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Then what is the point of a wood on a game table?

Ornamentation. In 40k being in it gives you a light cover save. In AOS it also gives a +1 to saves.

Thats about it.

I personally hate that as well. In any campaign I run, woods block line of sight... but I regularly for the past few years have to argue with shooty players that say that screws them over. Even though it makes sense and every other game does it that way (and warhammer of course used to do it that way)

On the subject of actual woods, it should be like Warmachine; can't see more than X inches through the woods, so no shooting across woods and across models. however with true LOS being a (stupid IMHO) thing, i find most terrain that isn't solid to be basically worthless. Walls, fences, etc, are just decoration might as well play on an empty field most of the time. Especially since so many people I've seen ignore the terrain rules anyways, terrain literally is just there and does nothing, other than like you can't move through a solid building.

There are a bunch of ways to handle woods yeah.

For me to keep it simple, you can shoot into woods and the unit gets their save, but you cannot shoot THROUGH woods to things behind it.

 auticus wrote:
There are a bunch of ways to handle woods yeah.

For me to keep it simple, you can shoot into woods and the unit gets their save, but you cannot shoot THROUGH woods to things behind it.

Simple and brilliant. That's exactly how they should work.

I, personally, think home-made terrain is AWESOME.

Nearly every item of terrain I own is DIY. I'm even working on a scratch built ZM board for mah TSons.

Wayniac wrote:

 auticus wrote:
There are a bunch of ways to handle woods yeah.

For me to keep it simple, you can shoot into woods and the unit gets their save, but you cannot shoot THROUGH woods to things behind it.

Simple and brilliant. That's exactly how they should work.

I haven't played in a while but isn't that how woods used to work in 40K? You could fire up to 4 inches in but, irrespective of the size of the wood, you couldn't shoot or see all the way through.

The wood's area was set by the size of the base and the number of the trees was representative of the woods rather than literally being the only trees there.


As for homemade terrain being illegal, what am I meant to do with the plastic bits of the air fresheners in my room? Throw them away? Not when they could represent vents from an underground storage facility.

The part where its simpler is in my campaigns i do away with X" in. X" in just takes more time while people measure 1000 ways to find that they are/are not in cover and then argue over the millimeter.

It saves time to just say if you're in the woods you can be seen and see out and you can get cover and if you are on the other side you can't be seen at all.

Vermis wrote:It funnels them into buying a specific, overpriced GW kit and by appearances, further drives into them the mindset that GW's strange ways of hobby gaming are the only 'right' way.

Oh, and it stifles creativity and imagination. (Remember when we used to have to use that in fantasy games? )

Kriswall wrote:For AoS, the Sylvaneth Wyldwood is a huge offender. The Sylvaneth Allegiance gains a major advantage from having this terrain in their army. Allowing them to change the shape/size/number of trees can have a very measurable impact on the game. In other words, it's incredibly easy to accidentally model for advantage when not using the official model.

It almost sounds like you shouldn't apply special rules to terrain kits.

notprop wrote:I reckon I made enough scenery for a 6' x 4' Warmaster table (so 10mm) in a week of evenings, so approx. 20 hours. Not AoS bubblerealm stuff I grant you but rocks/lava is no more difficult than trees. Also never had a problem with the trees!

That's what happens when you don't get special rules applied to terrain kits.

(Tell me if I'm getting repetitive. I won't actually stop, though.)

The trees look great. I've got giant pipecleaners around here for doing something similar with conifers, in 10mm. Where'd I put them...?

auticus wrote:The citadel woods don't really block line of sight. You can pretty much see through it in almost every angle.

Because the game uses true line of sight, you can see through a citadel wood and thus freely shoot through it.

People show up with woods that have a ton of trees on them that actually do block true line of sight and this gives shooty players rage because they feel that they are being modeled against since if only citadel woods were available, they could still shoot through everything with impunity.

In AOS and 40k both systems use true line of sight and woods do not have a rule that says they block line of sight.

AoS and 40K are such well-thought-out, friendly, narrative-driven games.

 auticus wrote:
Ornamentation. In 40k being in it gives you a light cover save. In AOS it also gives a +1 to saves.

Thats about it.

I personally hate that as well. In any campaign I run, woods block line of sight... but I regularly for the past few years have to argue with shooty players that say that screws them over. Even though it makes sense and every other game does it that way (and warhammer of course used to do it that way)

In AoS, if one player has Sylvaneth models, the woods have a TON of extra rules associated with them. Models can teleport back and forth between them, you can lose 1/6 of your models by charging into them, you can take mortal wounds if someone casts a spell near them, etc, etc. Really only benefits the Sylvaneth player. For MOST factions, it's just +1 to save. For Sylvaneth, it can be a frustratingly strong force multiplier.

 Kriswall wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Ornamentation. In 40k being in it gives you a light cover save. In AOS it also gives a +1 to saves.

Thats about it.

I personally hate that as well. In any campaign I run, woods block line of sight... but I regularly for the past few years have to argue with shooty players that say that screws them over. Even though it makes sense and every other game does it that way (and warhammer of course used to do it that way)

In AoS, if one player has Sylvaneth models, the woods have a TON of extra rules associated with them. Models can teleport back and forth between them, you can lose 1/6 of your models by charging into them, you can take mortal wounds if someone casts a spell near them, etc, etc. Really only benefits the Sylvaneth player. For MOST factions, it's just +1 to save. For Sylvaneth, it can be a frustratingly strong force multiplier.

I am pretty sure that's only Sylvaneth Wyldwoods, not regular woods (even if they use the same kit, pretty sure the regular woods do not do that, but I could be mistaken)

Aside from all the previously mentioned points, the notion of players having to buy the same identical piece of terrain over and over, e.g. if they want multiple forests on a board, is a ludicrous one that I imagine would have most players boycotting the stores in question.

Wayniac wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

 auticus wrote:
Ornamentation. In 40k being in it gives you a light cover save. In AOS it also gives a +1 to saves.

Thats about it.

I personally hate that as well. In any campaign I run, woods block line of sight... but I regularly for the past few years have to argue with shooty players that say that screws them over. Even though it makes sense and every other game does it that way (and warhammer of course used to do it that way)

In AoS, if one player has Sylvaneth models, the woods have a TON of extra rules associated with them. Models can teleport back and forth between them, you can lose 1/6 of your models by charging into them, you can take mortal wounds if someone casts a spell near them, etc, etc. Really only benefits the Sylvaneth player. For MOST factions, it's just +1 to save. For Sylvaneth, it can be a frustratingly strong force multiplier.

I am pretty sure that's only Sylvaneth Wyldwoods, not regular woods (even if they use the same kit, pretty sure the regular woods do not do that, but I could be mistaken)

Yeah, regular woods don't. My mistake. I thought we were talking about Wyldwoods. As I said before, the really egregious issues are with pieces of terrain that have rules and are intended to work a certain way. If they're included as part of the army, they should be as close as possible to the official models. Conversion are fine. Fundamental changes are not.

Don't the rules generally have provisions for you to trade off putting down terrain? If you don't like what's available, make and bring your own? Complaining about the terrain someone else provided seems a little iffy.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Buy a single Citadel Wood for measurement, and make sure your wood's base is the same dimensions (draw round it, cut it out. Rinse and repeat). Right there, you're onto more of a winner. But varying that shape is right out for me.

That's a bit extreme - as long as it's a rectangle roughly the same size as a Citadel Wood, that'd be fine for me.

As for blocking LOS, you get enough foliage pieces in a Citadel Wood kit to block LOS across it even using TLOS rules.

I'd need to see an example of a citadel wood with full foliage blocking LOS. All my citadel woods I used all of the foliage and they in no way block line of sight other than the tree trunks themselves.

 auticus wrote:
I'd need to see an example of a citadel wood with full foliage blocking LOS. All my citadel woods I used all of the foliage and they in no way block line of sight other than the tree trunks themselves.

Depends how tall your model is.

Thats true but any of my moderate man-sized to cav sized models have no problem seeing through a citadel wood (to include ogre size).

Our guys even use laser pointers to draw LOS and have no problems doing this through the citadel woods.

 auticus wrote:
Thats true but any of my moderate man-sized to cav sized models have no problem seeing through a citadel wood (to include ogre size).

Our guys even use laser pointers to draw LOS and have no problems doing this through the citadel woods.

Same here. Citadel Woods don't really block LOS at "ground level". If you use all of the foliage, they do tend to block line of sight from an "aerial view". In other words, short models can generally hide from particularly tall or flying models in a Citadel Woods, but short (infantry to cav) can generally see each other.

You'd have to attach all the foliage in a vertical orientation rather than horizontal, and perhaps completely blocking LOS across the entire width of the base is an exaggeration, but you could do it to an extent. If you'rew happy with your terrain feature looking noting like actual trees, that is.

Wayniac wrote:
Yeah but this argument seems to stem from actual terrain for the battlefield, e.g. forests and hills and buildings, not specifics like the Wyldwood

It sure as hell seems to me like this whole discussion stemmed for the Sylvaneth....

 auticus wrote:
Its a thing I've noted on various facebook groups over the past few months (particularly when sylvaneth came out). There was a big stink on a fb group yesterday that had like 200 responses.

Which is why I think most people see it as such a confusing topic, because in general no one gives a crap (unless it's a specific rules based reason like the Sylvaneth) and it's shocking to think that someone actually cares just about general terrain that doesn't have specific special rules. Even going back to the olden olden days I remember there being a stink kicked up due to Lizardmen's aquatic rules and some Lizardmen players wanting to use excessively large swamps.

The problem comes when armies have specific rules that they can take advantage of. Back when Wood Elves in WHFB had forest specific rules you'd occasionally see arguments when a board was either completely covered in forests or completely barren of forests.

Of course GW's own store tables are littered with GW terrain, they make terrain and want to promote it. The olden days when GW stores had more unique terrain was before GW really got in to the terrain making business (back when GW's terrain mostly amounted to cardboard buildings and the odd plastic ammo box/barrel).

Wayniac wrote:
...true hobbyist...

Are they also Scottish?

AllSeeingSkink wrote:
Which is why I think most people see it as such a confusing topic, because in general no one gives a crap (unless it's a specific rules based reason like the Sylvaneth) and it's shocking to think that someone actually cares just about general terrain that doesn't have specific special rules. Even going back to the olden olden days I remember there being a stink kicked up due to Lizardmen's aquatic rules and some Lizardmen players wanting to use excessively large swamps.

The problem comes when armies have specific rules that they can take advantage of. Back when Wood Elves in WHFB had forest specific rules you'd occasionally see arguments when a board was either completely covered in forests or completely barren of forests.

I think you've hit on the core issue here. I think it's fair to say that the designers generally assume you are using Citadel miniatures. I think it's also fair to say that the designers generally assume you are building your Citadel miniatures per the included instructions. As an extension, I think it's fair to say that the designers generally design the rules with the assumption that players will be using Citadel Miniatures built using the included instructions.

So... given that the rules are 'tuned' for use with official models, it's very reasonable for a player to challenge the use of unofficial models, especially where there is a measurable in game impact. Now... MOST of the time, if there is an impact with a piece of unofficial terrain, it impacts both players more or less equally. An unofficial wall blocks line of sight from both directions. An unofficial hill can be climbed from both sides Etc, etc. If the impact is roughly equal, usually nobody cares. It just makes the game different, but not lopsided.

When the impact affects one player far more than the other, there is an issue. Right now, a Sylvaneth player using unofficial Sylvaneth Wyldwood models can potentially gain a large in game advantage by playing around with how his Wyldwoods are built. I can't think of any other specific factions that can so easily game in game benefit.

I would say that a good rule of thumb is that homemade terrain is fine when it's part of the table. Homemade terrain can quickly turn into modelling for advantage when it's taken as part of an army. If you build terrain that doesn't more or less match the size/shape/line of sight transparency/etc of the official models, you run the risk of being challenged on your choices.

If you build terrain that doesn't more or less match the size/shape/line of sight transparency/etc of the official models, you run the risk of being challenged on your choices.

Thats my experience. If you scratch build forests, no one cares so long as they don't really block line of sight. If you scratch build a building, no one cares so long as it has windows you can shoot through like the citadel 40k buildings.

If you build a forest that blocks line of sight, a player that built a shooting army to take advantage of the fact that most tables don't have restricted line of sight will complain.

REALLY depends on your gaming group, though. My group tends to like lots of line of sight blocking terrain with some 'shooting lanes'. That way, melee units don't get mowed down turn 1, but shooting units can still usually shoot something at range.

Really, the only issue that has ever consistently popped up is the Sylvaneth player and his Wyldwoods. It quickly made the game no fun... and if it's no fun, why play?

 auticus wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Is this terrain like an AoS equivalent of home made bastions or Aegis Defense Lines that you paid points for but is larger than the GW version, or has some other Modeling For Advantage?

Its typically anything not a gw kit. Home made forests (there are too many trees in there and now they block line of sight and thats not fair), home made buildings (the windows are boarded up so the building blocks line of sight so thats not fair), home made lakes or swamps (there are no rules for those, and trying to use those as difficult terrain is not fair), home made hills (those block line of sight and are not fair). Pretty much anything like that I have seen a lot of.

The home made forests are the ones that I hear the most about when I read online or at the store.

I would direct them to these two books:


and then tell them to stop being such an idiot. Making your own terrain and models is a huge part of the hobby.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

 auticus wrote:

 kronk wrote:
Is this terrain like an AoS equivalent of home made bastions or Aegis Defense Lines that you paid points for but is larger than the GW version, or has some other Modeling For Advantage?

Its typically anything not a gw kit. Home made forests (there are too many trees in there and now they block line of sight and thats not fair), home made buildings (the windows are boarded up so the building blocks line of sight so thats not fair), home made lakes or swamps (there are no rules for those, and trying to use those as difficult terrain is not fair), home made hills (those block line of sight and are not fair). Pretty much anything like that I have seen a lot of.

The home made forests are the ones that I hear the most about when I read online or at the store.

I would direct them to these two books:


and then tell them to stop being such an idiot. Making your own terrain and models is a huge part of the hobby.

ATCM has the way of it.

 auticus wrote:

If you build terrain that doesn't more or less match the size/shape/line of sight transparency/etc of the official models, you run the risk of being challenged on your choices.

Thats my experience. If you scratch build forests, no one cares so long as they don't really block line of sight. If you scratch build a building, no one cares so long as it has windows you can shoot through like the citadel 40k buildings.

If you build a forest that blocks line of sight, a player that built a shooting army to take advantage of the fact that most tables don't have restricted line of sight will complain.

But then, why should all forests be exactly the same density? Google pictures of a birch forest and a tropical jungle. You can see a lot further ahead in the birch forest than the jungle. Not all forests have the same obscuring abilities and so to have every forest in our games be the same (when using TLOS at least) makes little sense.

Going the abstract route where yes, there are only three trees modelled there but they are just a representation of tens to hundreds of trees, and no, your goblin is not literally half the size of the tree, removes that issue and I think GW was incorrect to move away from the abstracted systems.

 Kriswall wrote:
I think you've hit on the core issue here. I think it's fair to say that the designers generally assume you are using Citadel miniatures. I think it's also fair to say that the designers generally assume you are building your Citadel miniatures per the included instructions. As an extension, I think it's fair to say that the designers generally design the rules with the assumption that players will be using Citadel Miniatures built using the included instructions.

I think you've hit on the core issue... if you substitute 'assume' with 'railroad'.

And does a piece of terrain, which is more or less neutral in most if it's use, count as a miniature?

So... given that the rules are 'tuned' for use with official models, it's very reasonable for a player to challenge the use of unofficial models,

I've seen you use the 'R' word before, in this topic. I didn't much agree with it then, either. I'd see it more as a conditioned response, than 'reasonable'.

An unofficial wall blocks line of sight from both directions. An unofficial hill can be climbed from both sides Etc, etc. If the impact is roughly equal, usually nobody cares. It just makes the game different, but not lopsided.

You're right of course, but I still can't help but boggle at the mindset of 'unofficial' walls and hills. Especially after this bit:

If you build terrain that doesn't more or less match the size/shape/line of sight transparency/etc of the official models, you run the risk of being challenged on your choices.

I know you're trying to justify things, but from where I'm sitting it's inadvertently adding to the case of the toxicity of GW gaming culture. In what other company's games do players get so wound up about terrain - thanks largely to how it's written into the rules, especially about using official terrain pieces? Even in Warmahordes, AFAIK, the worst millimetre-measuring nitpicking takes place over randomly-sized cardboard shapes. (Unofficial cardboard)

The current approach to terrain by GW is about maximum cash extraction. Realm of Battle boards with terrain kits they sell you. Make your own? Then you're not participating in the Games Workshop hobby: the purchasing of their products.

Kriswall wrote:I would say that a good rule of thumb is that homemade terrain is fine when it's part of the table. Homemade terrain can quickly turn into modelling for advantage when it's taken as part of an army. If you build terrain that doesn't more or less match the size/shape/line of sight transparency/etc of the official models, you run the risk of being challenged on your choices.

Emphasis mine. It makes sense for GW (financially speaking) to find a way to both sell terrain kits and to make them part of the army list.

What a coup! Monetizing terrain to the point where some people will now only play with the citadel kits. P. T. Barnum was definitely right.

I do find this state of affairs to be repugnant though. Has anyone participating in a group where it's official only and no homemade terrain actually stopped and asked themselves "what are we doing?!"



Forbidden!



Illegal!



How dare you!



Look away citizen!



You know it's good because of all the skulls! Include it in your army list! Purchase approved! £200 extracted.

Wake up people. Really.

As I said, most of the complaints aren't about people using this excuse because they feel you need to use GW terrain, it seems to be because they feel you are modeling for advantage by blocking line of sight when the official terrain doesn't block line of sight.

Its gotten very gamey.