Ruins

[Mike]

I am trying to understand how “ruins” differ as terrain vs buildings and rubble.  We treat ruins as something between buildings and rubble.  We play, you can shoot into it “ruins” but not through “ruins” just like buildings.  But like rubble, you can “advance” into ruins and move through them like with rubble rather than enter them by “running”.   But how about line of sight.  With buildings we measure line of sight to the side of the building.  With rubble we measure line of sight to the models.  How about with “ruins”, should it be the building or the models?

Also, when entering a building, you are in them or not in them.  And when you exit, you measure from where you exit.  But what about “ruins” do you move through the “ruins” or do you measure to the point of entry to enter and measure from the exit when you exit?  This can be really tricky with larger buildings and ruins.

[Rex Withers]

Off the top of my head a ruin is exactly like a forest (dense terrain) except that it offers hard cover, I think that answers all your questions(?) if you think of it like that. I note that the description of dense terrain includes “tumbled ruins” (see below). Have a good read though “RUINS VS INTACT BUILDINGS” on page 153, this one I though was pretty well described.

Sometimes, a scattering of tree models, tumbled ruins, rocks
and such like is assumed to stand for a fairly dense tangle
of woodland, rubble, or rocky outcrop which is impractical
to represent literally on the battlefield.

[Mike]

So, if a structure is labeled a ruin, it is not a “building” it is presumed to have a single story for movement and elevation purposes and operates like dense terrain (thus model positioning is important, and range is measured to the models) and the units cannot fire through the terrain only into it.  If it is presumed to be a damaged building it operates as a building.  In both cases, you cannot fire through the terrain.  If the “rubble” takes the shape of long narrow piece of terrain, it can be defined as an obstacle and function like a wall, but if becomes too thick, it can be determined to be rough ground or impenetrable terrain.  It just looks a bit weird when you have a ruin that is 18″ by 12″, and a unit barely enters the far side of the building where the opposite side’s wall is largely intact for a unit five inches away from the building be able to shoot all the way through it to the units on the far side of it.  But I guess that is because of how the model “appears”.

[Author]

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