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So, THIS thread has got me thinking - http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/280076.page - but I didn't want to derail so here's another situation.

I was going to make some very round craters by building up some putty around the edge of a CD and painting it grey. Why? So that, when a vehicle explodes, I can replace it with a crater, like it says in the rules. Now, I could buy GW craters, but the problem we've found is that the plastic GW craters are a lot bigger than a vehicle, so you end up having to move around other bits of terrain to fit your crater in. A CD is about the right size, though.

Now, after it has exploded, the unit that were in the vehicle are now standing in a circular crater. Does this give them a cover save for being in area terrain?

If i'm right about the jist of the previous thread, the clear circular border of the crater means that it is LOS terrain rather than Area terrain. This then means that there's no way any normal sized model is 50% obscured by my little crater edges, and doesn't get cover. The only effect of this 'vehicle explodes crater' is to create a new bit of difficult terrain.

Is this correct?

ArbitorIan wrote:Now, after it has exploded, the unit that were in the vehicle are now standing in a circular crater. Does this give them a cover save for being in area terrain?

You have to decide that before the game, as per page 88, in the "Define Terrain" step.

Arbitorian - sorry, no, just because it HAS a border doesnt mean it isnt area terrain. T hat was a misconception by one poster.

If you have generally defined craters to be area terrain then it owuld be area terrain.

ArbitorIan wrote:This then means that there's no way any normal sized model is 50% obscured by my little crater edges, and doesn't get cover.

Just want to point out another misconception here, a non-vehicle model does not need to be 50% obscured to claim cover.

ArbitorIan wrote:If i'm right about the jist of the previous thread, the clear circular border of the crater means that it is LOS terrain rather than Area terrain.

That was the gist of what was being suggested in the original post of that thread. It's incorrect.

If you remove the defined border from Area Terrain, it is unusable in the game as there's no way of telling where the terrain starts.

To the OP, I'd really suggest that you go back and read Insaniak's reply to the original post, and then read through the area terrain rules on page 13 again.

The reason why many pieces of irregularly shaped area terrain, such as craters and ruins, have borders is to indicate where the terrain ends if either the terrain lacks clear boundaries or the players wish to ignore those boundaries.

If you put a flat disc of plastic like a large blast marker on the table and call it crater, the only thing which the lack of LOS blocking elements to that crater is going to prevent (or make really, really hard) is the cover save caused by shooting between elements of area terrain. Being a flat, featureless disc of plastic doesn't prevent something from conferring a cover save to models inside its area.

If you are going to the trouble of making that terrain.

Make a more rectangular crater, and you can even add in vehicle bits. It will look cool, and be more obvious about cover.

just a tidbit for terrain modeling. I use aluminum pie plates to make craters. Turn it upside-down and push the underside to the floor. Play with the edge a bit and bam! you have a crater 90% complete. Add some flock and what not and it looks awesome.

Deuce11 wrote:just a tidbit for terrain modeling. I use aluminum pie plates to make craters. Turn it upside-down and push the underside to the floor. Play with the edge a bit and bam! you have a crater 90% complete. Add some flock and what not and it looks awesome.

Ooo, I like that alot. Have to try...

But yes, I use alot of CD-ROMs for quick blast terrain. I found a cool Mars crater and printed them onto disc labels.

For cool vehicle stuffs, I used spackle and hot-glue. Then added bits:

For quite some time now I've been toying with the idea of using MDF cutouts the same dimensions as my vehicles for craters. Just add a little foam and the occasional junk bit and voila... exact size and shaped craters.

Now that I've got a vehicle heavy IG list it might be time to do it since those Chimeras are GOING to get popped like sardine cans.