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"Illusionary Forest" and Soft Cover


Q'iq'el

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Hopefully the last rules question tonight. :D

Lilith's "Illusionary Forest" is a piece of wood on a circle 3" in diameter.

What does it do?

1. It's "Obscuring" which means it would block LoS if there were more than 3" of it (but there aren't).

2. It gives Soft Cover to the models within its area.

3. It clearly is "Severe" terrain, so it gives movement penalties to everyone, except Nephilim, Lilith, models that can fly above it etc. It doesn't have clause limiting this effect to friendly models, so in a Neverborn vs. Neverborn fight the opponent's Nephilim can ignore movement penalty too.

What does it not do?

1. It clearly does not give Soft Cover to the models behind the forest. For Lilith or her crew to benefit from Soft Cover, against ranged attacks, they must be in the forest. Of course Lilith can place the forest on the top of herself, but if she moves, she'll have to recast it. (based on the wording for "Obscuring" terrain in the Errata)

As a side note, even with a well placed forest, the models within it will be quite squeezed - trying to get Soft Cover for more than one model at a time amounts to inviting some blast based attacks or pulse based attack that may fry all the models inside - i.e. not the best plan.

2. It doesn't block LoS, ever. Even if it connects with other forest, two "Obscuring" terrains of less than 3" do not stack to block LoS. (according to the errata entry introducing the "Obscuring" category to the page 85).

It seems then that the spell has only 3 intended functions:

1. Personal Soft Cover for Lilith or her minion, as long as they're INSIDE the forest.

2. A way to slow down opponent troops (perhaps close a narrow street or just protect Lilith's flank so that opponent can't swarm her when she's dealing with someone else).

3. Habitat for Waldgeists. Not a perfect one, because it's merely a bit larger base, but at least it works.

As a side note, I've attempted to commune with a Waldgeist and it said it prefers to inhabit Games Workshop forest or similar, if available, and then added it'll eat my best brush if I order him. :afraid:

The main question is - have I got it right, or did I omit or misunderstood something?

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Oh, I don't mean the spell is bad or anything. It's just quite situational - more so than the intuition would tell us.

The best use I found for it is roadblock. If you play a treasure hunt or you want to secure a ruin before that darn Nicodem gets to it and starts to blast everything around from the safety of the 2nd floor window, an Illusionary forest to block their route, which can then block their route AGAIN next turn is absolutely marvelous tool to frustrate your opponents.

If you want, you can give an enemy footslogger a permanent severe terrain for the entire duration of the game. Not bad at all, especially if you use it to slow down a big hitter that is slow to begin with.

What is the most intuitional use though, for me, is actually not possible. The most intuitional use (i.e. the first use I thought of when reading the spell description) was to cast it in between me and an enemy model with a scary ranged weapon - that way both Lilith and her gang would all hide in the cone behind the forest. It doesn't work that way though.

I wish I had made my Illusionary forest more "accessible". As is it's somewhat challenging to place anything inside. :D

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1. It's "Obscuring" which means it would block LoS if there were more than 3" of it (but there aren't).

Yes it does.

2. It gives Soft Cover to the models within its area.

Indeed.

3. It clearly is "Severe" terrain' date= so it gives movement penalties to everyone, except Nephilim, Lilith, models that can fly above it etc. It doesn't have clause limiting this effect to friendly models, so in a Neverborn vs. Neverborn fight the opponent's Nephilim can ignore movement penalty too.

As currently worded, correct.

Models behind the forest do not benefit from soft cover. They can, however have LoS blocked to them. See below.

You're forgetting this from page 5 of the errata:

This means that if there is even 1" of forest between two models (neither are in the forest) then LoS will be blocked.

If a model had its "toe in" the woods, they'd receive soft cover (obscuring).

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This means that if there is even 1" of forest between two models (neither are in the forest) then LoS will be blocked.

If a model had its "toe in" the woods, they'd receive soft cover (obscuring).

This is very interesting. What is the meaning of the line saying that obscuring terrain does not stack?

Let's assume we have 2 obscuring objects 2" wide: OO; Lilith: L and a shooter: S

1. L ---------- OO1 ----- S

Lilith is behind one of those and S can't see her.

2. OLO1------ S

Lilith is in the obscuring terrain, the Shooter can shoot her but she gets soft cover.

3. OLO1 --- OO2 ---- S

Lilith isn't visible for the Shooter, because of OO2.

4. OLO1OO2 ---- S

There are more than 3" of obscuring terrain between Lilith and the Shooter, but they come from two adjacent pieces of different terrain. Because these do not stack, the Shooter can see Lilith and she gets Soft Cover.

In other words, is the 4th case the only case where the clause that 3" of obscuring terrain doesn't stack relevant?

And thank you very much for all the clarifications! :)

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In the 4th example LoS would be blocked. The first terrain piece blocks LoS since it's completely between the two models.

It would come to play when both models are inside a forest. There might be in total more than 3" of obscuring terrain between them but you can still draw LoS since the 3" is counted separately for each terrain piece.

To use your notation, here is an example of where it might come up:

OLO1 --- OSO2

-Ropetus

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