Bug Alert, Shooting

In a game at Derby yesterday we were very close to an odd situation, a T unit of bow had clear parallels to a wall of enemy troops in front, and yet was on the edge of not having a legal target, (if the enemy had been 1mm further forward there would have been no shot). It concerns the rule that requires a straight and uninterupted line between the corners of shooting base and target.

I've noticed this (rare) situation before in freindly games, and we then just ignore the strict wording of the rule, but in a competition?

I shall try and illustrate the situation below:


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Three enemy bases are approaching, i.e. blocks 2,3 and 4 above.
Three friendly bases A,B and C. B are shooters and are set back from A and C. (The underline character is just a spacer to try and keep the image straight).

B cannot see 2 corners of enemy 3 or 4 as lines of sight to at least one corner of each target base are blocked by A or C, so B cannot shoot, yet they have enemy directly ahead!

This does not seem to be a reasonable situation, have I missed something?

TD

The rules say you must be able to trace two lines from the two front corners of the shooter to any two corners of the target - no where does it say those lines can't cross. . .

It also says "uninterrupted" and "no obstacle" - our discussions have revolved round whether a target base blocks (interrupts) a line drawn to one of its own rear corners from a shooter to its front. If it doesn't your bug disappears I think.

Yes we've always played it as Zippee describes also. Any two corners and doesn't matter if the lines cross.

line cross would be no permitted (I'm talking at tournament level). Shooters should wheel or move when not allowed to fire. Leave to them enough room.

Ok well that's cleared that up. Thanks Lorenzo .... much prefer it like this I must say.

Thanks all, fortunately this is a rare situation and at least the rule is clear and unambiguous. I guess it could be rationalised as when the battlefield has become so crowded and troops so close, then shooting becomes less efficient...



TD

Yep I agree TD ...they could always try an overhead at -2 if they were that desperate to get a shot in I suppose

dadiepiombo wrote:line cross would be no permitted (I'm talking at tournament level). Shooters should wheel or move when not allowed to fire. Leave to them enough room.

In the situation as depicted that would be an absolute nonsense. The T unit is shooting directly forward, if the bases directly lined up it could shoot but because they don't (and in the end can't) they can't shoot at a target directly to their front.

It can't wheel or turn in the middle of a line, nor should it be required to in order to shoot straight ahead at an enemy line.

This strikes me as a completely unnecessary and overly restrictive piece of gaming geometry.

The only gain in it is that it prevents having a stepped/staggered line with T units protected by advance melee units but I'm not 100% certain that's a gambit that needs eradicating as it comes with its own in built weaknesses.

Oh and it's not unambiguous - the rule book nowhere mentions that the lines can't cross and there has been no update to that. that makes it about as ambiguous as it can be!

Another entire area ripe for clarification in 2ed

Personally, I think the rules work just fine. I don't think any change is needed. Firing straight down the line may be easy for a single archer but a whole unit of 600+ may be quite impossible. There will be in any arbitrary system (and rules are always arbitrary) occasional oddities. But in the case you've outlined Zippee you have an easy solution, just move B up into the front line. The idea of holding it back seems gamey to me.

Gaius Cassius wrote: Personally, I think the rules work just fine. I don't think any change is needed. Firing straight down the line may be easy for a single archer but a whole unit of 600+ may be quite impossible. There will be in any arbitrary system (and rules are always arbitrary) occasional oddities. But in the case you've outlined Zippee you have an easy solution, just move B up into the front line. The idea of holding it back seems gamey to me.

Well to be clear the position cited is that of the OP not me. My first reaction was that it was a gamey formation too but I can see it reflecting formations such as the traditional English archer hedgehog array perhaps.

Personally I don't think the rules are saying what Lorenzo thinks they say - not sure if that's a translation issue. I agree they work just fine as written [in English]

An archer firing straight ahead or 600 archers firing straight ahead - the only thing to their front is the enemy. Are archers really so inaccurate that they can't manage that?

The inclusion of the [unwritten] no crossed lines clause is the arbitrary bit that generates oddities. Without that, shooting works just fine between the LOS and priorities. I think it's an unnecessary inclusion.

Lorenzo made the ruling back on the old Forum about the lines not crossing. We've found that this works better than allowing the lines to cross (which would allow units that really shouldn't be able to shoot to shoot.)

There are always going to be arbitrary occurrences in any rules system. I don't know if in real life whether the archers in question should or could be able to fire. In the case cited by Aurelius there is a simple solution in Impetus - advance the T unit up the to battle line.

dadiepiombo wrote:line cross would be no permitted (I'm talking at tournament level). Shooters should wheel or move when not allowed to fire. Leave to them enough room.

Holy cr*p batman!

Fair enough, the boss has spoken.

Lines drawn from Front corners to any corner that cannot cross or pass through a unit (other than the target) is common and works well. It does somewhat depend on all bases being the same width. If the target was wider than the shooting gap then lines would cross.

In the scenario given B front left goes to 3-back right and B-front right to 3-front right.

All good.

B front left cannot see 3 back right because 3 back right is hidden by 3 front right being directly in front of it.

Granicus Gaugamela wrote:B front left cannot see 3 back right because 3 back right is hidden by 3 front right being directly in front of it.

Which is precisely why I said in my first post

Zippee wrote:our discussions have revolved round whether a target base blocks (interrupts) a line drawn to one of its own rear corners from a shooter to its front. If it doesn't your bug disappears I think.

Again the actual rule in the book has no such restrictions:

Zippee wrote: two lines from the two front corners of the shooter to any two corners of the target

And there is no official published amendment (old forum posts notwithstanding)

Not quite.

The rule states that you must be able to draw a straight and uninterrupted line from the front corner.

If your edge is parallel with the target unit edge as shown in the initial diagram then you will either not contact the corner of the target unit as you run right along the edge of it OR if you contact the back corner you must be definition also have contacted the troops further forward on the base so the LOS is interrupted.

Which is why I said our discussions had revolved around what constitutes "interrupted" - does a unit interrupt itself? It is not defined.

If you run along an edge, you do contact the corner, in fact you contact both corners - a corner exists on two edges by definition.

It is exactly this geometric precision and DBx style of interpretation that we moved to Impetus to get away from.

Consider the logical extension of that position; if troops from the target unit do not interrupt firing then do troops from any other unit? Enemy units? Friendly units?

We know these other troops do, so unless we are treating the flesh and blood of the target unit as being different to that of any other unit there must e a LoS interruption to the back corner

In the original example the simplest and easiest solution to the problem is to advance the T unit into the front line. No questions then of being able to draw lines to the proper corners. I agree about not liking DBX geometry but at the same time I don't like games that encourage this kind of play. Impetus, in this regard, makes it very simple to calculate LOS and gives players simple choices.

Consider the example under 6.4 the T unit shoots virtually to its side. There seems no inclination to reduce vision.

Note 6.4 is about Visibility. By insisting on this geometrical nonsense you are claiming that in the OP unit B cannot see unit 3 which is patently absurd. It can see it so we move to Target Priorities to determine if it can shoot unit 3.

The rule in the book is a simple statement, you can see if you can trace from front corner to any corner. No mention of crossing lines, just the use of the term "uninterrupted" - which may mean the unit itself or may mean other units, hills, buildings. I suspect the intent was the latter. But in fact that only becomes an issue once you insert the assumption you can't cross lines - an assumption people have read in to the rule because other rules use the mechanic.

Whether you can "solve" the issue by moving forward is irrelevant to the discussion (relevant to that game perhaps but not relevant to the rule).

Remember we are talking about visibility - ignore the rulebook, look at the OP and answer the question can B see 3 - the answer is pretty obvious. Twisting and changing the rules to give an opposite result is just plain daft.

I notice Zippee that you don't really address what is the simple solution to the tactical situation. Advance B into the front line. Personally I don't agree with you that a unit back from the front line intermeshed between other friendly units could easily fire on enemy advancing units. And how far back are you going to allow B to fire. 5U, 15U, 30U? If B were Longbow firing at 30U through the same channel in the line would you allow it to fire on unit 3?

Couldn't an overhead shot be the solution to this problem ?
I mean it would not be the optimal for the firer but it's not really the perfect clear shot position for them either being stepped back like that.
Like I've said we've always played it like Zippee allowing lines to cross but if this is wrong.... then people will have to be more careful setting up their firing lines from now on.

Gaius Cassius wrote:I notice Zippee that you don't really address what is the simple solution to the tactical situation. Advance B into the front line. Personally I don't agree with you that a unit back from the front line intermeshed between other friendly units could easily fire on enemy advancing units. And how far back are you going to allow B to fire. 5U, 15U, 30U? If B were Longbow firing at 30U through the same channel in the line would you allow it to fire on unit 3?

Because the question is not about the tactical situation. Advancing and shooting has its own penalties. The question is about 6.4 which is titled Visibility. In short the question is "can B see 3"? Not "how can B shoot at 3 in this situation".


It is unlikely that a T unit to the rear of the line can shoot through the gap (ability to do so is directly proportional to the size of the gap as you would expect) because movement tolerances (and game rules) dictate that bases will never absolutely align, thus the friendly line ahead would interrupt as per 6.4. This is completely different to claiming that the target base interrupts visibility to itself. . .

So far every answer claiming B can't shoot (actually see) 3 uses rules that are not in the book or amendments (lines crossing) and/or claims that targets can block LOS onto themselves (no tracing a line to a rear corner in this case).

Only if both those assumptions are correct can we say that B can't see 3 (in some bizarre tabletop geometry of the blind), if either one of them is incorrect then yes B can see 3 (and thus shoot, other rules and priority notwithstanding).

I prefer Occam's Razor - the rules say what they say and a unit in front of another with nothing between them can see each other.

I'd be happy for one or the other statement to be true - I think it assists with exploitation of shooting through a gap but both (which is what is needed to stop visibility in this situation) is too much. I'd go with lines not being able to cross but targets not blocking LOS to themselves. Which oddly if you accept Lorenzo's forum post as Law is what we have now. . .

However it is not Law unless/until it is in the amendments

I agree that the question of the firing lines not crossing should be included in Advanced Impetus as clarification for what the rules say (the rules do not say anything about lines crossing or not crossing.) I do know from experience that allowing firing lines to cross creates some pretty odd situations for firing so each approach brings with it its own set of problems.

Personally, I think if you want to fire you need to be in the front line. I note that a pure hedgehog tactic can work if the firing line is echeloned unit by unit.

Yes, firing lines can't cross and the target unit can block the firing line from contacting the rear corners.

Gaius Cassius wrote:Yes, firing lines can't cross and the target unit can block the firing line from contacting the rear corners.

And that's the fundamental disagreement.

A target unit shouldn't block line of sight to itself.

I'm agnostic on the crossing lines, it's an auto assumption players bring from DBM days IMO and never has been an Impetus rule - amazing the number of people who insist it is though and flounder looking for it

But imposing both is far too much, the target priorities rules take care of most of the other odd situations. The remaining ones are far less of an issue than the situation you're correcting.

Occam's Razor still applies: if changing the rules, change as little as possible.