow rules applied because they're both on top of the same building when they shoot at each other....right?

[MisterWerks]

On 7/9/2023 at 7:32 PM, SEV said:

Also the scout ignore 1" of the terrain but Gwyll doesn't so Gwyll can't shoot at the Scout. 

So you're saying the Shadow extends across the top of the Terrain and since Gwyll isn't on top of the Blocking terrain, he doesn't get to ignore the 1" of it, and his Projectile Attack sight lines are Blocked?  

[solkan]

13 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

So you're saying the Shadow extends across the top of the Terrain and since Gwyll isn't on top of the Blocking terrain, he doesn't get to ignore the 1" of it, and his Projectile Attack sight lines are Blocked?  

No.  If Gwyll is standing in the shadow, and tries to draw line of sight across the building (such as to someone on top of the building), that line of sight is blocked by the first paragraph I quoted.  The shadow doesn’t extend across the top of the building to do that.  The “if either model is…” sentence does that—Gwyll standing in the shadow of a building can’t draw line of sight across that building at all.

 

 

[solkan]

15 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

And since the definition of Shadow of Terrain says it "extends out from the terrain a distance equal to the terrain's Height..." it doesn't cover the terrain itself, right?

Meaning, if both models were on opposite corners of that 4" square building - far enough away they could both use Projectile Attacks - there would be no Shadow rules applied because they're both on top of the same building when they shoot at each other....right?

This is right.  The terrain’s shadow extends outward to surround it, but does not cover it.  So two models on the same terrain piece won’t be in that terrain piece’s shadow.  (They would each be effectively taller than the shadow area anyway, so it wouldn’t matter if they overlapped the shadow partially (by overhanging an edge or something…).

[solkan]

Maybe I’m weird, but I think it’s easier to think of shadows in two cases:

  If you’re not taller than the terrain casting the shadow, you’re “shadowed”.  Shadowed models can’t draw line of sight across that terrain piece.  And if you’re standing on that terrain piece, you can’t draw line of sight to a “shadowed” model if you cross more than 1” of the shadowing terrain.

 

[MisterWerks]

8 hours ago, solkan said:

Maybe I’m weird, but I think it’s easier to think of shadows in two cases:

  If you’re not taller than the terrain casting the shadow, you’re “shadowed”.  Shadowed models can’t draw line of sight across that terrain piece.  And if you’re standing on that terrain piece, you can’t draw line of sight to a “shadowed” model if you cross more than 1” of the shadowing terrain.

 

I'm almost there, I think.  New scenario:

Height 2 wall casting 2" Shadow.  Sz 2 Freikorps Scout is 1" away from the wall on one side, Sz 3 Kastore, Awakened is 1" away on the other side.  Both are in the Shadow of the wall.   Which of these is accurate?

1) Neither model can draw LoS to the other, despite Kastore's Sz, because both targets are in the Shadow.

or

2) The Scout cannot draw LoS to Kastore because the Scout is in the Shadow and he's not taller than the wall, but Kastore CAN draw LoS because he's taller than the wall

or

3) The Scout cannot draw LoS to Kastore because the Scout is in the Shadow and he's not taller than the wall, but Kastore CAN draw LoS because he's taller than the wall AND because he's not using a Projectile Attack, but just a ranged Attack (Dominate)

4) If the Scout moved outside the Shadow (2.1" away), he'd be able to shoot Kastore since Kastore is taller than the terrain, but Kastore would have Cover from the Shadow

5) If the Scout were still in the Shadow and Kastore moved outside (2.1" away), he'd be able to shoot the Scout with Projectile Attacks (if he had one), but the Scout would get Cover from the Shadow.  When Kastore uses his Dominate ranged Attack, the Scout does NOT get Cover because it's not a Projectile Attack.

6) If they were both outside the Shadow, they could shoot each other normally with no regard for the wall since Kastore is taller than it and they're outside the Shadow.

 

[solkan]

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

Height 2 wall casting 2" Shadow.  Sz 2 Freikorps Scout is 1" away from the wall on one side, Sz 3 Kastore, Awakened is 1" away on the other side.  Both are in the Shadow of the wall.   Which of these is accurate?

Line of sight is blocked because the Friekorps Scout is Ht2 and in the shadow of a Ht2 blocking terrain piece, and all of the lines of sight cross that terrain piece.  

The only way Kastore could draw line of sight to the Friekorps model would be to get on top of the wall, or move to a position where not all lines of sight cross the wall.  Simply being taller than the wall (either because you're standing on some other terrain piece and your relative Ht2 is taller than the wall, or your basic Ht is greater than the wall's Ht) doesn't let you draw line of sight across the wall to the scout (or let it draw line of sight back).

The type of the action (or or neither of those symbols) doesn't matter concerning line of sight.  If the action has a target, you need line of sight unless otherwise specified.  This isn't Infinity where you don't need LoS to make a melee attack.

 

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

4) If the Scout moved outside the Shadow (2.1" away), he'd be able to shoot Kastore since Kastore is taller than the terrain, but Kastore would have Cover from the Shadow

This is true.  

If the scout moved to one end of the wall, so that it was still in the shadow but not every line of sight between the scout and Kastore crossed the wall (but some lines of sight still do), then they'd both get cover from the wall (a line of sight crossing the wall and the target being in the shadow area = cover).  Remember that cover only specifies an effect for actions, so Kastore using Dominate won't care whether the scout has cover, but the scout using Clockwork Rifle will.  (This game being the sort of game that it is, it's possible that some model has a rule stating "If this model has cover, something wonderful happens."  That rule wouldn't care what the type of the attack was.  But that's pretty much the only reason having cover would matter for a or unmarked attack.)

 

4 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

6) If they were both outside the Shadow, they could shoot each other normally with no regard for the wall since Kastore is taller than it and they're outside the Shadow.

This is true.  If they're both outside of the wall's shadow area, because one of the two models is taller than the wall, the wall gets ignored completely.

 

-------------

This is the story of why the Cover rules are defined in terms of the shadow area.

Back in second edition, the rule for cover was expressed like so:

Quote

A model will gain the benefits of cover from a Projectile Attack when any LoS line between the Attacking model and the target model can be drawn through any terrain with the soft or hard cover traits that is within 1” of the target model.

and hard vs. soft cover was a matter of which parts of the attack got penalized.  One of the questions that happened during the development of the new edition was "Why is it one inch, shouldn't it matter how big the intervening terrain piece is?" and "Do you measure that 1" along the line of sight (like Warmachine does) or is just 1" between the model and the terrain?"

So that got changed to

- The hard cover and soft cover traits got eliminated.  All blocking terrain will provide cover.

- When they tried to make "How far can I stand from the terrain and still get cover?" a function of the height of that terrain, they realized that they were using the same wording as the shadow area specification.  

The end result was 

- If you're standing in the shadow area of blocking terrain and any lines of sight cross that terrain, you get cover.

and then made it a feature of that Cover has an effect.

 

[MisterWerks]

15 hours ago, solkan said:

This is true.  If they're both outside of the wall's shadow area, because one of the two models is taller than the wall, the wall gets ignored completely.

Thank you much.  We'll see if I can now explain it properly.  Stand by.

[MisterWerks]

So, simply put:

If the target is in the Shadow and the Attacker is using a Projectile Attack - 

1) If a single sight line is blocked by the Terrain casting the Shadow, the target has Cover.

2) If the Terrain is same Height or taller than both of the models, all sight lines are blocked and there is no LoS, which is the normal rule.

3) If the Attacking model is on top of the Terrain casting the Shadow, it gets to ignore Normal Rule (2) if its sight line passes through less than 1" of that Terrain.

So Shadow really just changes one rule (giving Cover for a single blocked sight line) and provides an exception to the "all sight lines Blocked" rule.

If this is right, then all the problems in my head (and I think in many others) come from the cockamamie wording in para 3 under Shadow on p 18 which makes it sound like a new rule for us to get wrapped up in.

[solkan]

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

So, simply put:

If the target is in the Shadow and the Attacker is using a Projectile Attack - 

1) If a single sight line is blocked by the Terrain casting the Shadow, the target has Cover.

Not quite.  "If a single line of sight crosses the terrain casting the shadow, the target has cover."  You've two Ht2 riflemen, and you've got some Ht1 blocking shrubbery on the table.  Put the shrubbery half an inch from one of the rifleman and put the other rifleman 6" away with the shrubbery between them.  The shrubbery doesn't block line of sight, but it does grant the one rifleman cover from the other one.

 

Likewise, if you put a Ht2 wall or a Ht3 building on the table, put that Sz2 rifleman about an inch or two away from the terrain piece, and put the shooter somewhere where some line of the lines of sight are getting blocked by wall.  The rifleman near the building gets cover because it's in the shadow area.

 

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

2) If the Terrain is same Height or taller than both of the models, all sight lines are blocked and there is no LoS, which is the normal rule.

 

Shadow Zone Exception)  If the terrain is the same height or Taller than the model in the shadow, and all lines of sight from the attacker cross the terrain, there is no line of sight.  (If the terrain is the same height or taller than the attacker, there's no line of sight due to #2.  So the shadow zone exception applies when the attacker is taller than the intervening terrain.)

Continuing on with the saga of that Sz2 rifleman standing next to a wall that we'll specify as Ht2.  Along comes Sz3 Peacekeeper, and it's standing around the corner from the rifleman.  Some of the lines of sight cross the wall and some don't, so the rifleman gets cover.

But when the Peacekeeper moves away around the corner (so that all of the lines of sight cross the wall), the shadow rule kicks in.  Because

• the rifleman is not taller than the wall
• the rifleman is within the shadow zone of the wall

any lines of sight involving the rifleman which cross the wall get blocked.  The Sz2 model hides from the Sz3 model by being positioned near the Ht2 terrain piece.

If the rifleman moves further away from the wall, so that it's no longer standing in the shadow area, then you go back to the normal rule, and the intervening Ht2 terrain piece gets ignored because the Sz3 Peacekeeper is taller than it is.

This is part of what the diagram in the book is trying to illustrate.

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

3) If the Attacking model is on top of the Terrain casting the Shadow, it gets to ignore Normal Rule (2) if its sight line passes through less than 1" of that Terrain.

This should be:

If the Attacking model is on top of the terrain casting the shadow, it gets to ignore the Shadow Zone Exception if its line of sight passes through 1" or less of that terrain.  The hair's width of distance gets split in favor of the attacker.

 

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

So Shadow really just changes one rule (giving Cover for a single blocked sight line) and provides an exception to the "all sight lines Blocked" rule.

It's the opposite.  The Shadow rule is there to change the "I'm ignoring all of the intervening terrain because I'm taller than it is" situation to give models somewhere to hide, and to give people cover for the single line of sight crossing the nearby terrain whether or not the terrain is blocking that line of sight.  

21 hours ago, MisterWerks said:

If this is right, then all the problems in my head (and I think in many others) come from the cockamamie wording in para 3 under Shadow on p 18 which makes it sound like a new rule for us to get wrapped up in.

Main reason why the shadow zone rules exist is that without them, you'd have a situation where a model on a very tall piece of terrain on the table would be able to draw line of sight to everything, because it's simply taller than every piece of intervening blocking terrain.  But, with the shadow zone rules, if you've got a few of H3 or Ht4 buildings that you can stand, and some H2 wall segments scattered around, a Sz2 model can hide on the other side of a Ht2 wall from some rifleman standing on the Ht4 building.

The idea was that it would let people stick to being able to determine line of sight just looking down at the table (without trying to get out a laser pointer or crouch down for a model's view perspective) for the 36" by 36" table.  Then again, the comprises are also part of the reason why there's the "No buildings that you can stand on should be taller than 4"" statement in the rulebook.

 

[MisterWerks]

@solkan, thank you again for your patience and persistence.  I think I finally got through my hangups, which were misunderstandings so numerous about Cover, Blocked Line of Sight, Projectile Attacks, and more.  Here are my new examples with my new understanding.

1. Sz2 model is shooting at Sz2 model in Shadow of Ht 1 Blocking terrain.  Shooter's sightlines cross over the Terrain, so Defender has Cover.  When Defender returns fire across the Terrain, first shooter gets no Cover because he's outside of Shadow.
2. Model A is drawing LoS to B and C around a Ht 5 Blocking tree.  B is in the Shadow; A and C are not.  Some sight lines cross the tree's base, so B gets Cover.  Some sight lines cross the tree's base, but some don't, so A can shoot at C and C gets no Cover because he's out of the Shadow.  A gets no Cover from returning fire because he's out of the Shadow and B and C suffer no penalties.
3. Ht 2 Terrain with A (Sz 3) on one side and B (Sz 2) on the other.  All sight lines cross the Terrain.
   1. Both are outside the Shadow, both can see and shoot at each other without penalty.
   2. A (Sz 3) walks into the Shadow.  A has Cover against B's Projectile Attacks.  B does not have Cover since B is still outside the Shadow.
   3. A (Sz 3) backs out of the Shadow.  B (Sz 2) walks into the Shadow.  Neither A nor B can see one another (no LoS at all) because B is in Shadow of terrain equal/taller than him.
   4. A (Sz 3) returns to Shadow, but at the corner where one sight line does NOT cross the Terrain.  A could use a Projectile Attack at a Negative Modifier since some sight lines cross the Terrain and B is in the Shadow, or A could use a non-Melee ranged Attack at no penalty since Cover affects only Projectile Attacks.
4. A is on top of Ht 3 Terrain, 1/2" away from one edge and 2" away from the other.  
   1. A can shoot freely at B (Sz 2) in the Shadow by the near edge because less than 1" of the Terrain is between them, ignoring the Terrain and the Shadow.
   2. A cannot shoot C (Sz 2) by the far edge at all because more than 1" of the Terrain is between them.
   3. If B or C ascends the Terrain, they can all shoot freely, ignoring the Terrain beneath them.
   4. If Sz 4 Mecha Meemaw walks into the Shadow of this Terrain, A (atop the Terrain)...
      1. Ignores 1" or less of the Terrain to fire freely at Mecha Meemaw if she's on that side
      2. Can use is Projectile Attack if his sight line crosses more than 1" of the Terrain because she's taller than the Terrain, but she gains Cover.

How'd I do?

 

[solkan]

On 7/17/2023 at 12:18 AM, MisterWerks said:

How'd I do?

Qualifying that I’m reading this during my lunch break, I think you got everything right.  Although I’ll admit that I want to double check 4.1.  I don’t remember how much ignoring and double-ignoring there is for the cover from the building top.  

Edit:  Okay, got home and double checked the shadow rules.

In 4.1, there's no cover for the Mecha Meemaw in that situation because both the terrain and its shadow are ignored:

Quote

When drawing sight lines, a model standing on terrain that is casting a Shadow ignores that terrain (and its Shadow) if any single sight line drawn between the two objects passes through 1" or less of that terrain.

 

[Flib Jib]

Super niche scenario but because shadows extend to a maximum of 3", any sz4 or greater models need to be within 3" of terrain equal to or greater than their size correct?

[Adran]

4 hours ago, Flib Jib said:

Super niche scenario but because shadows extend to a maximum of 3", any sz4 or greater models need to be within 3" of terrain equal to or greater than their size correct?

Sorry I might be missing the question.  

A models height doesn't effect how close it needs to be, just which terrain it can be in the shadow of. 

So yes, any model of sz 3 or greater would need to be in the shadow of terrain of equal or greater ht, and the shadow is never more than 3" from the terrain., so at least part of the model must be within 3" of that terrain to apply. (Of course a sz 0 model would also need to be within 3" of the same terrain, its just there could be other bits of terrain that it could be in the shadow of that were smaller)

[solkan]

7 hours ago, Flib Jib said:

Super niche scenario but because shadows extend to a maximum of 3", any sz4 or greater models need to be within 3" of terrain equal to or greater than their size correct?

I assume you’re asking about cover.  Yeah, shadows cut off at 3” max from the terrain, presumably to limit what might happen if you’ve got terrain stacked in piles, and nor need any shadow zone math.  (2nd edition Infinity indirect fire calculating shadow areas…. 😵‍💫)

 

[Flib Jib]

4 hours ago, Adran said:

A models height doesn't effect how close it needs to be, just which terrain it can be in the shadow of. 

What about a scenario where a Ht4 blocking terrain is between a Sz4 and Sz5 model so that no sight lines can be drawn between the two models without crossing the terrain. If the Sz4 model is farther than 3" then LoS can be made. but if the Sz4 model is within, (even partially) 3" of the Ht4 terrain, then LoS is blocked. correct?

[Adran]

31 minutes ago, Flib Jib said:

What about a scenario where a Ht4 blocking terrain is between a Sz4 and Sz5 model so that no sight lines can be drawn between the two models without crossing the terrain. If the Sz4 model is farther than 3" then LoS can be made. but if the Sz4 model is within, (even partially) 3" of the Ht4 terrain, then LoS is blocked. correct?

That sounds right, but its identical answer to the question using a sz 0 model instead of the sz 4 model.