Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[joncleaves]

Mark

First off, Pat's question was about arc, not visibility and LOS. Second, these
typewritten 'diagrams' aren't terribly useful, but here goes...

<<Here's what I thought I understood before Cold
Wars: any element, to shoot, must be able to draw
a 1 element wide corridor between itself and it's
target.>>

"1 element wide corridor" is inexact. The actual rule (12.42) is:

"The minimum gap between terrain features or troops that can be seen or shot
through is one element width.
Additionally, a line drawn from each front corner of an element trying to see or
shoot a body must reach some point on the target without passing through an
obstacle to line of sight."

So, you have to draw a line from BOTH corners of the shooting element to the
target AND any gap those lines go through must be one element wide.

<<So consider this situation (lower case
figures are one side, upper case figures are the
opposing side; assume 4 figure elements):

AAAA

aaaa bbbb

ccccddddeeee

Units "a" and "b" have no missile weapons. Unit
"cde" has a missile weapon that is within range
of Unit "A". Element "d" can shoot, because it
can trace a one element wide path to Unit "A".
This is required for "A" to be visible to "d".
Elements "c" and "e", however, cannot trace a
sufficiently wide path, and so cannot shoot.>>

This diagram actually sucks for such a discussion, but I will try and work with
it. It *appears* that a line drawn form each corner of element "d" can reach
element "A". It *appears* that the lines from the 'outside' corners of "e" and
"c" would pass through (and therefore be blocked by) "b" and "a" respectively.
If the gap between "a" and "b" is less than an element it would not matter
whether those lines reached "A" as the gap must be 1 element wide in addition to
any other LOS issues.

<<At Cold Wars, I was told instead that all of
"cde" can shoot, because the whole unit can see
through the gap between "a" and "b".>>

If what "appears" to be true about the diagram actually is correct, the above
statement is false. LOS is still element by element, just like 12.42 says. But
there is of course no guarantee that I am reading the diagram right and even
less of one that this diagram reflects exactly any situation that Scott or I
judged at Cold Wars.

Jon