Line of Sight and Assigning Wounds

[Demonus]

Quick question, there are several units that allow the model to shoot at something without requiring a line of sight to see it:

Hell Drake firing its template behind the flier.
Doom Scythe may fire its "beam" at a point that is out of firing arc
Tau Smart Missiles may fire at something they do not need LoS to

My question is, even if you do not need LoS to see what you are shooting at, dont you need line of sight to assign wounds?

Example, I had 7 Necron warriors teleport in from a Monolith, completely out of sight of the 2 broadside teams. They shot me 24 times killing all 7....


Is this just another example of how dumb Tau are or was I hornswaggled?

[Nabterayl]

I think that was legal. Analysis below.

Smart Missiles have the Homing special rule, which reads "Smart missile systems can be fired at targets out of the unit's line of sight." "Fire" is one of the terms that GW never really defines - sometimes it seems to refer to the shooting sequence as a whole, and other times it seems to refer to a specific part of the shooting sequence. For instance, page 12 says both "When checking range, simply measure from each firer" (using "fire" to refer to the entire shooting sequence) and "Roll a D6 [a to-hit roll] for each shot fired" (using "fire" to refer to one specific part of the shooting sequence). The Tau codex doesn't specify which meaning of "fire" the Homing special rule is using.

In cases of ambiguity like this, I maintain that it is both valid and proper to deploy the usual canons of construction that we lawyers use to determine which of several possible readings best effectuates the intent of a writer when the words themselves are ambiguous. The relevant canon in this case, I think, is this:


When a text is ambiguous on its face and can be read in multiple ways, do not choose any reading that would render the text meaningless (sometimes phrased as "meaningless surplusage") at the time it was written.

Sometimes we call this the "surplusage" canon, though unlike many canons of construction it doesn't have a fancy official name. I think we have a clear-cut case of ambiguity here (because the question turns on the meaning of "fire," which is ambiguous), and there are two possible readings:

"Fire" refers to the shooting sequence as a whole, so Homing means that the weapon ignores line of sight restrictions for the entire shooting attack.
"Fire" refers to the act of getting to make to-hit rolls, so Homing means that a weapon can hit targets out of line of sight but cannot allocate wounds to targets out of line of sight.

In this case, the surplusage canon tells us that the most reasonable way to effectuate the author's intent is to choose option #1. Why? Because in option #2, the ability to ignore line of sight for to-hit purposes only doesn't actually do anything - if you can ignore line of sight for purposes of hitting, but not purposes of Wounding, then your ability to kill things is no greater than a weapon that is line-of-sight restricted for hitting and wounding. Reading #2 would render the Homing rule meaningless, at the time it was written.

It's important to note that the surplusage canon is time-specific - "at the time it was written" is an important part of it. If both option #1 and option #2 did something under the rules when the Tau codex was written, and a subsequent change to the main rules rendered #2 meaningless, the surplusage canon would not tell us anything at all. The intuition behind the canon is not that we should prefer readings that give meaning to words, but rather that authors generally do not write things that they intend to be meaningless. If subsequent changes to the world render their words meaningless, well, that's a different story.

But in this case, #2 would be meaningless under the 6th edition regime that obtained when the codex was written. So even though there is clear-cut ambiguity in the text itself, we have a clear reason to prefer #1 - Homing means that a weapon ignores line of sight for the entire shooting sequence, from target selection all the way through casualty removal.

[Sly]

The rules say that a firing attack requires LOS to assign wounds (not to generate wounds). So a Heldrake could fire at a unit that has ONE model visible, and 4 models hidden behind a wall, and hit all 5 models. It then generates wounds upon all 5 models. But all generated wounds must be assigned to the visible model.

However, all rules are subject to being overridden by specific rules. Torrent weapons have no rule claiming that they can fire at or wound or kill models or units that cannot be seen, thus a Heldrake fires using the above rules: it must see a unit to fire at it, it can generate wounds without requiring LOS (a rather stupid rule mistake), but it can only assign wounds to models within LOS.

Smart Missile Systems specifically can fire at units that cannot be seen. Without clear description of what "fire at" entails, the most simple reading is that they ignore LOS restrictions when firing. So they should be able to fire at units that they cannot see, and allocate wounds to models that are out of LOS.

[daboarder]

Must remember though...heldrakes have 360 LOS as pernthenFAQ