Line of sight variant

[RobW]

Anyone remember Dragons of Underearth? Kind of TFT v2.0 from Metagaming. It has an interesting rule on line of sight:

A figure can throw/shoot "over" (ie through) a friendly figure in an adjacent hex, without penalty or danger to the friend.

This rule encourages formation tactics. Does this kind of protected firing of a bow from behind a friend (!) strike you as realistic or unrealistic?

[FireHorse]

It's perfectly plausible, but I would think it's only possible when using coordinated formation tactics, as you mention. (Like having the front line of a bunch of musketeers kneel, so the line behind them can fire over them.) If the person in front is doing anything else — like, say, being attacked by somebody right in front of them — then the coordination is gone, and they're likely to get hit in the back by friendly fire.

[KevinJ]

You could certainly use this rule in your game, just use it for heroes and enemies equally.

[hcobb]

If you shoot along the hex line between two friends which of the two do you need to roll to miss?

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by hcobb

If you shoot along the hex line between two friends which of the two do you need to roll to miss?

Whichever one you like the least.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by hcobb

If you shoot along the hex line between two friends which of the two do you need to roll to miss?

Neither one:

Originally Posted by ITL p 114

A line passing along the edge of a hex does not go through that hex.

[RobW]

Originally Posted by FireHorse

It's perfectly plausible, but I would think it's only possible when using coordinated formation tactics, as you mention. (Like having the front line of a bunch of musketeers kneel, so the line behind them can fire over them.) If the person in front is doing anything else — like, say, being attacked by somebody right in front of them — then the coordination is gone, and they're likely to get hit in the back by friendly fire.

That's a fair point and exactly what I was asking about. Just checking and RAW allow exactly the formation you suggest: kneeling in front, standing archers behind:

Originally Posted by ITL p 114

If a line drawn from the center of the attacker’s hex to the center of the target hex passes through any hex containing a standing figure, that figure is “in the way.”

The formation the variant rule encourages is armored tanks up front, engaged with the enemy, and the archers directly behind taking shots (range = 2 hexes!). I can imagine this for thrown weapons, but for bows I'm not so sure.

[Skarg]

Missile weapons in TFT are already very powerful and usable. One of the few things balancing against that power is line of sight. If you could ignore your front line, it could get pretty severe and everyone who was smart would want to line up archers right behind their front line... and/or just have double or triple ranks of missile weapon users with maybe a few non-missile fighters in case anyone survives the missile fire.