Split fire and cover/LOS.

[ShinyRhino]

I played a game recently against Tau. The player had an HQ suit model with a multitracker attached to a unit of three Elite suits.

I had a Tac Squad and a terminator Squad in range. The Tau declared the HQ would shoot my Tac Squad, and the Elite suits would shoot my Terminators.

When it came time to take saves on the tac Squad, I decalred I was taking cover saves versus the plasma rifle wounds, because the HQ model could only see one of the five Marines. The elite suits could see 3/5 Marines.

 

Did I get cover properly, since the HQ model was th eonly one firing at Tac Marines, he's the only one you draw LOS from to determine cover, correct? The LOS of the elite suits doesn't matter because they're firing at a completely different target, yes?

[Acebaur]

Well you draw LOS for shooting from the model shooting. So if the HQ could only see 1 dude then they get cover. Otherwise you could have a lascannon guy standing behind a rhino firing at what another member of the squad can see on the other side of the rhino.

[Frosty the Pyro]

you did it correctly, only the FIREING models that are in range are used when determining cover, all other models in the unit are ignored for that purpose. You can actualy deny cover saves to the enemy by only shooting with models that have clear los, or not shooting with select models with unclear los. For example on pg 23 of the BRB, in example B, if the space marines decided NOT have the sergent and one of the "no" marines shoot at all, then the orks would not recieve a cover save, as the non fireing models are not counted.

 

Remeber cover is determined as follows

 

each firing model traces LOS to each model in the targeted unit

if half or more target models are obscured then that firing model does not have a clear shot.

If more than half of the firing models DO have a clear shot, no cover is granted at all.

If half or less have a clear shot (unclear shots equal or greater than clear shots) then the entire enemy unit gets the cover save.

 

thus by not fireing with models with unclear shots, you reduce the number of models with unclear shots untill the clear shots outnumber the unclear ones, sacrificing volume of fire to deny saves.