I think you are making an extremely edge case that is either academic, or needs two extremely uncooperative players teamed up together to happen, to sound as a major issue. I do not think this is the case.
LoF debates prop up from time to time in competive matches. Everyone is all about cooperative gameplay until a game winning LoF is discovered and then 3x3 rule and trooper facings become very important things. Just remember people trying to prevent your guys from shooting their guys based on 3x3 rule is either ignorant or lying.
But this was literally the argument used against me. Mathematically it's impossible to see an Unconscious REM on top of a building (because base curves and edge of the building does not, so it obstructs the 3x3), and the opponent argued that I cannot shoot the REM dead from ground floor because of that. And I wanted to finish that pesky Q-Drone before engineer could pick it up with Servant bot right next to it, also Prone. 1.2 FAQ clarified it enough, but then wording in rulebook 2.0/2.1 got changed and FAQ errata got deleted bringing the question back on top.
The Silhouette is a cylinder so the base bevel towards the top should not be considered, taking that into account I would find it hard if a base is at the edge of a tall building to not show 3x3mm, now if you have an opponent that says that he specifically placed the model so that only a fraction of a mm is showing, just enough so that their model can see and then turn it around to deny LoF, I would honestly call the TO and the TO should have a serious talk about sportsmanship and abusing rules for advantage.
Unconscious state doesn’t affect LoF. That guy who is bleeding to death still has the strength to lift his head and provide reproducial LoF to his foes with his unseeing (enemy can recamo in his LoF) eyes. Same goes for his unconscious ass if you use IJWs ruling. Alternatively you can stop these mental gymnastics and proudly declare that you aren’t playing with official LoF rules and that LoF is established from one atom to another.
Sure, but that problem exists also also in 3x3 ruleset. The atom-to-atom ruleset just clarifies how LoF works for everyone and removes the opportunistic and silly ass-towards-the-enemy and camo tricks which you may run into in a tight competive situation. I mean if you like that kind of play, then don't use atom-to-atom-ruleset. The only way to solve the visibility problem is declaring your trooper visibility intent ("play-by-intent") when deploying or moving troopers. But that's a topic for another day.
That is a can of worms that will remain sealed and buried inside a ton of concreate, under another ton of concreate and flagged to not approach a mile away.
I still have a problem with that. I'm the TO and logically this makes sense without Errata. When you take a cylinder with whatever diameter and 3mm height (as is any model in Prone/Unconscious State) and you place it on a horizontal surface above your head you will never see 3x3mm and thus require the Errata for the active model to see the model above. Otherwise it is just back to "you are not my target, therefore you can't see me". It's not abusing rules, it's using them as they are written. I see the intention behind the rule being "if my model could draw LoF to your model, your model can draw LoF to mine". Also why shouldn't you be able to show just a thin (1-2mm) part of your Silhouette when moving out of the corner just to see 3x3mm on one reactive model and not enough to see 3x3mm and avoiding the almost-lined-up double ARO? Mathematically it's possible, you can measure movement as long as you like and LoF is an Open information so it all checks out in terms of language and logic which are used to write the rules. It doesn't seem to be 'bad sportsmanship' when you play the rules as they are written. It seems like you want to homerule that you can/can't do some things and when people are not willing to comply you call it "bad sportsmanship". And this discussion only shows that it should be clarified somewhere, because there will always be people who will abide the written rules (myself included) and will call out any trial to bend them and there should be no space left for interpretation as these are rules and not a poem. But what we're talking about is literally in the rulebook. 3x3mm is in there as a requirement.
Yes, LoF rules are poorly written core mechanic and ripe for opportunistic exploitation. IF you want make them work you need to do some mental gymnastics and obscure IJW rulings. Alternatively you just write your own better LoF rules. My experience is that when you (pregame) explain the situation to your opponent they immediately ditch the official rules. During the match this approach is less effective.
It's the other way round. The sniper on the roof can see a 3x3mm spot of the poor active model. Ans so there is reciprocal LoF
Note that CB has never clarified how that 3x3 even works. Does a troopers every atom in a 3x3 square need to see every atom in enemy troopers 3x3? Or perhaps a single atom that can see 3x3 is only needed. Who knows?
I think that is how we play in practice at home. It also allows us to avoid wobbly minis on less-than-perfectly-regular terrain; you can actually have textured terrain and just declare where you are and what you want to be able to see. We hash out if the minis can actually see each other if there is doubt, and then worry less where it is physically standing afterwards.
There is nothing abour reciprocity in the current rulebook and faq. There was in FAQ 1.2 (as I said in #3), but it got deleted. That's why I'm bringing this up. Actually there is: The Trooper must be able to see part of the volume of its target, with a minimum size of 3x3mm. LoF can be drawn from any point of the Trooper’s Silhouette to any point of the target’s Silhouette without being obstructed by any pieces of scenery or the Silhouette of any Model (friendly or enemy). So any point of the trooper has to see 3x3mm of enemy trooper. So far I've brought up all the arguments for the lower model being able to see the over him in Prone, even if the reactive model doesn't act, but he remained adamant and me saying that it's the intention behind the rules just brings the argument of "designing my own game" instead of playing by the official rules. And this all happened before I posted here, so by all means I understand what you guys are trying to say and personally I'm all for it being played this way, but I need some official ruling, to handle these shenanigans as sometimes it's the only way of stopping some people before getting out of control (and we already had one incident when CB didn't handle the problems in ruleset, some people took it into their hands and it got out of control to the point that most of them got into huge argument with CB and lost their Warcor statuses and stopped supporting the game altogether). This last part also gets struck in this post: Let's not go this way. My main objective remains to solve this according to RAW or bringing the need to bring this Errata back in FAQ 1.5 to CB's attention
@Tcional the language isn't clear at all. Players usually interpreted "The Trooper must be able to see part of the volume of its target, with a minimum size of 3x3mm." as atom-to-3x3 but the rules don't explicitly spell that out. But all of this is irrelevant because most/all/many people actually play with atom-to-atom-rule to avoid the silly ass-to-the-enemy situation. People don't actually play with ruleset that they claim to play. @StephanDahl Yes, 99% people play with "play-by-intent" but there is that vocal 1% that ruins the game for everyone by insisting in playing without intent.
I played atom-to-atom until that situation because I thought this requirement got brought down together with changes to Partial Cover requirements. When I realised it still holds up I changed how I talk about the game and actively use requirement of seeing atom-to-3x3mm. In 95% of situations it's obivous that it's met, but sometimes you can use it to see just one reactive model on your active turn. To spell it out more clearly you'd have to define 'seeing' here, so I see why this still might be not clear enough as 'seeing' is played as drawing a line from any part of silhuouette of the model that 'sees'. @ijw, is there any chance you could look into this thread and bring this up for conversation with team responsible for the rules and FAQs? Being on top of logical statements seems to be my thing, so maybe I could help you guys with this stuff sometimes?
@Tcional In my opinion that is excatly the kind of opportunistic and very selective game state reading that causes arguments. Perhaps If there was a 30min pregame discussion on how anyone can construct and avoid those 5% situations then I might be ok with that. Has anyone made an article or video about this LoF weaponization technique?
Do you need a video when if you play by the rules as they are written you can use this? Same thing was happening back in N3 when people where just peeking out enough to see back arc of enemy models base and not the front arc, which caused people to shoot enemies for free that were facing them. It got patched up along with clear pictures in N4 1.0 and nobody brought the topic again. Also why waste 30min discussing these stuff when you could have clear rules and spend those 30 minutes actually playing the game? I know it's a bit like a dream to chase, but seems possible, especially since we already had a solution that got deleted from FAQ. If it was still here we wouldn't be having this discussion. I would just show this player this errata that was present back in FAQ 1.2 and he'd accept it.
@Tcional I just want to know before the game what kind of LoF tricks are allowed. For example if we were playing pre-patched N3 and I didn’t know about the superjump trick, I would like to know before the game starts that kind of LoF trick is allowed and popular. Probably would take couple of superjumpers to my list and try avoid deployment spots where that trick could be used against me. Am I being unreasonable here? I have yet to see any LoF tricks with atom-to-atom rule.
Reciprocal in this instance is being used in - Unobstructed LoF…I.e not in total cover. If 3x3 is visible it’s not total cover. The only rounds I know of that don’t require LoF are Guided rounds…Everything else needs a straight trajectory because bullets typically move in a straight line. Come to PanO we’ll teach you how to use your gun…
