Sight and fog of war
What the squad can see, how line of sight works over hills and boulders, how pods wake, and the ways to reveal what hides in the fog.
Sight
Every unit sees a set number of tiles. A recruit's Sight is rolled at 8 and can rise with a skill or a trait, and every level of height the viewer stands on adds a tile of sight. Enemy sight is on the enemy pages.
Line of sight
Line of sight is drawn between tile centres, with height. The eye sits 0.6 of a level above the ground the unit stands on, and so does the point it looks at.
- A tile on the line blocks it when the ground there rises above the line.
- A full-cover blocker (a boulder, a tree, a raised stone or a wall) adds 1 level on top of its tile.
- Leaning out: a full-cover blocker right beside either end of the line, at that end's height, doesn't count. A unit leans past its own cover to shoot, and the target's cover is handled as cover. Terrain height is never leaned past.
Fog of war
The squad sees what any standing exile sees. A downed exile sees nothing. Enemies outside that view are hidden, and so are their moves. A shot from a hidden enemy is reported as coming from an unseen enemy, with no name and no odds.
The enemy sees the squad the same way. When it loses sight of the exiles it remembers where it saw them last, and goes looking there.
Pods
Enemies start the mission in pods, and a pod starts unaware. It wakes when one of its members sees a standing exile, or when one of them is attacked. A pod that wakes scrambles straight to the best cover it can reach, without drawing overwatch fire, and has no actions left that phase.
On a hold mission the enemy knows where the squad deployed and comes for it from the first round.
When the enemy waits
If no enemy has attacked for 3 rounds, the enemy stops waiting. With the squad in sight it presses in round the cover. With the trail cold it searches outward from where the exiles were last seen, each searcher heading for ground nobody has looked over yet.
Reveals
Some things show hidden enemies to the squad:
- A Seer's Unveil shows every enemy within 16 tiles, through rock, until the Seer's next turn. The Seer's later forms reach further or hold longer. See the Seer.
- Raising a stone on a tile where a hidden enemy stands fails, and shows that enemy.
- Walking into a hidden enemy shows it.
Nothing else reveals. Area powers only touch enemies the squad already knows about, so they can't be used to probe the fog.
Dazzled
An Iridant's Glare leaves the exile it hits dazzled: -20 Aim on their attacks and 4 less Sight, never below 3, until the end of their next whole squad turn. Another hit refreshes it. It doesn't stack, and a Mend doesn't lift it.