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Maps, Battlefields, Zones... Whatever you want to call them, they are a huge part of many modern strategy games. I myself am quite an avid Advance Wars player... Advance Wars probably has more in common with 40k than most computer based wargames. For one AW is not an RTS, it's turn based (like 40k) involving tanks, infantry, artillery, transports etc... For two; AW has different terrain types, which like 40k terrain can slow some units down, but also offers varying degrees of cover. I've been playing AW competitively online for about 4 years now, at what I would call a high level. And in that time I've seen the meta game grow and develop. And I would like to compare that to the 40k metagame as I see it.

One of the big ways in which the meta game has developed is with players attitudes towards battlefields and terrain. Like pretty much all turn based strategy games (including games like chess) Advance Wars suffers from what we call FTA, which stands for First Turn Advantage. For new players FTA isn't a big deal, but at a high level going first can often be a game winning advantage. A good player simply wouldn't play on a map that would allow their opponent to kill half their units, and take up all the good positions before they've even had a turn. Another thing that has become popular is symmetry. While asymmetrical maps may look more natural, they have nearly always proven to give one side an advantage... more cover, better firing positions, easier access to the middle etc... Nearly all competitive games are now played on symmetrical maps so both sides have the same amount of cover and obstacles etc... But it doesn't stop there, maps have actually become the definitive way to balance the game. Good map designs prevent certain units from being overpowered, they promote and reward variety and strategy.

When I contrast this with 40k, I just feel like the 40k meta game is really under developed in this area. I see loads of discussions and number crunching when it comes to units, but hardly anyone talking about terrain. Most players refer to it as 'scenery' which I think is somewhat revealing of their attitude towards battlefields. It's just a pretty background, not a valuable resource that can make or break your game. Or a strategic puzzle built to challenge your skills. I have played some truly dull games, even in GW store, and I'm certain that 90% of the cause was down to poor terrain layout.

So my question would be. How would you approach this issue? What types of terrain layouts do you feel offer the most interesting games? What types of set pieces are most fun to play on? Should terrain be designed and placed to limit the effectiveness of certain units such as devs or tanks? How would you place terrain to insure that the layout is fair and doesn't exasperate the first turn advantage? And how much of this currently plays a role in the 40k meta game?

It's best if it's set up by an unbiased bystander so as to not give either an advantage, at least intentionally. But it's pretty stupid not to use terrain if you can see a benefit to it.

If I have a building or some decent form of terrain in my deployment zone most of the time that will be the main point of my army and castle up. The other faster units then go out to try and minimise the advantage the enemy can gain from their own terrain.

The most fun terrain set up would be to have it almost evenly spread out across the field. If the gaps are too big assault units are pretty screwed, where as if it's too dense ranged are screwed. Skimmers also seem to work way better in dense terrain being able to hop from building to building to avoid combat, but at a risk. Where as ground based vehicles would simply hate dense terrain with the risk to be imobilised and then ripped apart with ease.

With deep striking many seem to overlook terrain thinking that if they drop in at some empty spot they can easlily take out a unit or two and generally put the opponent in the type of situation you mentioned. But put the entire army in cover to start with and suddenly it's not such a great idea to drop in and try to get an easy first kill as it's likely that it will be the deep striking unit that will die (army being castled up due to starting position then able to respond with enough force to counter, also able to spread out from that position if there is an advantage in it at that time).

In my opinion terrain is just as important as what you take in your list. Yet as you don't get to really control terrain it's more about taking advantage of what you gain throughout the game and the ability to change plans when needed.

A gameboard without terrain to me removes most of the tactical facets of the game. It makes for a dull game.

Players should have to deal with lanes of fire, castles in a corner, movement impairing area terrain and at least one big feature that blocks LOS to a significant hight.

The gaming group Im with is a relaxed bunch. We set up terrain together and make for a diverse board with varying bits of terrain. We often make sure to have some of everything: LOS-blocking, Ruins/Buildings, Hills, Area and some minor obstacles/features. The 25% coverage is a good percentage to aim for IMO. With more terrain being possible but hampering Shooty lists too much and less terrain making for a dull game and hampering Assaulty lists too much.

Terrain plays a decisive roll in most battles I play. You can use it to overcome an opponent with a Rock to your Scissors list, thats how much inpact it has. Also, in a game of chance (which plays a significant part in 40k) the way you and your opponent use the field is indicative of his or her quality of generalship.

The reason terrain and placement is not discussed too much on Dakka may wel be because discussion tends to focus on competative/tournament-style gaming. Most tournaments don't allow players to modify or alter the board. You have to make do with what you are given. Last tournament I visited had a good deal of varied terrain which was a great fortune. However, discussing lists and statistics is usefull because it zooms in on a part of the game you can influence. Discussing set-up of terrain when you have no influence on it is pretty useless.

The initiative Redbeard has taken in discussing tactics has a lot of implicit information regarding terrain however. His Fleet of Being topic for instance suggests using lanes of fire and LOS-blocking terrain to your advantage.

Cilithan

I think part of the problem is that boards are usually not large enough to give enough space for a more "realistic" and tactical terrain layout to have a great deal of effect on a game.

For example, in most computer games if you lined up all your units you would not completely fill one edge of the board, while in 40K this can quite often be the case. You would need some truely massive tables to play a more realistic war game, or simply use a much smaller scal (like FoW, Epic, etc) where terrain will play a much bigger role (I would imagine), since you can actually have things like big lakes/bogs taking up 1/4 of the table and still have plenty of space left over to move units and have other area terrain.

Sure, terrain in 40K is important and can change how the game plays significantly, but it is either there or it is not - most boards will have a selection of buildings/ruins, probably a couple of hills and maybe some area terrain (craters etc), which does not vary much from place to place (also not helped by people using the same building kits ) - there are only so many ways these kinds of terrain features can be set up, again especially because the boards are far too small to allow such things.

Cilithan wrote:The reason terrain and placement is not discussed too much on Dakka may wel be because discussion tends to focus on competative/tournament-style gaming. Most tournaments don't allow players to modify or alter the board. You have to make do with what you are given. Last tournament I visited had a good deal of varied terrain which was a great fortune. However, discussing lists and statistics is usefull because it zooms in on a part of the game you can influence. Discussing set-up of terrain when you have no influence on it is pretty useless.

That's a good point, but I think if terrain were discussed more then players might find that they actually could have an influence on the terrain they get (even if it were only indirectly) by agreeing on good terrain laying practices. Tournament organizers would then be forced to take heed, when they have a community that is more conscious of battlefields being built properly. I see a lot of talk thrown around about certain lists being powerful (mech lists spring to mind)... If it were true that a particular type of list is in fact superior then wouldn't it make sense not to lay terrain in a manner which will further advantage those lists? Perhaps even lay terrain in a way that works against them slightly in order to even things out.

SmackCakes wrote:If it were true that a particular type of list is in fact superior then wouldn't it make sense not to lay terrain in a manner which will further advantage those lists? Perhaps even lay terrain in a way that works against them slightly in order to even things out.

A line of reasoning like that from a tournamentorganiser may well ensue heated discussion in itself. Recently there was a tournament in which the use of MSU was not hampered by eliminating KP's from missions (NOVA iirc). That led to the statement that the Tournamentorganiser advantaged some Codices in favour of others.
The upcomming Dutch GT to give an other example has three missions in which KP's are used. This also affects the metagame.

Point is, using terrainplacement to influence the metagame may not be something that is easily achieved. You'd have to inform players beforehand, because players may well feel cheated if they turn up with list X to find out that all terrain actually favours list Y. And even when you do that, you may well generate drama.

A simple tournieorganisers statement like: 'we strive to have all tables covered with 25% terrain with an equal usage of all different types of terrain' would be a great thing! Problem with that is that players may well complain when they feel a certain table did not comply to that statement.
Getting a tournament organiser to say beforehand: 'we are going to use terrain to slightly disadvantage mechanised lists' would lead to the same problem: Im going to show up with my Daemons list with great expectations Im going to play on tables that hamper my nemesis, thus feeling a bit more safe. If I then face a Mech list and loose, I may well have mixed thoughts about the promis the organiser made. (Im not one to whine much, but I can see arguments like the one I sketched arise).

On the other hand, if I knew a certain tournament had a reputation of lacking terrain on the tables, I'd think twice before bringing an assault based list for instance.

The discussion of placement of terrain is a good one however and I do approve of this thread because of it :-) Thanks.

Cilithan

Terrain isn't a major disadvantage to mech lists, they are still more mobile than foot based lists (who are rolling 2D6 to move anywhere) as they can move around at full speed still, just occasionally getting immobilised (which they can buy Dozer Blades etc for and 1-2 immobilised results over the course of a game usually isn't going to cost you the game with a decent list which has redundancy). It also means they get more cover saves for there vehicles etc.

I'm somewhat on the fence as to running completely symmetrical boards for competitive play. Its probably better than someone randomly putting terrain down without thought to tactical advantages, but it really impacts the the feel of a board (and the game). I would rather see a common layout for all the boards in a tournament which varies slightly from board to board. Not all boards are the same but they should all have some big piece/s of LOS blocking terrain near the middle of the table (and nowhere else, LOS blocking terrain near the board edges isn't much fun as stuff can hide too easily), some area terrain in each quarter (some of which should be big enough for a standard vehicle to get a cover save from) and a few other pieces of terrain to round things out.

However the main issue which tends to pop up regarding terrain is TO's simply not having enough to go around. For most people finding enough terrain isn't much of a problem because they are only playing one game at a time, but as soon as there are 10+ tables things often rapidly go down hill. Simply put you cannot play a decent game of 40k without some LOS blocking and some decent sized area terrain pieces, once you sort this out then terrain placement is just a minor issue really.

Cilithan wrote:players may well feel cheated if they turn up with list X to find out that all terrain actually favours list Y. And even when you do that, you may well generate drama.
...
Getting a tournament organiser to say beforehand: 'we are going to use terrain to slightly disadvantage mechanised lists' would lead to the same problem

Well perhaps another way for me to phrase it would be... "Mech lists are overpowered because many of the current attitudes towards terrain placement already favor them". All tournament organizers would really have to say is "We design our battlefields to be fair and give all lists an equal shot at success". Of course the reality of this might be that mech players (who are used to having an advantage) might find the properly balanced battlefield slightly more cluttered than they are used to.

Powerguy wrote:However the main issue which tends to pop up regarding terrain is TO's simply not having enough to go around.

That's a very interesting point, and could certainly be a factor that influences meta game. When I play at home, I tend to use a lot of dense multi level terrain, because I used to play necromunda, and that's the kind of terrain I have. In that setting mech lists wouldn't be hugely intimidating (although I will admit that having ramps to drive tanks up onto upper level walkways is awesome fun). But then I often hear about mech lists doing well in tournaments. It's probably no coincidence that this is also the setting where terrain will likely be thinly spread across many tables.

Generally, the most fair terrain-placement system is to have an impartial observer build a realistic-looking board for you out of the available pieces. Ideally, this would be a person who doesn't even play 40k, like a girlfriend/parent/buddy/younger sibling/etc., so they won't be influenced by in-game considerations, and just build a realistic and organic map that the two generals will have to deal with as best they can.

Of course, this isn't always an option, so I've come up with another method. One player places all the terrain in whatever orientation pleases them, adhering to the 25% coverage guideline. Then, the other player looks at the board and gets to choose whether to go first or second, just as if he had won the traditional rolloff. Seems fair to me, as both players get a certain degree of choice in how the game will unfold.

Cities of Death/Cityfight has rules for terrain placement. We played nothing but cityfights (some using the book but mostly normal battles with urban terrain) for about 2 or 3 months, and it seemed pretty balanced. I think you place the tallest building in the center of the table and work your way out, players alternating placing the buildings, starting with the taller buildings and working down to the shorter.

There is no such thing as a terrain setup that will give every army an equal amount of chance to win, even if we make the terrain symmetrical. For example, Starcraft: almost all tournament maps I know are symmetrical, but maps still have different win rates--certain maps favor Zergs more than they do Terran. Terrain "fairness" can be achieved if all players have identical troops (for example, a symmetrical map in Starcraft will be fair if all Starcraft players are Protoss), but of course this is not the case in 40k or Fantasy or LotR. And saying that the terrain will be fair to all lists means you also have give players with subpar lists an equal amount of success. This is impossible.