I'm talking about terrain set up. With batreps of other people I usualy see sparse battlefields where both forces can usually see a good chunk of the enemy, so my question is why?
SaJeel wrote: I'm talking about terrain set up. With batreps of other people I usualy see sparse battlefields where both forces can usually see a good chunk of the enemy, so my question is why?
Because players are dumb. That type of setup works great in WFB where long ranged firepower is not as reliable. In 40k all an open table means is that the army with the most longest range guns will win before the other army gets close enough to them. The table should be effectively split down the middle with serious cover, but also some clear fire lanes, but nothing that allows an army with longer range firepower to completely dominate without moving a single model. I always laugh at someone who complains that there army is always getting shot to pieces in games and then whenever you watch them set up a game they set the table up completely open like this and then they wonder why their melee army is never getting anywhere in their games.
Of course now the people with shooting armies will complain about screamerstar armies as the only existing close in army in existence in the game and the reason why the table needs to be open.
Of course what is funnier still on this subject are those with long range shooty armies who want the table wide open, but then whine when *they* get stomped by an army that out shoots them at long range in a game.
"Because nice terrain costs a lot of money and most people are too lazy to make it themselves. "
my thoughts exactly, makiing terrain isent exactly easy, plus if you wanna do a bat rep and you have like soda cans and bowls as terrain the internet looses its f***ing mind and crys and bitchs despite the fact that you put all that hard work into it.
Because a lot of people either lack proper reading comprehension skills or have a desire to disregard the rules.
How "Use at least 25% terrain, more is better" ever became"Use an absolute maximum of 25% terrain, preferably less....and make sure that a large part of the terrain is either placed or constructed in such a way that is has no meaningful impact on the game - because following the letter of the rule is always better than following the spirit" is beyond me.
My understanding is that NOVA style terrain has an LOS blocker center board on every board to break up this problem of shooting range armies. it actually makes for pretty interesting games also. Havign to move a little bit, split fire, hidfing for a round in preparation for assault which forces enemies to evaluate and decide if they want to back away... Lots more player level decisions just from the expedient of that one piece of terrain that is common on all there missions.
i like that they do this. I play Tau and Eldar and a host of other things and i know a lot of those players would just gunline you to doeath in a no-fun matchup if it was allowed. So it's good to see that LOS blocker, even if its not enormous, kind of helping to break up the battlefield whether its hammer and anvil, dawn of war or Vanguard deployment.
It DOES screw with some Alter of War missions So that's one downside.
LoS blocking terrain is not always favorable for an assault list because it also slows and blocks movement. Shooting is better even with LoS blocking terrain .
Martel732 wrote: LoS blocking terrain is not always favorable for an assault list because it also slows and blocks movement. Shooting is better even with LoS blocking terrain .
Perhaps if you play a massive horde type army, that extra terrain can be more of a hinderance to moving and wielding your army, but smaller specialist assault armies not full of 20 model strong units will do just fine. Yes shooting is better even with LoS blocking terrain. Such is the nature of the beast, but without the LoS blocking terrain shooting can easily become completely dominant and despite the baseline rules, many armies are still geared towards the tried and true assault. Even with a shooty army I find games boring if I can just sit back and shoot my opponent off the table in a couple turns. BOR-ING!!!
I sort of wish Tau/Eldar players in my group found winning boring. I have found that LoS blocking terrain actually seems to help me the most against IG and Necrons. It doesn't really seem to help my chances against Tau/Eldar. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it doesn't seem to help.
Martel732 wrote: I sort of wish Tau/Eldar players in my group found winning boring. I have found that LoS blocking terrain actually seems to help me the most against IG and Necrons. It doesn't really seem to help my chances against Tau/Eldar. Maybe I'm misremembering, but it doesn't seem to help.
Havent faced tau yet but as a casual eldar player terrain is more my friend than anyone elses. Because I play a mobile aspect warrior foot army I need cover to live and move shoot run in and out of. My friend plays eldar too and we just love cover. My guard love cover too but its just not as effective as cover for eldar. I feel your pain ish
Terrain is ok , but real terrain boards are not fun to play for my IG army. Other armies that are gunline and can deal with those , are either more shoty or very movable or shoty and resilient. An IG army that doesn't get two realy good turns of shoting turn 1&2 , which already can be limited by stuff in reservs BS 3 being fickle to roll on , wining gets impossible .
SaJeel wrote: I'm talking about terrain set up. With batreps of other people I usualy see sparse battlefields where both forces can usually see a good chunk of the enemy, so my question is why?
Because players are dumb. That type of setup works great in WFB where long ranged firepower is not as reliable. In 40k all an open table means is that the army with the most longest range guns will win before the other army gets close enough to them. The table should be effectively split down the middle with serious cover, but also some clear fire lanes, but nothing that allows an army with longer range firepower to completely dominate without moving a single model. I always laugh at someone who complains that there army is always getting shot to pieces in games and then whenever you watch them set up a game they set the table up completely open like this and then they wonder why their melee army is never getting anywhere in their games.
Of course now the people with shooting armies will complain about screamerstar armies as the only existing close in army in existence in the game and the reason why the table needs to be open.
Of course what is funnier still on this subject are those with long range shooty armies who want the table wide open, but then whine when *they* get stomped by an army that out shoots them at long range in a game.
Skriker
This man speaks the truth. Thank god the TOs around here have caught on to the stupidity of open battlefields
Also keep in mind if it is a tournament then the stock of prepared terrain will be overstretched.
It takes money (and time which is money) to have terrain. It also takes significant storage space. All of these are things that most players will want to devote to model models rather than terrain. The best thing GW ever did for table terrain was adding fortification slots as player now buy terrain much more often than they ever did before.
I've used books peices of paper hell my warmachine group used scraps of felt cut into interesting shapes! from what I can see 40k for it to be fair, fun, competitive and tactically rich needs a lot of terrain. The current meta for tables is: One ruin here one ruin there, one line of sight blocker in the middle, and this creates a game where all that you are realistically doing is asking is my list better than yours? There is very little tactics or thought into actually playing the game, by removing terrain the game just bubbles into who has the best[cheasiest] list.
ansacs wrote: Also keep in mind if it is a tournament then the stock of prepared terrain will be overstretched.
It takes money (and time which is money) to have terrain. It also takes significant storage space. All of these are things that most players will want to devote to model models rather than terrain. The best thing GW ever did for table terrain was adding fortification slots as player now buy terrain much more often than they ever did before.
I dare say this statement is right on the mark. The more cluttered the battlefield, the more friendly it will be towards Assault Lists.
but since the terrain usually costs as much as the army, and takes up more than twice the storage space. It can really be a big investment for a player to stock up on terrain to begin with.
It's because people want to spread their units out to the maximum coherency allowed so templates get less hits on them. And you can usually only do that if you have little or no terrain. Good terrain, terrain that blocks line of site, provides cover, etc. often requires you to bunch your models closer together in order to make full use of that terrain.
SaJeel wrote: You can use many things to represent terrain, the act of cost is a flimsy one
In warmachine yes , but 6th has this stupid true LoS , which isn't realy true LoS thing and a building has to look like a building. It is of course possible to put shoe boxs on the table and make everything impassible , but I doubt most people would like to play games in tables like that. Maybe if they play FMC heavy lists. or something that can ignore terrain.
Martel732 wrote: LoS blocking terrain is not always favorable for an assault list because it also slows and blocks movement. Shooting is better even with LoS blocking terrain .
It might be experiences I have had, but Itend to disagree. We have Ork players in my area that do really well on heavily terrained tables. Running BA, I have consistantly done better on tables with more terrain. One of those your milage may vary things, Iguess.
Don't the current rules for terrain have you roll a D3 for each of the 4 corners of the map and that's the amount of terrain you put in it?
I'm not a big fan of that particular rule. I like the 25% of the board rule from earlier editions. It feels like a solid amount of terrain. Our local club also has a lot of buildings made by the collective, so line of sight lanes are really important around here.
By the way, the more cover there is, the more it benefits Tau gunlines. It hinders every other gunline army, and HELPS them. Kind of why I loathe playing Tau.
I ran an event with the following LoS homerules, and intend to use them for every other event I run in the future;
"Count all completely enclosed openings on the first floor of any typical ruin or building as solid. This includes windows and doors and not just bullet holes."
"Abstract line of sight through forests/jungles. You may see into a forest but not through it. This piece of abstracted terrain is as tall as the tallest tree on the base (in all other regards the trees are purely decorative) and as wide as the area terrain at the base"
Love these rules, and playing the occasional game without them is suffering. Instant reliable LoSB terrain without breaking the bank.
It is of course possible to put shoe boxs on the table and make everything impassible , but I doubt most people would like to play games in tables like that. Maybe if they play FMC heavy lists. or something that can ignore terrain.
,
Green felt cut, it out say its a forrest that completely blocks lines of sight 6 inches upward. Take some grey felt cut it into large squares and rectangles these are impassible collums that extend 10 feet[unreachable value even for flyers] into the air. Theres alot you can do to make it work.
Your second point "but I doubt most people would like to play games in tables like that. Maybe if they play FMC heavy lists. or something that can ignore terrain" makes no sense... so people will only want to play with terrain if they can ignore the terrain... that's so illogical... that is basically saying people will only want to play with it if it gives them an unfair advantage, at which point what the hell is the point of playing?
I feel like this maybe came around with 3rd edition? There was a lot of emphasis on speeding up the game which might have been part of it. Less terrain and seemed like they encouraged smaller boards, which is just as bad, if not worse. God forbid you need to use strategy or move all your units into positions and can't just sit in your deployment zone. Plus more emphasis on 1vs1 play.
Dakkamite wrote: I ran an event with the following LoS homerules, and intend to use them for every other event I run in the future;
"Count all completely enclosed openings on the first floor of any typical ruin or building as solid. This includes windows and doors and not just bullet holes."
So if you're in a ruin, you can't shoot out of a window? Or am I misconstruing this?
Personally, I almost never see a game without quite a bit of terrain. If I'm not playing a Drop Pod list, I almost never see a shooting attack where the target doesn't get a cover save. That being said, we have a fairly large amount of sweet terrain, so that might help.
Dakkamite wrote: "Count all completely enclosed openings on the first floor of any typical ruin or building as solid. This includes windows and doors and not just bullet holes."
"Abstract line of sight through forests/jungles. You may see into a forest but not through it. This piece of abstracted terrain is as tall as the tallest tree on the base (in all other regards the trees are purely decorative) and as wide as the area terrain at the base"
I strongly disagree with both of these. I'm not a fan of TLOS letting you shoot a model through a tiny bullet hole in a wall and only giving it the same 4+ cover save as if half the body was visible, but windows/doors/etc are legitimate open spaces to shoot and charge through (don't forget that you need LOS to charge). Likewise for forests, there might be the occasional special terrain piece that is justified in blocking LOS through it, but most "forests" in 40k represent a few trees in an open field, and you should be able to see and shoot at a tank on the other side of them.
Skriker wrote: The table should be effectively split down the middle with serious cover, but also some clear fire lanes, but nothing that allows an army with longer range firepower to completely dominate without moving a single model.
Or, instead of trying to force 40k to be WHFB and crippling long-range shooting (yay, my 48" range lascannons can only shoot 24") you could accept that 40k is a shooting-focused game and use a more appropriate amount of terrain. There should be cover available, but if you're effectively dividing the table into a pair of smaller tables with your terrain then you've got way too much. Static shooting armies should have to make sacrifices for clear firing positions, but assault and short-range shooting armies should have to make sacrifices to get cover instead of just having a good cover save wherever they go.
Because 5th and 6th screwed up the LOS rules and made it almost impossible to actually block LOS in practice unless you put huge, really huge, solid bricks on the table.
Terrain collections that were built during older editions and used to provide good LOS blocking back when Area Terrain meant a damn are now useless, or rather, hamper assault armies by slowing down movement while not affecting gunlines at all.
Foam board is king! I built enough terrain to volume wise match GW's £100+ imperial ruins for about £20 of that stuff with board to spare. As a result we always have loads of blocked LOS as not every wall has windows or doors.
Tourneys always have issue of making their terrain cover loads of tables but at home there really is no excuse for playing on planet bowling ball. As someone else said there are even lower cost alternatives, green felt or even card to represent a thick LOS blocking jungle/forest also works and has the benefit of not creating places you can't stand models in it.
Ruins can also be built to a smaller scale with card too.
Even though its a fictional game, sometimes it gets dam boring playing on tables with lots of terrain, and for some there is the temptation for their version of a 'more realistic' battlefield.
Hence the open battlefields... not to mention the 'fluff' excuse of the world being fought over is like the Russian Steppes
Everybody has their own way of doing things, we tend to have big pieces of terrain at my club so the board does have a good covering without it feeling too cluttered. Still, Tau trump this of course because of Mr Markerlight & Co.
More to the point GW boards at shops and in the old white dwarf never had/have that much terrain on them anyway. It also encourages mech armies to 'bring your own cover' so to speak.
Tourneys have the numbers problem, and in that there is always the joke of picking the best side of the table cover wise to gain an advantage.
Open battlefields were the norm for older RL battles, but more modern warfare seems to happen in urban areas. Battle-tanks are less common than in WWII.
Having armies meet on a field, and marshalling units was common long ago, but died off with guns and military intelligence.
So, unless a battle has been arranged, and one side has chosen the field, it likely to be a mess of semi-rural buildings, vegetation of various sizes, and general terrain types.
In space, with the myriad of places to fight, it 'could' happen anywhere, from cramped tunnels and stations to billiard-ball smooth planets. The latter is unlikely, as there are few reasons to fight over a world like that.
From a game-play perspective, LoS blocking terrain is useful to provide choice (can't really call it tactics in 40k), and area terrain makes taking certain units worthwhile. Line up your guns, move them towards each other until you're in range, and stand and fire. This makes for a boring game.
Or, instead of trying to force 40k to be WHFB and crippling long-range shooting (yay, my 48" range lascannons can only shoot 24") you could accept that 40k is a shooting-focused game and use a more appropriate amount of terrain. There should be cover available, but if you're effectively dividing the table into a pair of smaller tables with your terrain then you've got way too much. Static shooting armies should have to make sacrifices for clear firing positions, but assault and short-range shooting armies should have to make sacrifices to get cover instead of just having a good cover save wherever they go.
That is just what the TFG's in my FLGS say:
This is a shooting edition, long range weapons should dominate, assault armies should never get cover saves. i shouldn't have to move. the sacrifices i make are that i can't move out of the cover i set up in because this is a gunline.
The simple fact is that most people play games where there is very little LOS blocking terrain, or indeed terrain in general. to the point where everyone brings an ADL, because they need SOME cover. Armies therefore adapt to the terrain, and you find gunlines tend to dominate.
Throw those gunline armies into a battlefield where there are no clear fire lines, and there is cover everywhere. and getting into shooting range puts you in assault range. then you have a very very different battle on your hands.
I guess it depends on how you view the game. If you see it as a a game to test your strategy skills against an opponent, with both players playing optimised builds and just operating on a RAW point of view, then unpainted armies fighting on a sparsely populated board is fine.
For me personally, if that was the only appeal then I would stick to a "play from the box" game like Risk, that doesn't cost me an arm and a leg.
I am in the category of players that was attracted by the background, not the rules. I like a game that is more or less fair, but more importantly has a narrative in place. Who are my army, why are they fighting here? If there's a lot of buildings around then I can imagine it being a big push to take a city, a more open battlefield-a desperate rearguard action to by time for an allied force. Ok sometimes I might not be fighting on favourable ground, but that's just like real life to me. So my sneaky elite Alpha Legion are impossible to flush out of the tight confines of a hive city. But their reinforcements are later caught in the open by an advancing Ork force, suddenly they have to learn adapt to this new less favourable terrain, or die. Sure I might be at a disadvantage but I can still have fun with the game.
I am not knocking the tournament mentality, it is just different. I don't want an army with min max units and identical load outs. I want my army to feel unique at the cost of effectiveness. I ran Alpha legion in 4th and 5th, after losing my cultists from 3.5, and suddenly Undivided disappearing from the codex, I ran no Oblits, no cult troops, no special characters. My main opponent had Orks and used Flash Gitz and no battle wagons, neither of us were optimised, although my list was far more handicapped by lack of choices that fitted my fluff, so I lost 90% of the time. But we always had fun games because it was more about the ongoing narrative between our two armies.
As many have stated, it isn't even important to have things painted. I think the thing I dislike the most with 40k now, is how streamlined and totalitarian it has become. I love the GW kits but not everyone can afford them, but since they have come out GW seems to expect you to use their terrain to fit the rules. When I started playing all the terrain I could buy was some crappy small ruin and some plastic trees. There is nothing wrong with using coke cans as fuel tanks, shoe boxes as bunkers, pennies as a mine field, books piled under a table cloth for hills. For Throne sake, we are grown men (and women) playing with toy soldiers, if we didn't have imagination then why are we playing this game? It's certainly not for the balance. Cost is killing this hobby but terrain is one of the few things that we really don't have to let our wallets rule.
In short, I think that a table should have enough terrain to represent an actual battlefield that armies would fight over, spread out as fairly as possible to both players. This actually also makes smaller points value games more fun too. Laziness and cost should never be an excuse in a game where your shoe can be a wrecked titan if you want it to be.
SRSFACE wrote:Don't the current rules for terrain have you roll a D3 for each of the 4 corners of the map and that's the amount of terrain you put in it?
Von Chogg wrote:I just follow the rule book. d3 pieces per quarter. d3+1 if we only have small pieces of terrain
Von Chogg
Guys, the rule is "d3 pieces per 2'x2' section". Not per quarter.
SRSFACE wrote:Don't the current rules for terrain have you roll a D3 for each of the 4 corners of the map and that's the amount of terrain you put in it?
Von Chogg wrote:I just follow the rule book. d3 pieces per quarter. d3+1 if we only have small pieces of terrain
Von Chogg
Guys, the rule is "d3 pieces per 2'x2' section". Not per quarter.
Unless your table is 4'x4'. (defacto standard is 6'x4')
SRSFACE wrote:Don't the current rules for terrain have you roll a D3 for each of the 4 corners of the map and that's the amount of terrain you put in it?
Von Chogg wrote:I just follow the rule book. d3 pieces per quarter. d3+1 if we only have small pieces of terrain
Von Chogg
Guys, the rule is "d3 pieces per 2'x2' section". Not per quarter.
Unless your table is 4'x4'. (defacto standard is 6'x4')
Doesn't matter how big your table is. The rule is still "per 2'x2' section", not "per quarter".
Small addendum;
Regarding only having small pieces of terrain - when GW talks about terrain they mean substantial pieces. If you only have small pieces, you place three (3) of those, and that counts as one (1) of the d3 pieces.
Defiantly Laziness:
I currently have more terrain available than I want because we used to have a member who loves to make terrain. Most of it was oversized and to tall especially his mountains.
I have makes two really nice pieces of terrain, one “Hill A42” resembles a Vietnam era Fire Base and an oil refinery. Both are on 2’ x 4’ pieces of wood. My problem is getting people to help me pull them out to use them.
The other one is one I want to build “The Factory”. It is a 4’ x 4’ piece of terrain I want to build in four 2’ x 2’ pieces. It is designed to be the centerpiece for a Cities of Death Game. no one though wants to put out the couple of hours it will take to get the major assembly started.
Now we do the can see in and out of, but not though Forest/Jungle Terrain and we are happy with that.
Dalymiddleboro wrote: Honestly I don't like when the tables too cluttered. I really enjoy most tourney setups.
But should there not be both low density and high density terrain set up in a tourney setting or simply it favours even more the one type of army which 6th ed already favours- the gunline?
Because people spent so much time trying to cheeze and min max their list they dont want such silly intangibles to get in the way of proving to their opponent that their army list is superior after all that is what WH40k is all about according to the neck beards.
If you are using the rulebook to set up terrain, it is part of the tactical nature of the game. If you are playing a gunline, when it’s your turn to place a piece on the table, you are going to set a single bush off in a corner. So unless you are just setting up the table in a cinematic manner, it behoves some armies to play on planet bowling ball.
Our routine when we use the d3 is to roll one for each 2’ x 2’ section.
Start to place the Terrain we want in each section, we just place it there.
Then move the Terrain around in each section till it looks cohesive.
Sometimes we may even move, add or remove items to make it look better.
Nevelon wrote: If you are using the rulebook to set up terrain, it is part of the tactical nature of the game. If you are playing a gunline, when it’s your turn to place a piece on the table, you are going to set a single bush off in a corner. So unless you are just setting up the table in a cinematic manner, it behoves some armies to play on planet bowling ball.
And that thats cheesing it up and manipulating the rules in WAAC way IMO
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
I think most people are advocating just having about 25% coverage with actual game-relevant terrain.
Looking at most tournaments that is most certainly not the case.
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.
If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.
How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.
If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.
How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.
Balance is a good thing
One of the players told me his dream was there to be no marines on the table at the end of turn 3. So yeah, he wants no terrain and fights very tenaciously to minimize terrain.
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.
If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.
How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.
Balance is a good thing
One of the players told me his dream was there to be no marines on the table at the end of turn 3. So yeah, he wants no terrain and fights very tenaciously to minimize terrain.
Well then he is a best being a bad sport and at worst cheating by trying to play every game with no terrain - is there no way he will listen to reason?
We randomize terrain with a pool available in the FLGS. It's just that GW has made it so what once WAS LoS blocking is no longer. The tables look good, but Capt Eldar can still shoot me from anywhere. Cover is useless against scatterlasers and shields.
This site has a predilection for looking down on competitive players. Fielding legal models and wanting to win should not be considered a "bad sport". But GW tempts us into this line of thinking by publishing gak codices and expecting players to self-nerf.
Actively trying to minimise the terrain so he can wipe out the enemy by turn 3 is not being a "bad sport?"
Thats not what the rule book suggests - but then it also suggests that terrain placement should be agreed by both players rather than hvaing to rules lawyer the miminum possible.
Well the Wave Seprent is very OP and I agree that is GWs fault but thats no excuse for the behaviour you are describing..............
I like terrain ( i play DE) and although a good shooty army player can maximise on the firing lanes i normally have the speed to compartmentalise and dismantle the army at close range - but that is the USP of my army.
if there is limited terrain i may as well not bother because i would have more chance of surviving a firing squad with nothing but a mankini for armour.
Terrain is important and it brings an added tactical element to the game, makes possitions more crucial rather then line em up and shoot.. Terrain can also help shooty armys get closer up the opponent and use them to create kill zone ( but this requires thinking)
I think most people though the issue is that they dont have enough terrain, experiance fighting with lots of terrain and dont have anywhere to store extra terrain. Al clubs this becomes a bigger issues as there are multiple boards which need to have terrain and this mean that you cannot horde it all for one table but have to share it around.
If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.
GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.
Martel732 wrote: If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.
GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.
You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?
NOVA terrain is definitely the fairest terrain I see, but we took a graphin calculator once and mapped out the different deployment zones and according to the deployment dones, the most fair deployment is wherein the terrain is at 45degrees heading toward the center from all directions. this advantages any one side the least in any one of the 3 Deployemnt zone types.
Martel732 wrote: If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.
GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.
You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?
I guess you have to play him on a regular basis?
Yes, the core 40K group like to do tournaments and so there's no escaping Tau/Eldar/Daemons. Add in the other people that still play Orks and Necrons, there is literally no way to do a marine TAC list.
The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.
Martel732 wrote: If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.
GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.
You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?
I guess you have to play him on a regular basis?
Yes, the core 40K group like to do tournaments and so there's no escaping Tau/Eldar/Daemons. Add in the other people that still play Orks and Necrons, there is literally no way to do a marine TAC list.
The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.
Sad face for you :(
We have a good mixture at our club - some like tourneys, some don't - lots of us want to just blow stuff up - pretty much everyone at the club hates one sided games..............
My group considers one-sided affairs against meqs in 6th necessary, or they are not up to tournament snuff. When the pressure is on the win multiple games, you need marines and their derivatives to be a slam dunk to maximize your record.
Yes, this is what most of these people enjoy. It's like Starcraft where they get to paint, too. And, of course, optimize lists instead of build orders.
I like going against my opponent's best concepts. But 40K has always had problems with this. It's all just bad flashbacks to 2nd edition. I really though that GW wouldn't do this to meqs again. Being made into a joke is not fun. Being tabled as a metric for the worthy lists is not fun.
Von Chogg wrote: I just follow the rule book. d3 pieces per quarter. d3+1 if we only have small pieces of terrain
Von Chogg
While I agree that good terrain takes time and money - I think this is a big reason. D3 pieces per 2'x2' section isn't a lot of terrain when most people have smaller pieces of terrain due to WHFB and all of the older pieces of terrain that came in the boxes ever since 2nd and 3rd edition. The footprint of the old terrain pieces was maybe a 4" square which isn't enough for today's game.
In the far far future, there is only lightly populated planets that contain no cities or signs of true civilization.
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.
This. Tailor it or use homerules to beat the TLOS rules back into useable shape.
Dakkamite wrote: I ran an event with the following LoS homerules, and intend to use them for every other event I run in the future;
"Count all completely enclosed openings on the first floor of any typical ruin or building as solid. This includes windows and doors and not just bullet holes."
So if you're in a ruin, you can't shoot out of a window? Or am I misconstruing this?
Personally, I almost never see a game without quite a bit of terrain. If I'm not playing a Drop Pod list, I almost never see a shooting attack where the target doesn't get a cover save. That being said, we have a fairly large amount of sweet terrain, so that might help.
Yep, the bottom story windows were counted as solid. If you want windows to shoot out of head to the next floor up.
Peregrine wrote: I strongly disagree with both of these. I'm not a fan of TLOS letting you shoot a model through a tiny bullet hole in a wall and only giving it the same 4+ cover save as if half the body was visible, but windows/doors/etc are legitimate open spaces to shoot and charge through (don't forget that you need LOS to charge). Likewise for forests, there might be the occasional special terrain piece that is justified in blocking LOS through it, but most "forests" in 40k represent a few trees in an open field, and you should be able to see and shoot at a tank on the other side of them.
I felt that it was more important to provide some LoS blocking terrain than to adhere exactly to the physical dimensions of the ruins on the board.
If people wanted windows to shoot out of they can go to the next floor up. If they want LoSB they can stay on the ground floor. With the alternatives being to physically fill in the windows or to have swiss cheese terrain all over the place, this seems like a good compromise.
The forests thing is purely subjective. If its your preference to have wide open plains to fight over then you wouldn't be using those rules in the first place. But if you don't, its a very easy way to create strategically important terrain with no additional work required.
Likewise for forests, there might be the occasional special terrain piece that is justified in blocking LOS through it, but most "forests" in 40k represent a few trees in an open field, and you should be able to see and shoot at a tank on the other side of them.
That may be true for some. but all the forests I have ever played with on the table were used as area terrain, with a large base with the individual trees being moveable to allow the best model placement. If you have to draw LOS to a target through more than 2" of forest, the LOS is blocked (even when shooting out at a target!). The wood's boundary is delineated by the edges of the base of the terrain, which is usually about 6"x6" (averaged)/ I've used the same rule since back in 2nd edition 40K.
Thats another good way to rule forests. I only use my way because no need to measure that 2", but aside from that I don't see any advantage or disadvantage for either method
Mr Morden wrote: Does anyone actually have fun in your games? In know some people really dig ultra competative games.
Its funny you asked that. I have said to a couple people lately that "You just dont seem to have as much fun as I do. Do you even like playing?"
Since the thread is (was?) about terrain, I'll point out here that TOTALLY open terrain is kinda unfair to some armies and the "non-narrative" terrain placement rules somewhat help, but then someone can sick a mountain in front of your aegis line. So at some point you have to agree to what you both think is fair. One good thing about some tournies is they mandate the terrain. I like it (though when THEY do a bad job its not so awesome).
In casual games, though, I think its probably easier to set terrain up in a cool way and you can work it out easier than at tournies whewre money is on the line. For better or worse, you PAID to be there...
Martel732 wrote: For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?
I think most people are advocating just having about 25% coverage with actual game-relevant terrain.
Looking at most tournaments that is most certainly not the case.
Have you ever had to run a tournament with no LGS support? As in, you had to find the space, come up with the tables, and come up with the terrain? This was a HUGE issue for my play group in Alaska. We had no LGS with enough space for more than 3 tables. One of the players was a public elementary school teacher, and one thing a lot of people don't know is that public schools are, well, public and available for use by the public subject to the local Superintendent or Council. We turned it into a Fund Raiser for the school and got permission to run the tournament in the large multi-purpose room. The guy that actually ran it (the teacher) got the boards, felt, and we all chipped in for terrain.
The amount of terrain required for say, 12 tables is huge. If you go for the 25% rule, that means for 12 tables, you have to make/have enough terrain to completely cover 3 of those tables. Think about that- three 4'x6' tables completely covered in terrain. On just one board, you have 24 sq feet. 6 sq ft has to be covered by terrain. For 12 tables, you need 72 sq feet of terrain.
In other words, it's pretty easy to come up with enough terrain for say, 1-2 tables or your own home table. Tournaments? Wow. Not to mention all the storage space required for that terrain. Most LGS barely have enough room for product and a couple tables. Now you want to store a bunch of terrain as well? This is one of the many reasons LGS's fail- a good retail business model looks at sq footage and sales, bills, etc. and comes up with a number. The smaller the number, the less money the LGS makes. There is a formula out there and a threshold that basically says "if your Sq Footage/Sales number is below this, you will fail".
Just trying to point out from an LGS point of view that making and storing a lot of terrain for game nights and tournaments costs money, and most LGS's don't have a lot of money to spare.
Martel732 wrote: Well Serpent spam is not that hampered by terrain.
No Eldar vehicle is affected by terrain much if fitted with a ghost matrix (or whatever it's called).
Without that though, the skimmers are pretty big, and would have trouble landing if the area terrain is bunched up enough.
ansacs wrote: Also keep in mind if it is a tournament then the stock of prepared terrain will be overstretched.
It takes money (and time which is money) to have terrain. It also takes significant storage space. All of these are things that most players will want to devote to model models rather than terrain. The best thing GW ever did for table terrain was adding fortification slots as player now buy terrain much more often than they ever did before.
See the price factor makes sense for people playing at home, but those who are in a store that has a well stocked terrain selection specifically for their gaming tables and people *still* aren't using it is *not* a money issue in the least. I have 5 bookcases full of all kinds of terrain in my gaming room that I have collected through the years. For sci-fi type gaming before I had the money to aquire "good" terrain pieces I collected all the styrofoam packaging pieces I could ever find and even had family save them from me. I broke them up in to building like bits and painted them with a cheap stone type finish paint from the local Home Depot store. Cost: Pennies for a table full of terrain and that was pretty much for the paint. Terrain doesn't have to be expensive at all, and can still look half way decent. I used to comb the aquarium aisles at the local Pet Smart looking for ruins and rock formations that were on clearance sale for very small amounts to add to my collection of terrain. I still use most of them because they all look great. Things running from large rock formations to even a decent scaled egyptian sphinx replica. A bag of model railroad trees cost almost nothing compared to GW "forests" and you get dozens of trees to make your own forest stands on using cardboard pieces cut out of the sides of the boxes of minis you are already buying. People think "terrain is expensive" because they look at GW's overpriced terrain pieces which certainly *are* expensive, but you don't actually need any of them and can do plenty of terrain work without buying a single GW terrain piece. Now that I have plenty of other types of terrain I have invested in some of GW's sets for additional things, but they are not even remotely necessary.
Skriker
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Martel732 wrote: The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.
And this is specifically why I built up my own 40k gaming group with like minded friends and stopped playing at local stores almost completely. Too many people showing up at the local places had that mentality and it gets old really quickly for me. Our goal is to get together and have some fun gaming. The "winning" aspect is cool for bragging rights, but is not the focus of the day for us as we just want to play and hang out. I still play a good bit of Flames of War at my FLGS, but it is a much better written game without the massive balance holes found in the 40k game so there are few arguments and the ability to spam undercosted and overpowered units is practically non-existent. Makes for a much more pleasant experience even when completely new players appear. There are no killer netlists for that game that make everyone swear when they appear on the table.
Skriker
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Martel732 wrote: I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.
Well when the game *isn't* even remotely balanced on its own, you do what you have to do.
ansacs wrote: Also keep in mind if it is a tournament then the stock of prepared terrain will be overstretched.
It takes money (and time which is money) to have terrain. It also takes significant storage space. All of these are things that most players will want to devote to model models rather than terrain. The best thing GW ever did for table terrain was adding fortification slots as player now buy terrain much more often than they ever did before.
See the price factor makes sense for people playing at home, but those who are in a store that has a well stocked terrain selection specifically for their gaming tables and people *still* aren't using it is *not* a money issue in the least. I have 5 bookcases full of all kinds of terrain in my gaming room that I have collected through the years. For sci-fi type gaming before I had the money to aquire "good" terrain pieces I collected all the styrofoam packaging pieces I could ever find and even had family save them from me. I broke them up in to building like bits and painted them with a cheap stone type finish paint from the local Home Depot store. Cost: Pennies for a table full of terrain and that was pretty much for the paint. Terrain doesn't have to be expensive at all, and can still look half way decent. I used to comb the aquarium aisles at the local Pet Smart looking for ruins and rock formations that were on clearance sale for very small amounts to add to my collection of terrain. I still use most of them because they all look great. Things running from large rock formations to even a decent scaled egyptian sphinx replica. A bag of model railroad trees cost almost nothing compared to GW "forests" and you get dozens of trees to make your own forest stands on using cardboard pieces cut out of the sides of the boxes of minis you are already buying. People think "terrain is expensive" because they look at GW's overpriced terrain pieces which certainly *are* expensive, but you don't actually need any of them and can do plenty of terrain work without buying a single GW terrain piece. Now that I have plenty of other types of terrain I have invested in some of GW's sets for additional things, but they are not even remotely necessary.
Skriker
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.
And this is specifically why I built up my own 40k gaming group with like minded friends and stopped playing at local stores almost completely. Too many people showing up at the local places had that mentality and it gets old really quickly for me. Our goal is to get together and have some fun gaming. The "winning" aspect is cool for bragging rights, but is not the focus of the day for us as we just want to play and hang out. I still play a good bit of Flames of War at my FLGS, but it is a much better written game without the massive balance holes found in the 40k game so there are few arguments and the ability to spam undercosted and overpowered units is practically non-existent. Makes for a much more pleasant experience even when completely new players appear. There are no killer netlists for that game that make everyone swear when they appear on the table.
Skriker
Automatically Appended Next Post:
Martel732 wrote: I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.
Well when the game *isn't* even remotely balanced on its own, you do what you have to do.
Skriker
Exactly
We did the same thing; we started to do things on our own. If we do run a “Mini-Tournament” it is over bragging right or the winner does not have to pitch in for the Pizza.
Martel732 wrote: Well Serpent spam is not that hampered by terrain.
No Eldar vehicle is affected by terrain much if fitted with a ghost matrix (or whatever it's called).
Without that though, the skimmers are pretty big, and would have trouble landing if the area terrain is bunched up enough.
Skimmers need to move for their save. Diofficult terrain is an issue six turns out of six for them. Thats a lot of opportunity for mishap in a Mechdar force. Ghostwalk matrix isn't free but it is cool Still, its not free and those tansk start to get spendy fast as it is. Just fgood for thought but Ive watched a lot of imobilized skimmers last few games. My Mutilators like it when that happens. =)
