The ultimate test of Line of Sight (LOS) rules is your visual imagination. If you were standing somewhere on the real terrain represented by the map, what do you think you would see? Keep that point in mind as you try out two rules that have worked for me.

1. Some games aimed at topographical precision by using a graph-paper-like LOS gauge-but those rules made elevations too artificial, like stacks of plateaus instead of hills. The TCS system uses the more sensible "halfway rule" (8Ab) and invites us players to use "a more detailed or precise LOS rule" if we want to (8.4f.) Here's my quick and easy to use variation on the halfway rule. It applies only when units are at different elevations, so it replaces the second-to-last sentence of 8.4b. The rule works with the CWB maps too, and for any games with topographic-style maps.

If the potential obstacle is at the same elevation as the high unit and the range from the high unit to the obstacle is greater than 1/2 the range from the high unit to the low unit, the LOS is blocked.

If the potential obstacle is lower than the high unit, the LOS is blocked only if the range from the high unit to the obstacle is greater than 1/2 the range from the high unit to the low unitplus the difference (in elevation levels, not meters) between the obstacle's height and the high unit's height. (Elevation levels are defined by contour lines or color coding, with the difference between one elevation and the next being one level.)

Example: A tank at 500 meters elevation is attempting to fire on an infantry platoon at 440 meters elevation and 8 hexes range. A hex on the LOS at 500 meters and 4 hexes away from the tank does not block the LOS but at 5 (or more) hexes away it would, since 1/2 x 8 = 4. A hex at 480 meters (one level lower than the tank) and 5 hexes away would not block the LOS, but a hex at 480 meters and 6 (or more) hexes away would block, because (1/2 x 8) + 1 = 5.

The effect of this rule, compared with the standard TCS rule, is to make units in high places slightly more able to observe--and be observed. This rule makes the blind spots created by rolling terrain shrink or grow in direct proportion to the height of an observer relative to rises in the landscape.

2. The Slope and Extreme Slope hexsides in the CWB games give units a quite realistic defilade advantage (as a column shift on the Combat Table) when defending against fire from lower units. In effect, units at the baseof such a slope can see little beyond the slope's crest, probably only the heads and shoulders of enemy troops near the slope. Units further back from the slope will be totally concealed. So, try this rule...

A unit in a hex with a Slope or Extreme Slope hexside may trace a LOS across that hexside to a higher elevation only into adjacent hexes. Conversely, only units in hexes adjacent to the up slope side of a Slope or Extreme Slope hexside may trace a LOS across those hexsides to lower hexes bordering those hexsides.

This rule may feel overly restrictive, so you might want to disregard it in cases where the high unit is in a hex with an elevation even higher than that of the hex immediately on the high side of the slope. In this case, you would allow a unit in hex A5.26 of the Barren Victory map to fire into, and be fired upon from, hex A3.25, but not A5.24.