Looking back at them now, the Hull Down Vehicles rules on
TO:AR p. 19 are pretty urgently in need of some tweaking. Hull-down from half-level hexes on turretless vehicles always causes damage to go to the front... even though it doesn't look like there's anything stopping a vehicle from receiving hull-down benefits from half-level hexes from receiving those benefits to the rear and sides. I'd replace the entire fourth and fifth paragraphs of the section with the following:
First, if a vehicle (including a landing VTOL/WiGE) is adjacent to a hex that is a half-level higher than the hex the unit occupies, and LOS for an incoming attack is traced through that hex, the vehicle is considered hull-down. The attack gains a +2 modifier, and any damage that strikes the hit location corresponding to the protected side is ignored (identically to rolling a leg hit against a 'Mech in partial cover, see TW p. 102). Attacks from other directions are resolved normally.
This prevents tanks from gaining arbitrary hull-down benefits on half-level hexes even when the hex itself should provide no cover (for instance, a half-level hex surrounded by other hexes of equal elevation). In addition, it removes the punishing attribute of having all damage, regardless of potential hit location, focused on the turret (or front, if there is no turret); I find the current rules produce an effect similar to the old partial cover rules that made headshots way more likely.
In keeping with that last point, here's my proposed replacement for the last sentence of the sixth paragraph:
When attacking from the Front or Side, any damage to the Front or Side hit locations are ignored (see above).
I'd recommend appending this as its own paragraph to the end of the section for the sake of thoroughness:
Vehicles cannot, under any circumstances, benefit from hull down against adjacent enemies.
And, a little bit of clean-up to account for the new changes. First, replace the third paragraph with the following:
A vehicle can go hull-down in two situations (note that in all situations the standard Hit Location Tables are used).
And lastly, replace the first word of the sixth paragraph with:
Second
Hopefully, this will do a lot to make Hull Down Vehicles a bit more consistent, useful, and less needlessly risky. Going hull down in a prepared position will be pretty powerful, but remember that unless you already have built positions pre-placed on the map, it's going to take
at least three turns to set them up, not counting the actual time to transport the infantry to the correct hex. That's plenty of time in most cases for a cheeky bug 'Mech to slip in and cook the vulnerable trench engineers before they can finish.
Anyways, please discuss.
