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I've updated the list of rules for using regular TTW 28mm scale terrain for games of AT-43 to include rules for dangerous terrain. They are a first draft, so feedback on that particular rule would be most helpful.


1) All terrain on the table must have a Size characteristic.

2) Any terrain which is considered “Area Terrain” in other game systems will provide a standard 5+ Cover Save, improved to 3+ as normal with a “Take Cover” drill. Any such terrain will also halve the Combat Movement of any units if even a single model moves through the terrain. You may not perform a Rush Movement through Area Terrain. Area Terrain is not considered WYSIWYG for purposes of blocking Line of Sight.

3) Rivers or other waterways will halve a Combat Movement if even a single model moves through the terrain, but will not provide a Cover Save. You may not perform a Rush Movement through a body of water, river, or other waterway.

4) For all buildings, points of entry must be discussed and specified. AFV’s may not move through building walls. For purposes of vertical movement, units may move an equal horizontal and vertical distance in their turn. An intact building will not hinder movement. A ruined building will be considered Area Terrain as above.

5) Template weapons may only strike one floor of a building at a time. In open ground, templates may strike models at different heights so long as they are under the template.

6) Any terrain which would be categorized as "dangerous" will halve a Combat Movement if even a single model moves through the terrain. You may not perform a Rush Movement through Dangerous terrain. Any Infantry model which remains in dangerous terrain at the end of its movement is eliminated. Combat Striders or ground vehicles will take 1 SP of damage to their propulsion systems for every turn in which their movement ends on Dangerous Terrain.


What doesn't this cover? Think about terrain you use in your 40K games, anything and everything you've ever used. What wouldn't these rules cover?

Let's keep it on topic. Discuss.

A message to say that I did not abandon the discussion
These propositions are reasonable and coherent, but attention to respect well the spirit of the game.

I am more sceptic about certain points.

I prefer a double classification.
1) Normal ground, with normal rules.

2) Ground special, "special" rules, for special scenarii :
We can apply your (good) rules to the movements (but before pronouncing me I am going to test them).

BUT :
- Rules of batiments disturbs me most : in my opinion, batiments without "opening" hide the troops. "Only the fighters with a line of sight on at least one member of targeted unit can open fire"

- I dont like the "dangerous area" system in W40K rules. I prefer that we speak about impracticable ground, thus to by-pass simply, without line of sight.

I test my new army COG tomorrow. My opponent planned "Martian" grounds. I am going to apply this mixture of your propositions and my suggestions. I shall talk again of it

Sweet La veuve noire, I'd like to hear how these rules go in a real battle

I'm thinking trenches would count as buildings for purposes of these rules, but something like a foxhole / crater would be area terrain.

Area terrian is the only thing I might have a bit of trouble with. For instance an area considered "woods" in one of our games would be represented by individual trees not an area of green felt or what have you. That being the case unless your behind one of said trees you're not under cover and you would get no special defense by being near a tree. The rest seems reasonable.

La veuve - I really want to get what you're telling me, but something is getting lost in translation. I'm not sure what you mean by having normal rules, and special rules. Can you try to elaborate?

"Batiment" is a building, right? That's the best Google could do for me...

Buildings can do different kinds of things for units. If they have walls without windows, they block LOS and no one can see you. If they have windows, they provide cover. If they are ruins, then they would become Area Terrain.

Rule #4 only covers intact buildings. Infantry in AT-43 by and large aren't superhuman, so they aren't crashing through walls, hence the need to identify points of entry. If we want to get into making special rules for battlesuits, then things just got more complicated and AT-43 isn't about being complicated, so I feel that making different rules for Type III infantry would not be in the spirit of the AT-43 ruleset.

Striders in AT-43 also don't seem designed for crashing through stuff, and this also leads to an area of rules complexity which, again, isn't in the spirit of AT-43 I don't think.


If we start opening up to all sorts of terrain, I think you have to have "dangerous terrain" rules. Operation Frostbite introduced the concept to AT-43 through the Crevasse rule, so this is not a foreign idea to the ruleset, but here is an example.

We have a table at my club which has large lava flows running through it. You cannot tell me that a Star Trooper, Storm Golem, Krasnye Soldaty or Kaptar is going to stand in the middle of a river of lava and not die. The lava is specifically modeled into the table in order to provide this sort of impediment, and it requires these sorts of rules.

We have some toxic waste dumps which could be considered dangerous terrain, for another example. Basically, once you open up to "regular" 28mm terrain with all its variation, you may run into terrain which is specifically designed to be deadly to units, thus an AT-43 ruleset for 28mm terrain needs to have this rule contained within, even if you never wind up using it. This ruleset has to cover all potential situations in order to be effective and useful for everyone.


@ RiTides Nids -

In game terms, I think trenches and foxholes would be pretty equivalent to one another. Trenches would, IRL, be prepared positions whereas foxholes would be something you just dug where you were...but they both effectively provide concealment and cover. Out of respect for AT-43's attempt to keep the rules simple, I would hold them as one in the same.

By these rules, I would handle trenches like Area Terrain. They're not buildings because they don't have discrete entrances and exits, they don't have walls...they're just depressions in the ground. They would certainly provide cover, and they would certainly impede movement for either infantry or AFV's. Infantry standing up in the trench would still get cover, but not nearly as much as with a Take Cover! drill where they would be minimizing their exposure to the enemy.

This does raise an interesting point, though. As these rules get tested, eventually a list of what kind of terrain equates to which rule might be a good idea. Other game systems do this, and it seems to work.


The rule could get changed to this:

2) “Area Terrain” provides a standard 5+ Cover Save, improved to 3+ as normal with a “Take Cover” drill. Any such terrain will also halve the Combat Movement of any units if even a single model moves through the terrain. You may not perform a Rush Movement through Area Terrain. Area Terrain is not considered WYSIWYG for purposes of blocking Line of Sight.

Examples of Area Terrain would be: grasslands, crop fields, trenches, craters, forests...


@ IvanTT -

I wrote the Area Terrain rules the way I did because, again, AT-43 seeks to simplify things, and there is a considerable amount of feeling on behalf of 5th Edition 40K players that the way Area Terrain was handled in 4th Edition was superior.

In 4th Edition, Area Terrain was abstracted, and blocked LOS. So, if a piece of "forest" only had one tree modeled on it, that still counted as being a forest through the entire base of the terrain piece, because if you properly modeled the forest you wouldn't be able to get models through it. It would be impractical.

Now, in 5th Edition, Area Terrain is WYSIWYG, so if you have a forest piece with two trees, and Model A can see Model B between the two trees, Model B doesn't get a Cover Save from Model A's shooting.

Many of us feel this is ridiculous. So, the only way to properly model a forest to do what a forest would actually do IRL would be to model it with so many trees that no one can ever draw a clear LOS through it, which probably means modeling the trees so close together so as to make it impossible to move models into the forest, which means the forest just ceased to be Area Terrain like we intended and now has become Impassible Terrain as well as a LOS blocker.

Such is the insanity of WYSIWYG Area Terrain.

Flames of War handles Area Terrain in the same, abstracted manner as 40K 4th Edition, and it works. When we model a forest for our FoW tables, it will have 2-4 trees in the middle of the piece just to say "This piece of terrain here? This is a forest." We otherwise just flock the base, maybe put on some rocks or something, maybe some clump foliage, but we leave plenty of room for infantry stands and vehicles to move through the terrain.

AT-43, being a simplified ruleset, does not IMHO support WYSIWYG Area Terrain. It's not in the spirit of the game. The one place where 4th Edition 40K's abstracted Area Terrain rules often failed was in the question of height, i.e. is it infinitely high? Can a Skimmer see over it or not?

Because AT-43 uses Size Characteristics, we can use the ease of abstracted Area Terrain which speeds up gameplay without having to deal with the height issues that 40K 4th Edition provided us.

Also, and again, these rules need to be useful for everyone. So, on your table you may model the actual trees, but on my table we may use green felt. Your change to the rules makes them useless to me and my green felt, and thus the rules got weaker, not stronger.

This is the kind of thing I would like to be thinking about as we propose changes, or new things to test. First, consider whether a change you would like to propose is based on a personal aesthetic. If so, try to re-think in terms of design principles from other tabletop wargames and make your argument accordingly. It's going to be easier to justify a change if you can say "In X game the rule is written the way we have it right now, and it doesn't work right, and here's an example. However, in game Y a rule for a similar situation is written another way, and it works better, and here's an example..."

I don't think that using WYSIWYG terrain in AT-43 is a BAD thing, IvanTT, but if someone wanted to run forests WYSIWYG then I would suggest that that person's forests are now outside the scope of these Area Terrain rules, and are just plain WYSIWYG terrain. The forest base would not halve a Combat Movement, and could still be rushed through, as no one would ever be moving "through" one of the modeled trees, hence movement is never impeded - and now your cover rules for the forest make sense as you are not treating the terrain piece as a "forest," but as "a group of trees in the ground" with all the abstraction removed, if that makes sense.

I see your point and yes I think your solution is fine but for woods I'll stick w/ WYSIWYG terrain. I can see using special movement rules for rough, soft, or a slippery surface. I think dangerous terrain needs work as a bog or a toxic pit is a bit different than lava so perhaps such a large generalization even though in the interest of simplicity is a bad idea. I'm more interested personally on how to handle stairs, ladders and climbing as this has come up for our small group.

What kind of questions have you had about stairs, ladders, and climbing?

I believe La veuve noire was referring to:

"Normal" terrain (terrain that is covered by the rules already)
"Special" terrain (terrain not covered by the rules, hence needing these additional rules to clarify how to handle them)

Also, your explanation of trenches makes sense. For your example about lava- I would think lava should be "Impassable" terrain. I'm not sure what would count as "Dangerous" but not "Impassable". Perhaps these could be merged- or just changed to "Impassable"?

Troopers shouldn't have to die for moving into a salvage yard (which could be dangerous) but I certainly wouldn't think they could even move into (let alone remain in) lava!! I played on a board with lava modelled in, and there were specific bridges where infantry would have to cross (although bigger things could cross anywhere). This might need to be a case by case basis, but I'm thinking "Dangerous" might be a little too vague, and that "Area Terrain" and "Impassable" could cover most things.

This always bugged me about 40k, the difference between difficult and dangerous terrain. It's a big deal in terms of results in the game, but a lot of times what is assigned as "dangerous" doesn't look all that bad, to me!

Thanks for trying to translate.

The thing about "normal" terrain is the only "normal" terrain for AT-43 are low walls, high walls, containers, nanogenerators, Karman crystals, and the markings on 2D posters. This is the only terrain covered by the rules as they currently exist, hence we're still coming up with rules for "normal" terrain, as it were.

About dangerous terrain...again, IMHO these rules need to cover any kind of terrain people may want to use. They don't need to be holy writ per se, but they become a jumping-off point for anyone who wants to use regular terrain for AT-43.

I would think that for a lava flow you could jump over it, hence "dangerous" and not "impassable." Whereas "impassible" might be something like a very high rock wall that no one would really be able to climb, or which models are not going to be able to be placed without falling over every second...

In the end, I think that we need rules which cover all the various types someone might want to use, and then the actual classifications of what terrain piece is are made by the players at the table as much as possible. This, I think it serves us to have "dangerous" and "impassible" as distinct categories so that players may use them if they want. There may be some tactical and strategic interests in having "dangerous" terrain with the risks it carries in order to potentially, say, flank an enemy. It may be worth losing two or three Steel Troopers to now have the rest of the unit facing an exposed enemy flank, and force them to deal with the new threat.

With the temp. of lava being 700-2500 degrees celsius I would incline to agree that it is impassable. Most flamable things that come in contact with it burst into flames immediately and even being in close proximity to it w/o protective clothing can cause bad burns. I can't think of anything that would be more impassable even a crevasse.

Anyway stairs and ladders. As I read your rules you can climb stairs and ladders at the same vertical rate you can walk on flat ground seems wrong to me as even climbing a short wall halves your movement.

Stairs and ladders...first, this is the simplicity rule in action. That's pretty central to AT-43's design, so where it's possible to stick to it, I personally would choose to.

Second, movement is halved by leaping over walls because, well, you are leaping over walls. Stairs are a relatively smooth movement compared to that, certainly for trained soldiers. I wouldn't think that stairs or ladders would be much of an impediment to a trained soldier, hence why I would handle them as a regular movement.

Ritides Nids
Aaahhhh somebody understands finally what I'm "trying" to say.
The distinction which I propose has to be the beginning of this project. Sometimes i organize small tournaments, so it is necessary to clarify this point of rules. The players have clearly to indicate the "special rules" used for every "special terrain".

Cairnius [b]AND RiTides Nids[/b]: Speak about precise rules of a game is not so easy in a foreign language. I do my best. Sorry...

Cairnius /IvanTT
"Such is the insanity of WYSIWYG Area Terrain". I totally agree with you, terrain must be abstracted in this game. No Wysiwyg for area terrains, that works not. We never agree with our opponents, we waste time in discussion and we lost our friends.
So upstairs, ladders or UNA's toilets... These precise cases raise no problem. Free mouvement.

The problem comes from buildings (bâtiment, you're right) in ruin. During our party we clearly determined batiments without line of sight. But we used both 2D and 3D terrain, so it was a bit difficult.
The rules of movements proposed by Cairnius work correctly, but they create a new type of strategy, more defensive. It's a great advantage for COGS army and perhaps Karmas troops. The game is thus slowed. May be it coud be boring, and no respect the spirit of the game, so be careful. It is often like that in the last version warhammer. Everybody always gets cover and stay for tea time. In a Therian world factorie, the fighters sets traps and hide, they want to be invisible, silencely, without LOS (grimm golem attacks).

Finally, i think everybody is agree with impassable terrain yet.

Ruins are going to raise the main problem especially that buildings can be broken in this game.

EDIT
RiTides NIDS : you badly read i think... Don't be cruel please. I suffer.

La veuve noire wrote:It is often the case in V5 warhammer. Everybody always take cover and stay for tea time.

I love this quote !! Coming from 3rd edition (the last time I played 40k) and jumping into 5th edition, I was like Wow... Everybody gets cover All the time!! It's been quite an adjustment for me, but I never thought of phrasing it like that. Very nice

La veuve, can you tell me how using these terrain rules changed the game? Was it the Area Terrain which caused the change? If so, how did you handle Area Terrain? I gather you handled it in the abstracted method, but did you consider it a LOS blocker? I could see that changing things.

Then again, I'm still not sure how these terrain rules would really change AT-43 all that much. Shooting is still going to be brutal, I imagine...and having lots of cover to advance behind would seem to be a boon to Karman and Red Blok armies who have units that want to open up with their tremendous firepower up close without getting slaughtered on the way in.

The intent here is to liberate AT-43 players from the gaming tiles and posters, which IMHO are largely responsible for why AT-43 fails to catch on the greater gaming community, as once someone sees those gaming tiles it becomes clear that we are not playing a proper tabletop wargame compared to the other games being played in those environments, i.e. gaming clubs.

What worries me is La veuve's comments about these terrain rules creating a more defensive strategy. On the surface, I don't have a problem with that. While AT-43 is meant to be a quick and brutal game, I will admit that this has sometimes bothered me in that I think this creates the "rock-paper-scissors" gameplay. Units die SO quickly that you just bring out the specific unit to kill an enemy unit, the enemy counters with bringing out the specific unit to kill THAT unit, etc.

But my premise, my theory if you will, is that AT-43 gameplay can survive intact even when adapted to "proper" tabletop wargaming terrain, so as to free us from the strictures of posters and gaming tiles. It still has to be true to the spirit of AT-43, so a report that this is in question is worrisome to me.

La veuve, I was serious! (I was not joking or being sarcastic). I really liked the quote . I wasn't referring to spelling or grammar, just the idea of hiding in cover being the same as staying for tea was really cool

Text is difficult sometimes because things come across as sarcastic when they aren't, and also the other way around!

Anyway, I look forward to reading more of your posts on your experience with these rules for terrain and for AT-43 in general

But my premise, my theory if you will, is that AT-43 gameplay can survive intact even when adapted to "proper" tabletop wargaming terrain

We chose to use both types of terrain (2D / 3D) We applied the official rules for the 2D gaming tiles (so with a size caracteristic, black line= no LOS). And i think it was not a good idea. Perhaps it's the main reason to explain that i had the impression of a slower game.
My opponent played with my Therian army (2 grimm golem units with Atis, Wraigh G, Bane Goliath etc...)
I tested my new army COG, with long-range shooting essentially, Vandal etc...
Then we placed one "area terrain" each in his turn.

Then again, I'm still not sure how these terrain rules would really change AT-43 all that much. Shooting is still going to be brutal, I imagine...and having lots of cover to advance behind would seem to be a boon to Karman and Red Blok armies who have units that want to open up with their tremendous firepower up close without getting slaughtered on the way in.

The units move of area terrain in area terrain for having lot of cover you're right. But it's not the strategy of hand-to-hand fighters/units (grimm golem, Hekat). It is not the vocation of this units. No more its utility. So they are a little discriminated by the accumulation of areas and covers. It limits their movement and it's a boon for defensive strategy (shooting unit with long range weapons like COGS )
It is necessary to restore the balance. In my opinion, the rules 2 and 3 could get changed to this:
2) Any terrain which is considered “Area Terrain” in other game systems will provide a standard 5+ Cover Save, improved to 3+ as normal with a “Take Cover” drill. You may not perform a Rush Movement through Area Terrain. Area Terrain is not considered WYSIWYG for purposes of blocking Line of Sight
3) Rivers or other waterways will not provide a Cover Save. You may not perform a Rush Movement through a body of water, river, or other waterway.

The intent here is to liberate AT-43 players from the gaming tiles and posters, which IMHO are largely responsible for why AT-43 fails to catch on the greater gaming community, as once someone sees those gaming tiles it becomes clear that we are not playing a proper tabletop wargame compared to the other games being played in those environments, i.e. gaming clubs.

I aggre

What worries me is La veuve's comments about these terrain rules creating a more defensive strategy. On the surface, I don't have a problem with that. While AT-43 is meant to be a quick and brutal game, I will admit that this has sometimes bothered me in that I think this creates the "rock-paper-scissors" gameplay. Units die SO quickly that you just bring out the specific unit to kill an enemy unit, the enemy counters with bringing out the specific unit to kill THAT unit, etc.

I understand. But the risk it is to create another (good) game.

Globally this area terrain system works well, it's very important to say. And it can get even more interesting game if we do not decrease its efficiency. I am more and more enthusiastic. It is an excellent initiative

Ritides Nids.

So, basically what you are suggesting is that moving through Area Terrain or water doesn't halve Combat Movements?

I'm open to the idea...but then how do we square this with the official rules that you lose half a combat movement if you move through a Low Wall?

Wouldn't it depend on the particular area terrain? Water or marsh should definately and woods as well.
Rubbled buildings being a type of area terrain bothers me but hey like I said I'm going to continue using
the WYSIWYG terrain system for the most part. My stance on this remains pretty solid because I think
the scale is large enough to have most things represented true to life. When I used to play ASL I had no
problem with area terrain as it was impossible to represent true to life obstacles when a tank is 1/8 inch long.

We could indicate that there are two types of area terrain :

- Not military terrain, not thought for the fight (factorie, museum, house etc ...). 3+/5+ cover, no limitation for the Combat Movement, but no Rush can be perform.

- Military defense terrain (bunker etc...): the official rules (that you lose half a combat movement if you move through a Low Wall) can work already. So 3+/5+ cover, and any such terrain will also halve the Combat Movement of any units if even a single model moves through the terrain. No rush autorised.

I think its not a bad idea. All the buildings are not made with the same materials. The loaded concrete, it is not the same thing as the wood or such precast concrete. It will also please in players who have beautiful area sets


EDIT My daemon army http://s218.photobucket.com/albums/cc264/Asmediel/Pandora2/ bye.

I couldn't access the link to the pictures. :( Try again?

Okay, this time I get what you meant by the breakdowns of the two types of terrain, however I have concerns.


The first is a design-based issue...I don't read the official "halve combat movement for moving over a low wall" rule as having anything to do with the materials the terrain is made from. Rather, I read this as a general rule relating to the difficulty of moving through terrain at all.

Looking to other games for guidance, I would say it is related to the difficult terrain rules in 40K, rolling 2d6 and taking the highest as your movement through difficult terrain as a category of terrain regardless as to what, specifically, the terrain is physically, or in Flames of War how vehicles roll Bog checks for anything that is "difficult ground," that being a category of terrain which could cover several different physical incarnations.

Open ground is the default state for movement, yes? So, I think Star Troopers move 10cm as a Combat Movement - that's their movement with absolutely no impediments underfoot. In a building, you have to navigate stairs, or walk down hallways, through doorways, but it's still pretty easy movement for a combat trooper, so no movement restrictions.

Climbing up a hill, navigating through a forest with roots and vines and branches, moving through the rubble of a ruined building with loose cement and wreckage that makes footing less stable, climbing over rocks, that's all more difficult movement, hence putting it all into the same category of "Area Terrain" and imposing the same movement restrictions over all of it for ease of play.


The second concern is based on freedom of available terrain use.

Using categories makes it easier for people to use any and all terrain they have on hand, to be able to create different "themed" tables while always have Line of Sight blockers, Area Terrain, or Dangerous Terrain choices to use.

If they want to do a forest-themed table, they can use forests as their area terrain. If they want a city board, they can use ruined buildings. If they want to do a wasteland board, they can use rocky terrain pieces with man-high stones jutting up from the ground. If you start breaking down by the materials of the terrain piece, I think it actually limits the freedom with which people can use their terrain.


Before you and I start going back and forth with this, La veuve, can we get the others in this conversation to weigh in first, see what they think?

It looks like games of AT-43 are just really, really difficult to come by around me. The one AT-43 fan friend I have works until late on game nights, too late for me to just be starting a game with work the next day, and the other two friends just prefer playing other systems so I may just have to throw together the rest of the mission system and start tossing it up for feedback.

What I don't get is why so many AT-43 fans don't seem to see the problem with a lack of official support for pick-up play...I was over on the AT-43 forums and somebody was posting about the Army Boxes and how they come with posters and how they wish Rackham would support "regular table" terrain, I guess intimating that the Army Boxes should come with that kind of support?

I don't know...but the answer he got, the answer I got a lot when I used to be over there posting, was "You can make up your own scenarios, you know," which doesn't answer the question. The guy didn't ask about scenarios, he asked about open-table pick-up play. It's like the language just doesn't click with AT-43 die-hards.

Scenarios does not equal missions. They're different. People want "missions" like in 40K and FoW...I just don't see why AT-43 cannot officially support BOTH and then let the players decide which direction they want to go in on one day or another...

La veuve noire: Nice daemon army! You should post up those pics in the Painting & Modelling forum for all to see

Cairnius: Maybe this is why we have you, to come up with some good rules that we can all use

It'd be great to have someone on board who plays frequently, so that you can test out the rules! There's almost always going to be something that sounds great in theory but doesn't work in practice, and that would help avoid having to start over.

Let us know if you (or La veuve noire, or any other interested party!) gets to try out these rules or if you make more edits!

Interesting project here.

However, I do not realy like all bits. For an instance, a AOE-weapon fired into a building will damage more than one floor. (To the extreme, look at 11th September. Those jets didn't just wreck a couple of floors... )

One explosive grenade from a lage gun (vehicle-mounted and / or just hi-tech enough) will reach at least one floor up and several floors down in destructive force.


Another thing that bugs me is "entry points". We never cared about entry points in the military. If there were none, we made one. (Being mechanized, usually by having a MBT firing its main gun there, or a set charge or by sending a grenade from a recoilless rifle ("Carl-Gustav") where we wanted it.

Furthermore, walls provide little hinderance to vehicles. An MBT can very often drive right throu a building without much of a problem. Striders? Well, a breech-shot and then walking in should be no problem...

I don't see the need to overly complicate rules.
We use:

- "True-LOS" to determine cover.
- Two terrain types; Normal (no disadvantages) and Hindering (half move, but may rush at half speed)
- If in doubt, roll the die, 4+ you're right, otherwise the opponents point of view trumphs you.

In terms of AOE-weapons only effecting one floor...

If you lob a hand grenade into the second floor of a building, the chances of a unit on the third floor taking appreciable damage is minimal. Is it possible? Sure. Is it probable enough to warrant inclusion in game design? IMHO, no...I think there's a reason why 40K went in the direction it did with template weapons and different floors of buildings, and it makes sense. If you lob an artillery shell at a building and it airbursts over it, you may do some incidental damage to the troops inside, but not much. If you target a specific floor with the shell and actually land the shell inside the building at the targeted area, then people are probably going to die.

For entry points...sure, IRL you could either attach an explosive charge, or use a large gun to shoot a hole in a wall, but then these would be more rules we would need to create. You would need rules for infantry units making holes (do they need to set the charge and then get a minimal distance away?) or guns firing into structures (do we assign Structure Points to limited amounts of space? Do we have to worry about building collapse from an already-damaged building taking a hit from an artillery round?).


The problem with trying to bring RL logic and situations (in this case, you RL military experience which I respect) into these games is that then you start getting into simulation and increasing complexity of rule set. I don't think this could be less appropriate for AT-43. It's meant to be streamlined and simple. Even if we adapt the rules to regular 28mm terrain in a formalized system, that design spirit needs to be respected, again IMHO, otherwise you run the serious risk of really unbalancing the game.

The goal is to adapt the style of play you get on the tiles and posters, and through the Scenarios, into a free-form system as smoothly and with as little interference as possible, not to completely change the style of play. While AT-43 was not designed for free-table play the rules ARE adaptable to it...but I think one needs to pay as much attention to the designer intent inasmuch as it can be divined at all while making those adaptations.

To that end, I think I see the logic behind your extremely-simplified rules for terrain, but I don't think that's robust enough. There are different kinds of "hindering" terrain with their own particular hazards. A lava flow could be as much Hindering Terrain as a building ruin, for example, but the lava clearly has other hazardous properties that the terrain rules need to reflect - and this idea of dangerous terrain is not foreign to AT-43: look at the water and crevasse rules in Operation Frostbite...


I'm thinking about what you said per Rush movements, however...the issue I have with applying Rush movements to Area Terrain is that there has to be a sizeable penalty for being in Area Terrain in AT-43. Area Terrain is a HUGE variable to enter into the equation of AT-43's game design, and I'm not sure everyone has really thought this all the way through before putting together their 28mm terrain rule sets.

Think about it - how is cover normally determined in AT-43? It's angles of fire - you have to get cover interposed between you and the shooting unit such that when you draw the Zone of Fire, more than half of the Zone turns into that "dead area" created behind cover. If you can do that, you're in cover. If you can't, you are not - so cover is *never* determined by a unit sitting within a terrain element with the sole exception of Bunkers. This is excluding the 5+ cover save for units out in the open in Frostbite if they are painted in winter colors...

When you introduce Area Terrain, you introduce a radical new dynamic to AT-43. When my unit of Steel Troopers moves into a forest, they are now getting cover FROM ALL ANGLES. I really don't even need to bother measuring the Zone of Fire for purposes of determining cover. I get cover. End of story.

This is a powerful, powerful defensive advanatge for infantry we've just given them - we're basically handing out Space Marine saves to any infantry unit in Area Terrain that uses a Take Cover! drill, and you're either desperately low on LP or just not thinking straight if you don't give Take Cover! to a unit in Area Terrain.

So, there HAS to be a corresponding offensive cost for taking advantage of this. Therefore, no Rush movements. If you want the liberal cover saves, fine - but your ability to offensively maneuver is going to suffer accordingly.

Because the current Area Terrain rules can make Area Terrain a LOS blocker for infantry if it is designated as Size 3 or higher, my ruleset specifically prohibits you from placing more than one piece of terrain of Size 3 or larger per 1' by 1' area on the board. That piece of terrain can also be no longer than 12".