hive guard cover saves

so another nids codex question. the hive guard's impaler cannon says that units can only benefit from cover they are in/touching. how does that react with units that get cover saves by other means like orcs, tau, and even venomthropes?

judchic wrote:so another nids codex question. the hive guard's impaler cannon says that units can only benefit from cover they are in/touching. how does that react with units that get cover saves by other means like orcs, tau, and even venomthropes?

well you would go with the codex rules which say it ignores cover unless your in it, though other rules say it GRANTS cover, they are not actually IN cover, thus no cover

I happen to have my rule book with me:

Tau Disruption Pod:
- Weapons firing at the vehicle from more than 12" distant count the vehicle as an Obscured Target.

Obscured Targets:

- At least 50% of the facing of the vehicle that is being targeted needs to be hidden by intervening terrain or models from the point of view of the firer for the vehicle to claim to be in cover. If this is the case, the vehicle is said to be obscured (or hull down).
- Vehicles are not obscured simply for being inside of area terrain. The 50% rule given above takes precedence.
- Obviously, vehicles cannot go to ground, voluntarily or otherwise.

If the target is obscured and suffers and penitrating or glancing hit, it may take a cover save against it, exactly like a non vehicle model would do against a wound. If the save is passed, the hit is discarded and no roll is made on the vehicle damage table.

If a special rule or piece of war gear confers to a vehicle the ability of being obscured even if in the open, this is a 4+ cover save, unless specifically noted in the codex.

SO... I am still thinking that the vehicle can still count as being obscured from these impaler cannons. But if it isn't then I am once again going to openly call the tyranid codex cheese lol j/k

What do the rest of you think about this?

HiveMindRuik wrote:
well you would go with the codex rules which say it ignores cover unless your in it, though other rules say it GRANTS cover, they are not actually IN cover, thus no cover

The issue lies therein that what does "granting cover" count as. Being "in" area terrain? Or as though you were shooting through another unit?

This came up during one my games when a vehicle popped smoke. It needs to be FAQ'd I think, there's simply so many arguments either way.

I think via RAW/RAP things like smoke launchers/disruption pods don't work on vehicles, because the ONLY way they can be granted cover is through 50% obscurement. The hive guard ignores everything BUT cover granted via being in area terrain, which vehicles cannot do.

However, I'm torn on whether or not it's silly that smoke launchers arbitrarily don't work against hive guard, but it's not like many armies suffer a huge hit by this not happening...

I would argue this further but I don't know where my rulebook went and I lack a PDF of the thing, so I'll add more to this when I find it

How is a vehicle hiding in the middle of a cloud of smoke not in cover? simply b/c the cover isn't represented by a piece of terrain on the board?

If people wanted to get really technical like that, I know some people are going to get ticked at me for saying this, but the way I read the rulebook, vehicles don't specifically gain a cover save for being IN COVER, they gain cover saves for being OBSCURED, which is provided by
A: being in cover(50% of the model hidden from view)
B: Various forms of wargear.

The impaler cannon says it ignores the effects of being in cover, not the effects of being obscured.
Obscured doesn't say you 'count as being in cover', rather its the other way around. vehicles that claim to be in cover are considered Obscured.

OBSCURED is what provides the cover save.
BEING IN COVER makes a vehicle count as obscured.


Counter-arguments?

I'm sorry if my post seems rather rules-munchy, but I've been involved with this argument before, and it seems fairly silly to me to begin with that it should ignore wargeare obscurement.

I understand the whole living amunition thing allowing it to 'find its way around cover' etc, etc, but..
How does that help it avoid the forcefield that completely surrounds that ork battlewagon, or see the chimera hidden in a dense cloud of smoke? Or .. um.. i don't know how tau disruption pods actually WORK, but i'm sure a tau player could explain why that seems equally odd.


There, now you have my arguments both from a rules standpoint AND a fluff standpoint.

The way I have been playing it, a vehicle doesn't get a cover save, unless it fires smoke or has disruption pods. The impaler shots can fly around corners, not see through smoke. And you can only fire smoke once per game, smoke launchers are not some huge detriment to nids. Finally, Tau need all the help they can get against Nids, so they should, until a new codex comes out, be able to use their handwavium stealth fields against guided spike missiles.

In the games I have used the hive guard, its played quite nicely.

I agree with you 100% Robin.

GW makes pretty good and well thought out books, but they seriously need their FAQ guy to go to BoLS, Librarium, Heresynet etc before writing them. Would save so much headache.

If a person popping smoke brought along some grayish cotton fiber and placed them on the vehicle for the duration of the smoke launcher effect would nids then grant the obscured bonus. I'm just bringing this up in case the whole issue might be a lack of imagining the battle field.

*L*, I can just see it now, Ork player, being exceptionally orky, takes this as a sign and brings an apropriately sized plastic bowl to represtent his force field.

Jemal wrote:How is a vehicle hiding in the middle of a cloud of smoke not in cover? simply b/c the cover isn't represented by a piece of terrain on the board?

If people wanted to get really technical like that, I know some people

*snip*

yeah, this is the exact counter-argument I mentioned when I said "so many arguments either way". Both are equally viable, given that I think the rules are not 100% on this. Again, I still don't have a rulebook, so... lol

Jemal wrote:*L*, I can just see it now, Ork player, being exceptionally orky, takes this as a sign and brings an apropriately sized plastic bowl to represtent his force field.

how unimaginative, I already use an actual melt your face off force field to represent mine! And my Chaos Tank Cosies are almost complete! I'll show you "touching" cover, I just got my brass knuckles with "C-O-V-E-R" written across it so there'd be no mistake when you got "touched"!

hilarious argument but I don't even play nids and I'm leaning towards impaler cannons ignore all cover saves not granted by area terrain, including vehicles obscured by smoke etc, it makes perfect sense, the impaler cannon is alive and it knows where your tank is even through a cloud of smoke because it has no eyes, it uses psychic radar, BOOM I JUST BLEW YOUR MIND! So unimaginative jeeze, I mean bats eat insects in the dark... IN THE DARK, AND THEY'RE BLIND!!! AMAZING!!! Really is it so hard to imagine that some futuristic aliens are EQUALLY as evolved as bats? why is this even an issue? QQ nids got a mediocre anti tank weapon *slow clap*

here is the Impaler cannon exact wording:

"The impaler cannon can shoot any target in range, regardless of whether there is line of site to it or not. The target can only count the benefits of cover they are in or touching if it lies between them and the hive guard. Vehicles are always hit on the Armour value facing the hive guard". p. 47, Tyranid codex.

The "in or touching" would only be of use to troops, as vehicles do not get cover for being "in" or "touching" cover. Vehicles however...

"Vehicles are not obscured simply by for being inside area terrain. The 50% rule given above takes precedence".
p. 62, RB.

Next...

"If a special rule or piece of war-gear confers a vehicle the ability of being obscured even if in the open, this is a 4+ cover save, unless specified otherwise in the codex"
p. 62, RB.

Pretty clear to me. The wargear allows a cover save, "even if in the open", which is what the impaler cannon would do to a vehicle (leave it in the open). It does not specify in the Tyranid Codex that the impaler cannon ignores the special ability. SO, RAW you do get smoke and the tau thingy 4+ against the impaler cannon. DONE!

Paz wrote:
"If a special rule or piece of war-gear confers a vehicle the ability of being obscured even if in the open, this is a 4+ cover save, unless specified otherwise in the codex"
p. 62, RB.

Nail in the coffin. This sentence alone pretty much settles it. Thanks Pascal.

Smackman - Actually, most bats have better eyesight than me(Though considering the thickness of my glasses, that's not saying much). They only SEEM blind b/c they're nocturnal and most people interact with them with light around (B/c Humans tend to bring light with them wherever they go), and the bright light can disorient them.

Paz - Thank you good sir, that makes perfect sense to me. AND it's less obtuse than my former argument.

I think the intent for that rule was that the impaler cannon guides itself around interveening models or objects (it would fly over a rock a model would normally hide behind). All other saves would apply...at least ones that would make sense that the tyranid attached to the impaler round couldnt guide the projectile around.

already proven through RAW sir, it just took some looking, see first page.