8th Ed. Priest LOS Question

This was during my first game ever, just FYI.

I put my Skink Priest in a Skink Skirmisher unit but he was in the back. Since it was a Skirmisher unit and LOS doesn't tend to apply to them when shooting from the back I figured the same would apply to my priest. I was against my friend who played VC and he said that since the priest wasn't in the front he didn't have LOS. I couldn't find any specific reference to it the rule book so we went with that he didn't have LOS. On the next movement phase I moved him to the front of the unit.

So can a priest have LOS from the back of a Skirmisher group?

 

looking quickly through the skirmisher rules, i find nothing about LOS. Looking in the LOS rules, all I find is that LOS is checked between your models eyes, and any body part of the target(ignoring tails, wings, weapons, and banners). Since your priest Is in a skirmish formation, this should be easier to obtain as they're more spread out. NOTE: 2 things, A) It didn't say in the LOS rules anything about not being able to cast magic from the back. B) I haven't looked in the wizard rules for anything pertaining to needing to be in the front of a unit, or LOS(with the exception that a magic missile needs LOS, as do magic vortexes.

Someone else can thus check the magic rules for any applicable applications.

 

Many wizard spells now just need you be in the front arc. I think the only ones that need line of sight, unless specified in the spell, are magic missles. Magic missles fire like a ranged missle. Since the second rank of the unit can use the first ranks LOS for targeting you were set. If it wasnt a magic missle you probably didnt need line of sight anyways.

On a side note how was your priest in the second rank? Skirmishers have a facing and "ranks" now. The priest should have been up front unless Im mistaken.

 

The problem sounds very much to me like a holdover interpretation of 7th ed rules where any character not in the front rank was not allowed to do anything. However, 8th ed has changed that:

As Cyanhawk has pointed out, characters must go in the front rank of a unit and skirmishers now have ranks, ergo the priest must go in the front rank. The only exception is when unit command models and other characters occupy all the front spaces at which point other characters can go into the 2nd rank.

With regard to LOS for spells, see page 31 in the BRB. The 2nd bullet point under choosing a target specifically indicates that no LOS is required unless otherwise stated. For spells that do require LOS such as magic missiles, the MM rules on the same page state that it is treated as though the wizard was firing a missile weapon. Now, in the event that a priest was legally in the 2nd rank of a unit, the LOS for shooting on pg. 39 under "fire in two ranks" allow a model in the 2nd rank to use the model in front of it for LOS.

 

It was magic missle, and I guess I should have put him in front to begin with. Thanks.

 

Not only are the LOS rules messed up by TLOS, GW have confused the situation even further with the shooting in two ranks rules.

As they are actually written (note that most people don't interpret them this way, but that is because they choose to interpret them other than as strict RAW) the shooting in two ranks rule is an addition to the ability to shoot if the model has TLOS in its own right.

Most people interpret the shooting in two ranks as a limitation to only being able to shoot in two ranks rather than the addition the rules as written actually allow. The rule actually says you can shoot if you have LOS or if you are behind a front ranker with LOS.

The shooting in two ranks rule appears to assume that the 7th edition rule of sight being blocked by a model from the same unit being immediately in front of a model still exists and applies an exception to it, while introducing an "assumption" that models further back cannot see due to the front two ranks dodging about in front of them.

I generally play the same way as everyone else because I prefer to play than argue (at least during games) but TLOS is biggest problem in 8th, even worse than the uber spells. According to TLOS RAW you can have as many ranks as you like firing as long as the heads of the models further back are higher than the heads of the ranks further forward. You can achieve this by positioning the unit on a forward slope or theoretically just modelling them that way, e.g. a unit of hand gunners with the first rank prone, 2nd rank kneeling, 3rd crouching, 4th standing tall and the 5th and 6th on lower and higher portable steps, they would all have TLOS! You bypass the assumption of forward ranks block sight by pointing out the height differential that allows them their dodging without interfering with the rearward ranks' LOS

 

I'm sorry,. but unless I'm missing something, that's exactly what the rules seem to say.

Please correct me if I'm wrong.

 

you are correct. The only time any models outside of the first two ranks can fire is if the ranged weapon they have has the volley fire special rule.

 

You missed the previous section in the shooting rules where they go through the qualifications to shoot and say that you need LOS etc. etc.

Previous versions of the rules prevented rear rankers from shooting due to not having LOS and this rule is written as an additional ability assuming that rear rankers still cannot have their own LOS. However, nothing in the rules actually prevents rear rankers from having LOS if they have a TLOS to a target, apart from the implication (note lack of LOS is only implied by this rule for 2nd rankers and "assumed" for ranks beyond that, nowhere do the rules ever state that troops block LOS except if they actually block TLOS).

All the second rank shooting rules actually state as RAW is that 2nd rankers that cannot shoot due to lacking TLOS (the ability to shoot with TLOS is granted in previous section and not rescinded in second rank shooting rules section) can shoot with LOS of the 1st ranker they are behind. It also states that 3+ rankers are "assumed" to lack LOS, but as it is an assumption rather than a definitive rule, if the game circumstances clearly demonstrate that the assumption is not true, then 3+ rankers should be allowed to shoot by what the language used in the rules actually says.

I don't try to do this in games as I know how loosely GW word rules and I believe this rule was written at a different time from when they wrote TLOS into the rules. The wording works well with the pre-TLOS LOS rules but fails with the abomination that is TLOS. When you are playing with pre-TLOS terrain virtually everything on the battlefield has TLOS to virtually every unit in arc (models not being assumed able to turn their heads, unless crewing a war machine of course!) across the whole battlefield.

TLOS is an abomination that makes a good section of the rules meaningless or absurd, the 2nd rank shooting rules, especially for skirmishers, being an example.

 

I didn't miss it, I just didn't quote the better section of your post.

I'm sorry but as soon as something "counts as" it essentially is. At no point can you argue that they're allowed to shoot "because they have LOS according to TLOS" because according to the rules they don't have a clear LOS. Any argument to the contrary would easily be shot down as inane.

There are plenty of instances throughout the rules where some model/ability uses "counts as" to bypass some other core rule(the slann counting as large targets is one), and the reason they exist is to allow the game to function properly.