LOS of Hills over Units/Trees

This was originally posted in the Maps section and may have been missed.

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Can a unit on a hill see over over terrain like forest, fortified camps etc. and fire at units at "ground level" behind that terrain?

Also can the hill unit see over "ground level" units and fire at other in-range "ground level" units?
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In summary, our group is not quite sure what "wins". The trees/units ability to block LOS, or the Hills ability to see over them.

I THINK I'm leaning towards the Hills winning. Can someone also point to the rule that clarifies this.

Pete

MasterChief wrote:

...
Can a unit on a hill see over over terrain like forest, fortified camps etc. and fire at units at "ground level" behind that terrain?

Also can the hill unit see over "ground level" units and fire at other in-range "ground level" units?
...

In summary, our group is not quite sure what "wins". The trees/units ability to block LOS, or the Hills ability to see over them.

I THINK I'm leaning towards the Hills winning. Can someone also point to the rule that clarifies this.

Hi,

Well since neither the Hills rules nor the LOS rules mention such a thing as "height advantage" the only actual rule that applies is that LOS is blocked if an obstruction (blocking terrain or a unit) is between the firer and the target.

I know how easy it is to think in terms of other games rules and assume they are in C&C:A, as we've done it ourselves a few times until we read the rules as written and saw that our assumed rules didn't exist.


Also other C&C games like Memoir'44 are explicit about the line of sight rules and hills and this sort thing is usually consistent between versions of the C&C system.

Phill

Thanks

So guys - I think we can stop reading the Hills rules from ASL now

I can see the point about applying the rules as the rules are written but would also like to think that common sense could prevail as well. If a unit is on a hill then surely it can see over other units at ground level and "see" the hexes beyond them? Happy to concede that Forest, Camps and Hills block even Hill based units LOS but other units - No!

Can we get an offical answer from GMT (Richard Borg) on this?

:S

Might have to email him directly, but I think this is quite a reasonable house rule.

"A unit on a hill can see over other units."

Perhaps by agreement before a scenario "A unit on a wall can see over other units". Depends on the nature of the "wall".

I tend to think of it more as a reluctance/tactical consideration to not shoot over friendly units in close hexes.
And the shallow angle at the longer distance making it hard to see the unit 3 hexes away when the unit of several thousand troops is in the space 2 hexes away.

Any of this can be replaced with a special rule for a particular scenario but I think the general blocking of LOS works well as a general rule to show blocking of bad firing options.

Phill

Hmmm. I think because the scale of the game differs per scenario, that is not unreasonable. Be interesting to see if it ever really comes up as a problem much (only war machines would be a serious contender for regular LOS problems).

I also note that in Napoleon, artillery CAN see over units - but there are some limits (to do with whatever combined arms attack is).

I'd suck at debating - I'd just keep siding with whoever had the floor!

OK OK OK. I'll concede the point here. Freeloading Phil makes a very valid and logical arguement. I'll say no more on the topic!