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Hello all.

So, as I just purchased a 40k Rule Book, I was flipping through all the pages reading about things I didn't understand and I came across the terrain section.

It talked about how some people use the terrain in different ways. Some people just use it as something to be in the way for cover, etc. But then I read that some people use it in a more flavorful way, ex: A large building can only be entered by a unit after having another unit "open" it from a different "remote" location.

All the people I play with have always played with terrain as just something there for cover saves and etc, but this immediately sparked my interest.

What do you guys do when you play with different terrain??

The problem with more interesting or realistic terrain is that often it's not worth using the special quality of. Why spend turns climbing to the top floor of a structure when I already have cover from intervening models? It's that sort of thing.

Of course there are ways to make terrain more interesting, but that greatly depends on house rules.

My friend plays BA with lots of jump packs, I tend to run my DE with some sniper squads, the obvious skimmers and sometimes jetbikes. A lot of the terrain we use is the GW ruined building ones with the multiple levels. Leaping from the roof of one building to another to get around a ground unit's side, having a DL squad (or plasma cannon squad) sitting tucked away high up with good LoS and troops somersaulting up floors is a very common part of our games. It seems we've added a vertical dimension to the board.

To my advantage most of the time.

I kinda of a OCD problem with a certain building. It's like the perfect place to stick a CCS and the PCS nearby with the big guns.

They also had a cool bunker modeled after the starcraft ones but they took it away after it got busted up.

Wasn't me.

I would probably only tend to put in a "special feature" in a campaign. Otherwise terrain would just be terrain.

I often jump my raptors over or around difficult or impassible terrain to escape from things that could charge it, or to get to a tank that thinks it is safe because it is sitting behind a building in cover though... I like my boards to be full of terrain, even if a lot of it is craters rather than buildings.

Hmm... so it seems like you guys just use terrain for the fact that it's good hideout spots or the like.

How do you think it would affect a campaign (and sorry, a campaign is just a game of 40k yes? I've never heard that term before, still a newb here!) if I would to propose the idea of using terrain as a sort of storytelling object? (ie. the whole open a building thing from a different location with another unit that I talked about earlier)

Would that slow down gameplay a lot more? It doesn't seem like it would to me, but I also take forever to play because I'm always lookin stuff up.

I would say a campaign is a series of games, generally progressing through a story. A single game is a battle within the campaign.

If, for example, the first game of the campaign you had to seize a bunker from the enemy, which would then lower the bridge into a city/fort/etc in the second battle, and then in the second battle, depending if you were successful or not, the bride would be down, or you would have to attack across the river (or through another route).

I just think that a story driven mission would be too focussed to be hugely enjoyable unless you were up for it. Thus for casual play I would not do it.

If I were playing a single game and my opponent and I wanted to, we could introduce story elements within a single battle. For example, if I capture the control hill by turn 4, the deathstrike missle will not launch, but if I do not then it does... or something similar... building x- does y, location z does w etc...

I'm currently teaching my 10 yr old son (and my 6 yr old daughter - kind of!) how to play 40K, and having a campaign setting has GREATLY improved the attention spans! Using terrain (such as my freshly painted Fortress of Redemption) with special rules attached has been a lot of fun, too.

Campaigns and special tourney scenarios are usually the only place I see rules like that for specific pieces of terrain. Of course, you can always agree beforehand what does what and why.

I ussualy prefer cityfight becuase it makes it more diverse. It's an infinitely more dynamic environment than an open field.

As for special buildings. Well, for pictures we had a certain Imperial Walkway that looked simply awesome when you deployed your army to march through it. But it never had any special rules... (I suppose you could use the Sacred Ground rule or something. )