Line of Sight

Line of sight in 11th edition is both easier to understand and more confusing than previous editions. Here I’ve collected a few notes on situations I’ve found interesting.

Obscuring and Touching Terrain

The Obscuring rule no longer applies to a terrain area if either the attacker or defender are touching it. The key is the parenthetical clause in the Obscuring rule.

Obscuring (13.10)

Terrain areas containing one or more light or dense terrain features are obscuring terrain areas. If every line of sight drawn between two models crosses one or more obscuring terrain areas (excluding obscuring terrain areas that one or both of those models are within), those two models are not visible to each other.

This can lead to some weird effects where two units are visible to each other even though every line of sight passes through an intervening terrain area. Simply touching an obscuring terrain area allows you use the entire model for drawing line of sight, even the parts that are still behind the terrain area.

In this example there are two units, A and B. Unit A is behind an L-shaped terrain area created by two different terrain areas joined at right angles and considered as one (the open eye in GW terrain descriptions). Since A is touching the back of the terrain area, it can see and be seen through all parts of the terrain area. All lines of sight between A and B pass completely through the terrain area. Line of sight can be drawn from anywhere on model A, despite only a small part of it actually being in the terrain area.