A Question of Cannons - Get the Rules Right!

This is true, especially when there might be a low wall or other terrain feature sitting in the path. Hills have always been a tricky point of contention. Technically, you can see the top of a hill. Does that mean you can target the top and let the bounce hit something 10 inches on the other side, even if you don't have true line of sight or can't see the model? Touchy.

Based on that wording you could make excellent use of screening units to prevent site of the ground in front of your heavy hitters. Hmmmm. Would people cry douchebaggery at you over this, though?

Yeah but if the screening unit blocks line of sight to the point you can just pick another point on the battlefield in line with the target....say "3 inches in front of this screening unit" but also in line with the target you want to hit. The saving grace here is that you can still target a point on the ground. Simply measure from "the back of the target's base" but closer to the cannon by that much. Am I seeing this right in my mind? I don't think you can actually change anything except how the shot is actually declared.

That's the way I see it.  The only thing that I've ever seen to be truly effective at stopping this are walls.  Once it hits the wall, it is destroyed and stops there.  Buys the target a round at least.

Yeah, we always check if there anything close by and if there is a question at all, then we just say the shot can't be made. Heck, even though you can technically target a spot between a model's legs, we don't do that just because it feels like cheating. My gaming group is all about trying to be fair and having a good time.

I always measure 8" from the front of the unit I want to hit. Maybe I'm wrong in doing that, but it just feels like I hit more often shooting in that manner.

I don't really have a problem with how powerful cannons are though. D3 wounds might make a little more sense, game-wise, but my cannons blow up half of the time on me with my poor dice rolling anyway, that my opponents don't really care. Lol!  They usually always have things like Gorgers, Gutter Runners, Shades, Tomb Scorpions, etc. that can deal with them easily anyway.

I had an opponent at a tourney, who was otherwise quite pleasant, who brought a laser line level/pointer.
He used this for his Ogre Ironblasters. He really pushed and stretched the rules.

He claimed LOS from any point of his base, even the sides.
Essentially, if he could draw a line from any point on the front or 2 full sides, he took that shot.
He used the laser level for one LOS, and simply claimed that since these are Ogre Giants, they could see over anything.
Their head is 7 inches in the air, despite the muzzle of the cannon being 3 inches up... which seemed weird.

And he was very gamey with the "I am placing exactly 4 inches from point X".
To the point of using maths and geometry to prove he could (by the narrowest of margins) get 5 models from a unit instead of 4.

Again, friendly enough opponent...
Nothing he did was illegal enough for me to call a judge (I'll never call a judge).
I just found the ruthless efficiency with which he TOOK ADVANTAGE of cannon rules to be off-putting.

You're already S10 D6 wounds???!!??
Why do you need to dig for even more?