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I was recently planning an ork list and thinking about fielding my heavy guns behind some terrain so they don’t get shot up and it made me wonder, do most people believe the game starts at terrain placement or on Turn 1? I'm interested in everyone's opinion on this as well as some tactical situations that have been used.

Let the discussion commence!

Well terrain is important obviously but as you have to roll to see who picks their table edge first I wouldn't say terrain placement is a direct part of the game. If you try to set up terrain in a way that's favorable to you you might end up on the wrong side come the roll off, so it isn't really a choice you get to make.
Sometimes people who play assaulty armies will want to put down way too much terrain to block los on their advance while shooty armies just want cover along the board edges and a big open killing field in the middle but that's more a tfg issue than a player choice.
Probably deployment is where you first make important decisions. Everything before that is balanced or random.

I would agree that turn one is slightly more important terrain placement. Once the table is set and everything is on the board that is when the strategy wheels start turning for me personally.

Thanks for the inputs so far - I appreciate your insights.

I guess to clarify - when making an army list like my mentioned orks, I often imagine how I will deploy a particular unit. It isn’t difficult to imagine that if I place some cover near each of the deployment zones that I can hide a unit of Lobbaz behind it - regardless of the table side I set up on.

Or perhaps, if I fit a reinforced ram on one of my trucks, I can scatter some light foliage around on each side of the table so I can charge through (rolls permitting ) and unload my orky cargo. This might protect them if my opponent steals initiative for example.

What about the mentioned assault armies? – Do people that know they are going to be moving 6” each turn even *try* to place terrain roughly that distance apart so they have a place set for their squad to hide behind?

Am I really the only one that tries to place terrain down strategically?

The correct answer is neither, the game begins at Deployment and imo its probably the most important phase of the game. Bad deployments will lose you games and good deployments will put your opponent on the back foot reacting to you (rather than the other way around) straight away.

Terrain should always be set up so that it doesn't offer advantages to any particular army or unit type. Ideally this means it should be set up by a neutral third party who knows how 40k is played so they can avoid things like excessive LOS blocking terrain and clustering of terrain which makes it easy for units to jump from cover to cover (they should at least have to run to make it). In any kind of casual game I would insist of redoing the terrain (or at least get someone who isn't involved in the game to redo it) if I think its unbalanced, certainly I'm not going to let someone set up terrain to deliberately work with the army they want to use against me (that's half the reason Planetstrike didn't take off). Strictly speaking its not cheating, but its certainly a TFG move (assuming it was done on purpose of course). In any kind of competitive setting (tournaments and games supposed to be used as prep for tournaments) this is never an issue as terrain is set up by a third party/the TO beforehand and doesn't get moved around by the players.

In general though you are basically just talking about deployment tactics. Assuming you are playing with an appropriate amount of terrain there should always be some form of terrain for you to deploy at least a few of your units in cover no matter what deployment type you end up with. As such its reasonable to assume that on any table you play on you can hide your Lootas or artillery in/behind cover, but you shouldn't expect to get cover for 3 Battlewagons for example (hence why you bring a KFF). Similarly its quite often worth deploying vehicles conservatively behind cover if they are fragile/important even if you are going first since being seized on can really ruin your day.

Terrain setting should be impartial ideally. So if a 3rd party can do it all the better.

If you and your opponent have to do it then you must make sure you work together to produce something balanced. For instance, make sure the board halves contain roughly the same sort of terrain. E.g. if one side has a watchtower (perfect for Devs or Oblits) then the other must have one too. If one side has a rock for artillery to hide behind, then the other must have one too.I'm not saying they should be visually identical, but functionally identical.

Ensure a good mix of LoS and Area terrain across your board. As well as a variety of heights and impassible to control movement. That way you'll make a table balanced for both forces.

Awesome - thanks heaps guys!

So basically, fun and balance is more important that the strategic nature of the game. Cool!

I like to find out what the general opinion is around the place – so you all have really helped out. I will focus more attention to building a more solid all-rounder list rather than get distracted with the min/max stuff!

The game start at terrain placement.

You need to place some important things in a right place, for example some BLOS buildings in the middle of the map.

Since I am running a Semi-Draigo wing list, 1 building is enough for me to hind all my units except my Strom Raven( Draigo and 5 palains inside, reserve). If I can't go first, I can just hind my dreads behind the building, move them out and shoot my enemy at my turn.

I actually like the fantasy style of terrain. We usually do a seperate roll off and take turns placing terrain. Sometimes we just use w/e we have and more strict people (i.e. fantasy vets) tend to like us to roll random terrain numbers with some baseline stuff on there. It's more or less worked anyway though I really need the guys here to stop using ruins and get more LOS blocking hills. Time to go get some more aquarium products lol.

sudojoe wrote:I actually like the fantasy style of terrain. We usually do a seperate roll off and take turns placing terrain. Sometimes we just use w/e we have and more strict people (i.e. fantasy vets) tend to like us to roll random terrain numbers with some baseline stuff on there. It's more or less worked anyway though I really need the guys here to stop using ruins and get more LOS blocking hills. Time to go get some more aquarium products lol.

That's what we are doing here... I think it's a good plan.

It's sometimes nice/good to have a neutral 3rd party set up the terrain.

To answer your question; IMO the game actually starts when missions & deployment are rolled for. For me this is when I really start to get into the thought processes of how to secure a victory.

1. I agree to play a game and show up with my list, as does my opponent.

2. We jointly set up the terrain. Rarely, we'll have a third party available to set up terrain.

3. We show our lists to each other.

apple1988218 wrote:The game start at terrain placement.

You need to place some important things in a right place, for example 2 BLOS buildings in the middle of the map.

Ahhhh. So every battlefield has 2 BLOS buildings, in every battle fought throughout history and in the imagination?
Sounds like dull history and imagination

If you/an opponent is setting up terrain with your army/the enemies army, or some kind of plan in mind...that is when you need a third party. Battles are not always fought over places where one force has a nice little ruin on this side to deploy HW's in and the other side has a hill with some bushes that they can deploy their HW's in... oh and look, and objective placed right in front of it! I've never seen this before!
The game should not start at terrain placement, because if it does then the players are trying to use it to their advantage.

oni wrote:To answer your question; IMO the game actually starts when missions & deployment are rolled for. For me this is when I really start to get into the thought processes of how to secure a victory.

+1. A city block is simply a city block, when given context of where you and your opponent begin and the actual objective of the game it becomes a battlefield.

Jihallah wrote:
Ahhhh. So every battlefield has 2 BLOS buildings, in every battle fought throughout history and in the imagination?
Sounds like dull history and imagination

Well, it depends on the type of game and the frequency of game and the importance of the game obviously!

In a tourny I would either expect all the boards to be laid out in that sort of methodical and boring manner such that there is no bias to either side. Alternatively, the boards could be varied such that ON AVERAGE there is no bias to either side. E.g. it could be worked out so that over the course of a tourny each army plays on a city-fight table, a table with lots of LOS blocking, a table with lots of Area a table with little terrain at all and a balanced 'formulaic' table. So that on average no army has a bias.

In narrative campaigns and friendly games, by all means set up the terrain to favour one side or to give a greater sense of place and purpose. Hell, that's one of the best parts of playing friendly games. In Planetstrike one player sets up all the terrain and then deploys whilst the other player counteracts this by getting several free str 7 ap 4 large blasts to rain down on you! Even if one player isn't entrenched, you can build a board with a great sense of place by having a fort/castle in the middle of the map and players fighting over it.

Jihallah wrote:

apple1988218 wrote:The game start at terrain placement.

You need to place some important things in a right place, for example 2 BLOS buildings in the middle of the map.

Ahhhh. So every battlefield has 2 BLOS buildings, in every battle fought throughout history and in the imagination?
Sounds like dull history and imagination

Sorry for poor english
I mean, the BLOS buildings can strongly affect the game.
For example, a "Fortress of Redemption" in the middle of map will change the whole game, you'd better try to place it to where your list need them.

Terrain placement is a very important element of the game, but whether it is PART of the game depends on how you agree to arrange the table.

If the players alternate placing pieces, it tends to become a part of the game's competition. The player with a shooty army will tend to place tall hills, ruins or buildings toward the edges of the table, and LOS-blocking elements in the corners. The player with an assaulty or fragile army, OTOH, will tend to want lots of LOS-blockers in the middle, and to avoid having tall things near the edges to help his opponent see over the middle elements. There can be an enjoyable strategic sub-game in doing this, but IME it almost inevitably results in ugly table setups which don't look like a "real" or believable place, but instead look like exactly what they are- the product of someone trying to game the system. This method also tends to subvert GW's clear and strong recommendation in the rulebook that 25% or more of the table be covered in terrain. While one can technically follow the letter of this law while using alternating placement, in practice the recommendation is easily and quickly subverted if one of the players has a more shooty army, as he can place half the terrain on the edges and in the corners of the table, where it has virtually no impact on the game, and you wind up with a table which technically has 25% covered, but functionally only has 12% with usable cover.

In practice the best approach is to have a neutral third party set up the table so as to be both attractive and to have a balance of terrain distributed around the table, particularly including at least a couple of los-blocking buildings or hills around the middle of the table, to break things up and force/allow maneuver, rather than the game just being a static shooting war, or one side rushing across an open field while being shot. If a neutral third party is not available, you'll need to cooperate to arrange a balanced table, perhaps using a symmetrical setup such as that used by events like the NOVA Open or Battle for Salvation, which place one large LOS-blocker in the middle, then two more large LOS-blockers in the middle of two opposite quadrants, and two large pieces of area terrain in the other two. IMO it does get a bit dull to always have symmetrical setups, and I don't think it's the intention of the rules, but it's a pretty good baseline to keep things fair.