"Weasels Rule of Cover" Topic

The second gaming principle that I've taken to writing into rules directly is this:

Whenever a figure is positioned at a corner, edge or other position of partial concealment, the player must declare, aloud, whether the figure is intended to be visible (and thus capable of firing) around the corner or is intended to be out of sight completely.

If the latter, we typically then face the figure away from the corner or nudge them an extra half-inch from the corner.

Simple and efficient and prevents many an upset when one player thought a figure was not in sight and the other thought they were sighting down the alley.

Do they count as in cover if looking round the corner? I think 'light' rather than 'heavy' myself. Otherwise, spot on.

Weasel,
I run into this a lot, especially with larger scale models. I think there should be a default position because players will forget to designate until he wants to shoot or gets shot at which at that time he'll declare to his advantage (can you blame him?)

Then you get the creative players stating he popped up to fire and popped back down before getting shot at. Feasible? Yes. Pain in the butt? Yes.

This is where a reaction rule like Nuts! uses comes in handy. I use what I call a "Situational Awareness Check" where when both units come into LOS the SA check determines if they can react right away or if there is a delay in engaging. A delay in reacting can be from suppression, poor troop type or the enemy popping up in your flank or rear or from a particularly poor die roll (just not paying attention or distracted).

I'm going to be using a rule I call an "Improved Position". Any unit not moving is assumed to be taking advantage of available cover, dispersed and not just standing around. I guess this would be similar to a "Hit the Deck" rule but it is the default posture for infantry units.

Wolfhag

Advocate – We treat sticking a face and rifle around the corner as cover versus being out of sight completely if you don't, but it could work as light vs heavy as well.

Wolf – I've toyed with a roll like that too, but didn't get it quite feeling like I wanted.

I think the old Laserburn had a mechanic similar to it, though in that game, it was more of a "spotting" roll.

Dear Weasel

On this question I feel it is entirely a problem of modern combat and again after ten or more years of pondering it, I gave up entirely on even making a game out of it. What I mean is that the extraordinary difficulty of taking into account such minor and brief actions as peering around the corner or how deep one is in a foxhole is a degree of complexity I don't think can be solved. At leas I could never do it and this caused me to give up on every doing something like modern skirmish. I have an idea and a method of doing it but it involves, again, going the other way. I have spoke about it here and then and it is what I call the question of "the iron and lead content of the air." Basically it assumes defining an area into which fire is poured by use of a circle of string, and the level of fire makes the saving throw that all figures in the circle must roll to avoid being removed from the field. It does not consider individual actions but assumes men will do what is their wont depending on the situation as perceived by them. Thus within the circle of fire if a unit or group of men is cowering in their foxholes under intense fire, they save on a 1 to a 5. If they wish to fire it would be on a 1 to 4. If they are advancing 1 to a 2 etc. For more desultory fire the saving throws go up. For wider area coverage more circles must be used.

It has remained a theory and an idea. I have never done much more with it.

This response assumes single figure basing in a skirmish (each figure is individually commanded) environment.

For cover around a blocking piece of terrain, we generally use the "three point" rule. Drawing a line of fire from any part of the base of the shooting figure, you have an unblocked line of fire to zero, one, two, or three points on the target's base – the left edge (from your perspective), the center, the right edge. The number of points you can see equate to light, medium, or heavy cover (or complete blocking, if you can't see any).

This is pretty simple to adjudicate and count. And it provides the desired effect. in order to have a better shot at more opposing figures, you have to inch your base out further, which makes you more vulnerable to return fire. The more secure you want to be, the further back the figure has to be and the more it limits their line of fire.

Generally, this favors the person in cover – in most situations they end up getting a greater defensive bonus than they are ceding to the opponent. Likewise, a good opponent can position their forces to negate your advantage, but they usually have to be thinking a couple moves ahead to pull it off. I've seen the fake – one person moves toward cover, the other positions to negate the cover, then the first person responds by charging a force that is not in a good defensive position for that option. There are very few situations (you pretty much have to explicitly design them into the terrain layout) where you create an "invulnerable" spot. Anyway, there's a lot of tactical depth to the simple to implement rule.

You can also do a two-point along the same lines. The attacking figure can see all the target's base, more than half, less than half, or none equating to no cover, light cover, heavy cover, or blocked line of fire.

You can use base, belt, and "bean" (top of head) for a vertical three point system if the situation (type of terrain you want to use) calls for it.

Weasel, this is one of many things I love about FiveCore. I've never seen it in a miniatures rule book before, but it makes things so much more clear-cut.

eto – I like that idea a lot, and yes, my posting was in reference to individual figures, I didn't make that sufficiently clear.

Thanks Josha!

Not just a moderns problem. I'd go withat corner – Target, A bit back, not a target. Obviously anyone past the line of the wall can see him no matter.