Steam cloud wording

[Priceopolous]

Howard Langston's steam cloud ability states:

"Until the start of this model's next activation, the area 4" around this model counts as soft cover terrain for the purposes of drawing line of sight"

That's quite specific. Compare to Snowstorm's Middle of the Storm ability:

"The area 2" around this model is considered soft cover"

So does this mean that steam cloud doesn't give soft cover to those within it but rather just blocks line of sight to models beyond the area? It seems to mean that, which makes it a less than awesome ability.

Someone care to shed some light?

[Fenton Crack]

I think you simply treat it as a zone of soft cover like you would a grove of small trees or whatnot: If a model is within 4" of Howard other models make take a negative twist to their flip on shooting or casting actions with the gun symbol. If a model has the area of soft cover between it and another model, with neither of the models in the area of soft cover itself, there is no LOS between them.

I think they used different wording for either no reason or perhaps because Howard's is off an action and Snowstorm simply has it as an ability that's always on?

Or perhaps after looking at them again, since they are specifically saying Howard's acts as a piece of terrain, it gets the "no LOS" blocking for those attempting to attack through the zone of cover (the dust cloud) but Snowstorm's aura simply gives the negative twist to the flip but cannot block LOS.

[Priceopolous]

Yeah I tend to agree otherwise it's a bollocks ability with only highly situational use. My problem comes from the overly wordy explanation that confuses the matter rather than clarifying it. This is part of what needed to be better in M2E. You don't want to be errata-ing stuff straight off the bat after your restart. Too much of this stuff over time and you'll end up restarting the restart.

The ability could easily have been cut to:

"Until the start of this model's next activation, the area 4" around this model counts as soft cover"

Edited October 14, 2013 by Priceopolous

[Thaarup]

As it is written now some models who ignore soft cover from terrain would ignore Langstons ability but not the snow storm and so on...it is two different abilities that work similar, but that is all...