Fire Lane Placement (A9.22) and LOS

commissar1969

Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2011
Messages
543
Reaction score
209
Location
Martin, TN
Country
llUnited States
Fellow Fanatics,

I'm reading the rulebook line by line and finding, if course, rules that I did not know existed or one that I had hitherto misunderstood.

Case in point: A9.22 states the following in the last paragraph:

"However, neither NVR (E11) nor any SMOKE/ brush/grain/marsh/FFE/LV-(E3.1)/DLV-(F11.6)/Dust-(F11.794)/hut-(G5.21) Hindrance affects LOS for Fire Lane placement/attack purposes."

The word that is messing me up here is "placement." If I am reading this rule correctly, I can place a fire lane at a unit which - due to the number of Hindrances - is out of my LOS. So let's say your proverbial 4-6-7 is trying to cross the street. I'm covering the street with an MMG. He manages to put +6 smoke down on me and the adjacent hex so that I am unable to see the squad cross the street. But as soon as the squad tries to cross the street I fire on him, leaving a Fire Lane.

Somehow this sounds screwy to me. Can someone set me straight here?
 

Vinnie

See Dummies in the index
Joined
Feb 9, 2005
Messages
17,426
Reaction score
3,364
Location
Aberdeen , Scotland
Country
llUnited Kingdom
You need Los for the initial attack but not for the placement of a fire lane.

In grain you attack a unit 3 hexes away with an MMG. You can then place the fire lane out to 12 hexes although you cannot see that far. A unit moving 12 hexes away cannot be attacked initially to place the fire lane.
 

klasmalmstrom

Forum Guru
Joined
Feb 26, 2003
Messages
19,777
Reaction score
7,201
Location
Sweden
Country
llSweden
You still need a LOS to the initial Defensive First Fire target. I think that the "placement" reference is there to allow you to place the actual Fire Lane counter beyond your LOS.
 

von Marwitz

Forum Guru
Joined
Nov 25, 2010
Messages
14,357
Reaction score
10,206
Location
Kraut Corner
Country
llUkraine
If you have 12 grainfield hexes North of your German MMG position, you could (barring other hindrances) attack any unit up to 6 hexes away (having a total of +5 grain hindrances).
If you declare your MMG attack to place a firelane, any unit that tries to cross the grain up to 12 hexes away will be attacked by the Fire Lane residual FP even though the unit that placed the firelane is possibly unable to see it.
That way, the initial attack (for example say 5FP +5Hindrance-1FFNAM for the German MMG using IIFT) can be less dangerous as the residual attack on the next unit passing through any of the grain hexes up to range 12 (2FP FL resid -1FFNAM).

von Marwitz
 

commissar1969

Member
Joined
Oct 17, 2011
Messages
543
Reaction score
209
Location
Martin, TN
Country
llUnited States
Just wanted to say thanks to all you guys. I think the rule could have been written a bit more clearly, but I'm relieved to find my friends and I have been playing it correctly! :)
 
Top