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I play 40K with a small group of guys, just me and two others. I play Chaos, another player plays Imperial Guard with a lot of tanks, and the last guy plays Tau with a mix of infantry, vehicles, and mecha-suit guys.

Long-story-short, I win every game. We are all new to the game, and have collectively played about 10 games total now, all against each other in 1v1 matchups. We have never played anything other than Annihilation, and we have tried various setups for our terrain.

I would like to know how other people set up their terrain and boards, because I just don't think I should be winning every game. The most recent board setup was my idea, and seems fairly balanced, but I played a game against the IG player and destroyed him, and the Tau beat the IG last weekend. The IG player has never won a game.

If you guys are interested in more details, like army compositions or exactly what our terrain is like, I can give that information or post a diagram or something. It just seems like we're on a constant quest to find a balanced board and can't quite find one.

Usually a decent amount of LoS blocking terrain.
Some area terrain (Craters, bunkers etc etc) and a couple of hills.

25-50% Terrain works best, that is total surface area covered.

You want to ensure a balanced amount of terrain that both provides shooting armies with firing lines, and assaulty armies with cover providing advancement opportunities.

The best way to achieve this is by taking your blank table and a big bucket of terrain(or all the terrain on a side table, etc) and then go with a you-go, I-go format where the player that gets first turn placing the first piece and then the second player places the next piece and so-on in that fashion. When one player decides they are done placing terrain the next player gets to choose to agree or place 1 more piece.

A sampling of what you can remember from the IG players list would be good to see what he is doing wrong as well; it could be list-choice or tactical mistakes that is ruining his chances.

We usually try to do 5-6, 12" square(ish) pieces evenly placed about the board, most of them tall enough to obscure a tank.

I would recommend that you play some Non-annihilation games and see how they turn out. Without knowing your lists it is hard to say but it's possible that your list is geared better to annihilation than the other two.

For me and my friends we usually do one piece of terrain for every two square feet of gaming board. We find this gives lots of cover but leaves enough open ground to still get some decent targets of opportunity caught in the open. Like mentioned above we do a I-go U-go way of placing the terrain and then to make it fair so that one of us isn't setting up a so-called impenetrable defence we roll randomly to pick our deployment zone.

Kommissar Kel wrote:

A sampling of what you can remember from the IG players list would be good to see what he is doing wrong as well; it could be list-choice or tactical mistakes that is ruining his chances.

Well, I should start by saying that the IG player is the "worst" player. He basically just doesn't read everything about his army. For instance, at the end of the last game we played, he only found out about the Hit and Run rule that Marbo uses, and only because I looked it up.

That having been said, the IG player runs...

2 Chimeras, both full of guys. One squad in there all have meltaguns. The other is normal.
1 Valkyrie full of normal guys.
Leman Russ
Manticore
Basilisk/Medusa, whichever is non-apocalypse, I forget
Marbo
Command squad
another unit of normal guys
2 Sentinels

...and I think that's it.

Maybe you're winning because you're the best player in your group?

Tangent wrote:

Kommissar Kel wrote:

A sampling of what you can remember from the IG players list would be good to see what he is doing wrong as well; it could be list-choice or tactical mistakes that is ruining his chances.

Well, I should start by saying that the IG player is the "worst" player. He basically just doesn't read everything about his army. For instance, at the end of the last game we played, he only found out about the Hit and Run rule that Marbo uses, and only because I looked it up.

That having been said, the IG player runs...

2 Chimeras, both full of guys. One squad in there all have meltaguns. The other is normal.
1 Valkyrie full of normal guys.
Leman Russ
Manticore
Basilisk/Medusa, whichever is non-apocalypse, I forget
Marbo
Command squad
another unit of normal guys
2 Sentinels

...and I think that's it.

He's got a kinda strange list...
When you say normal guys i presume you mean Veterans...
Both the Basilisk and the Medusa are non-apocalypse...

Yeah, the normal guys are Veterans. He has about 30 of those I think, broken into 4 squads, two of which are 10-man and two of which are 5-man. One of the 10-man squads has a couple of snipers in it. He runs a Basilisk, not a Medusa.

Why do you say he has a strange list?

He usually makes the Sentinels scouts, and uses them to outflank. He also used to use an assassin from that codex until we, as a group, basically decided that he just shouldn't anymore (we knew after he bought it that it was illegal, but let him use it for a few games).

Oh! And he also has a heavy weapons team consisting of a heavy bolter, a lascannon, and a mortar.

And though I may be the best player, I doubt that it would be by much, as none of us have played before. I'm Chaos, I just run forward pretty much. It's a little more complicated than that, but not much. And I make a lot of armor saves unless my dreadnought goes crazy and shoots my dudes, at which point I fail them all.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Most of the terrain we use is buildings. If any of you have played Mordheim before, we have all those buildings. Some we designate as actual "ruins" (the bigger buildings) while others we don't. We normally don't use any area terrain, like craters or forests, that provide a flat cover bonus to anyone within but that DON'T block line-of-sight and that ARE difficult terrain.

It's not quite mech vets and not quite gunline and not quite airborne vets...
I mean not every list has to be a variation on an internet list.
The heavy weapons team is lacking focus...
It can only fire at 1 target a turn so something there is wasted no matter what it shoots, i would get all the same weapon.
IMO both chimera vet sqauds should be packing their full complement of melta or plasma guns depending on how meched up you or the Tau player are.
The Valkyrie-borne sqaud should take as many plasma guns as possible.
The last squad which seems to have nothing to do iis probably best suited to holding objectives.
The tanks are pretty simple...

Take all your terrain at the start of the game, and put it into one table quarter as tightly packed as you can without overlapping. It should just fill up the quarter, so you know you have 25% terrain.

purplefood wrote:It's not quite mech vets and not quite gunline and not quite airborne vets...
I mean not every list has to be a variation on an internet list.
The heavy weapons team is lacking focus...
It can only fire at 1 target a turn so something there is wasted no matter what it shoots, i would get all the same weapon.
IMO both chimera vet sqauds should be packing their full complement of melta or plasma guns depending on how meched up you or the Tau player are.
The Valkyrie-borne sqaud should take as many plasma guns as possible.
The last squad which seems to have nothing to do iis probably best suited to holding objectives.
The tanks are pretty simple...

Good point about the heavy weapons team. To be honest, he almost always just uses it to shoot mortars and never moves it from its initial deployment position.

Neither myself nor the Tau player have a lot of armor. I have a rhino (that I don't ever put dudes into) and a Dreadnought with bolter/heavy bolter. The Tau player has two vehicles, one of which is a skimmer and the other is a transport. Other than that, he has a few of those taller mech-looking guys, not quite as big as a dreadnought model.

He should take the plasma guns, I'm assuming, because of the AP?

ph34r wrote:Take all your terrain at the start of the game, and put it into one table quarter as tightly packed as you can without overlapping. It should just fill up the quarter, so you know you have 25% terrain.

25% is the minimum that the rules suggest?

Well, I played with around 80-85% terrain once... Lets just say I will never play on that kind of percentage again, especially with Chaos Daemons... The wins between us are balanced out, I have been winning a few more thanks to reading several internet Tactics pages on How to play my armies, and trying to incorporate it into my current tactics. What point values do you generally play at?

Our very first game was at 500 points. After that, we played a couple of games (maybe 3?) at 1000. Ever since (at least 5 or 6 games now) we have been playing at 1500. The IG and Tau players have played against each other twice, and Tau won both games despite seeming to be on the losing end for the majority.

Perhaps it has nothing to do with the terrain or how the tapography of the board is created. Reading your post, 2 things stood out to me more than anything else you mentioned -- that all of you are noobs to the game -- and that they play army's that are inferior statistically. Let me elaborate on that before I have the IG/Tau hordes all over this post. For a beginner, it doesnt take much effort to be successful at playing any type of marine really. The Imperial Guard and Tau both require much more strategy, shooting, avoiding CC, and great unit choices. Typically you will see players who have played the game for awhile playing these army's, you simply cannot put them on the board and expect to win the same way a marine army does. Suggest to them to research tactics on their army's online to help them use their units better during battle. Best of luck....on...wanting to lose....to...your friends?

His list is pretty darn illegal.

You cannot have any Heavy Weapons teams without a Platoon(which requires at minimum a 5-man platoon Command Squad, and 2 10-man Platoon infantry squads)

none of the troops choices allow for anything less than 10-man squads(excepting Special Weapon Squads, Heavy Weapons Squads and Platoon Command Squads, all of which are Platoon only); there is no such thing as a 5-man Vet squad.

Sniper models suck(outside of Ratling units, which still aren't great but the best deployment of Sniper-rifles for the points).

Mixed Heavy Weapons squads suck(excepting for a very few, very specific mixes, generally ACs and MLs).

The rest of his list could use some tweeks here and there but otherwise seems like a decent enough combined arms approach.

Forgot about that...
Damn platoons...
At any rate if neither you or the Tau player has much mech he should simply load up on plasma guns for his vets.
He'll have to drop the heavy weapons team though...
Maybe he could use the points for some extra bodies in those vet squads.

purplefood wrote:Forgot about that...
Damn platoons...
At any rate if neither you or the Tau player has much mech he should simply load up on plasma guns for his vets.
He'll have to drop the heavy weapons team though...
Maybe he could use the points for some extra bodies in those vet squads.

there is no extra points for extra bodies in vet squads; they come 10 or not at all.

But what he could do is put those Heavy Weapons into Vet/Command squad units and use the extra bodies(2/HWT base) to bring his "5-man" vets up to legal numbers.

Kommissar Kel wrote:

purplefood wrote:Forgot about that...
Damn platoons...
At any rate if neither you or the Tau player has much mech he should simply load up on plasma guns for his vets.
He'll have to drop the heavy weapons team though...
Maybe he could use the points for some extra bodies in those vet squads.

there is no extra points for extra bodies in vet squads; they come 10 or not at all.

But what he could do is put those Heavy Weapons into Vet/Command squad units and use the extra bodies(2/HWT base) to bring his "5-man" vets up to legal numbers.

I really need to looks at my IG Codex more often...

No problem; there is a local RT Tourney(1850) coming up in May; I am trying to get my Guard army 100% painted and have been playing extensively with it in preparation; so right now I am more "up" on guard than any other codex.

Even to the point of excluding proper study of the New GK Codex, which is why I haven't participated too much in most of the GK relevant threads in YMDC.

Well it's quite obvious what is wrong here, your guard player doesn't know what he is doing.

He really needs too read his codex, not just the parts he likes, he needs to read ALL of it. He has to get to know the rules and fluff that drive his force, not just slap together some random units and call it a day, fielding a mixed force with IG guys is really just asking to get your handed to you, he needs to either get more infantry or get more tanks, but probably both if he really wants a chance at winning. 40k isn't a just a hobby, it's a passion, you have to commit to it full time, go beyond reading just the codex and go online to research more into this army you have commited yourself to. I find that locking yourself in your room, putting on a set of ear muffs so no one can bother you with work or love, and spend a few hours painting, modeling, and getting acquainted with your fluff is a good way of improving your passion. A little game playing never hurt either

Hope that helped.

Something I'd like to point out as well is that you should really roll for objectives, since low unit-count armies (aka MEQ) tend to have an advantage in the kill point department. I regularly have >4 less kill points in my armies than my other opponents.

Of course, I always get crushed, or lose at the last minute cause of something trivial or horrendously unlucky (read: worst possible scenario).

Anyway, there's also the possibility that you're just good at the game.

/2cents

Crazy thought, but he's not running the old IG codex is he? That might explain a lot if he has 5 man squads. I'd have to dig ithe codex out to make sure, but I think you could do that with hardened vets.

Well this is commign from a tyranid player so probably not the average of how everyone sets up their terrain. for the record i usually win around 85% of my games at my local game store and around 70% of my tournements.

Usually i go for as much terrain as humanly possible xD this is because tyranids gain the miost probably out of all races when using terrain. i prefer large multi leveled hills and anything that can block LoS.

Usually i try to place the terrain so that in the turns that i will be taking the most amoutn of fire i will recieve the best cover, this is usually around turns 1-3 not as much 3 as i hope to be either in full LoS blocking or eiter in close combat with my opponent.

IMHO when playing tyranids i should almost never win on a flat board, this i because i will simply take too much damage when running towards my opponent even when i do block with my monsterous creatures to provide cover for my other units ( 4+).

Hope this gave you some good information,

Thanks, Dave_NZ.

Lyzin Locrian wrote:40k isn't a just a hobby, it's a passion, you have to commit to it full time, go beyond reading just the codex and go online to research more into this army you have commited yourself to. I find that locking yourself in your room, putting on a set of ear muffs so no one can bother you with work or love, and spend a few hours painting, modeling, and getting acquainted with your fluff is a good way of improving your passion. A little game playing never hurt either

Hope that helped.

That's the kind of attitude that scares people away from the hobby. I've been playing it for nearly 20 years (with a small 3 year break) and I've never seen anyone that obsessed with the hobby. It's just that - a hobby. Do it in your spare time, don't make it your life.

Just to point out in the ig players defense the op doesn't have in depth knowledge of the guard codex. I'd wager the 5 man squads are actually platoon command squads, and that hes running two naked platoons and a vet squad or something like that.

Your winning has more to do with exclusively playing Annihilation than the amount/placement of terrain, I'd say.

I do about nine decent sized bits of terrain

I play DE so I'm pretty obsessive over having a good amount of LOS blocking terrain on the board.

Element206 wrote:Best of luck....on...wanting to lose....to...your friends?

This made me laugh a lot. I read it right before I went to bed last night and I was laughing in bed.

As replies to all:

I think, actually, that the IG player IS running platoon guys. He uses that word a lot, but to me they all die the same so I always just thought they were normal guys. I didn't know there were requirements on other units based on platoon squads vs veteran squads.

I'm rather certain (99%) that he's using the current version of the IG codex.

He may be using veteran squads that are too small. I'll have to ask him about it.

You guys are probably right about Annihilation. I guess we should start branching out. It just seemed like the best way to get a feel for how much terrain we should use and where to place it, etc. A question about Annihilation: Do you really only get a single kill point for each unit that you destroy, and not a number of points equal to the points cost of the unit? That makes it seem... really unbalanced in favor of space marines and their ilk.

Lastly, I should reiterate that the IG player has never won, which means the Tau player beats him just as often (100% of the time) as I do. I also beat the Tau player, but I may have only played one game against him so far (can't remember exactly).