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Setting up, how much, what types? LOS? 2D terrain? Pregenerated charts?

Let me know how you're doing it. Friendly and Tourney situations.

Fill 1/4 of the board with terrain, then we just spread it out in a somewhat balanced manner.

If feeling like it, we will quickly roll scatter dice for each piece and move it.

I often complain about the lack of LOS blocking terrain used in my neck of the woods. There should always be at least two significant pieces of terrain that block los completely in addition to significant pieces of area terrain.

I use a lot of terrain - about 50% coverage if I can. Lots of area (craters etc), lots of low walls, some 1 floor buildings, and now I have some Necromunda terrain, some multi floor buildings will be gracing my table.

When I finally finish my gaming bored, I will craft some slightly more custom terrain to fit the WWI trenches style theme I want for the board, rather than just filling the table with LOS blocking stuff.

I tend to take it in turn with my opponent to set up pieces of terrain, usually going from largest to smallest pieces.

coredump wrote:
Fill 1/4 of the board with terrain, then we just spread it out in a somewhat balanced manner.

If feeling like it, we will quickly roll scatter dice for each piece and move it.

I absolutely endorse this opinion.

The rules state that there should be 25% terrain. If you have a 4' x 6' table, mark off a section that is 2' x 3', and fill it with terrain. Then, spread that around the table. This will ensure that you have 25% of the table covered with terrain. Now, this doesn't all have to be epic, LOS blocking terrain, but you can easily cover 25% of the table with a variety of LOS blocking terrain, area terrain, and other pieces like low walls, hedges, debris, and craters.

For years now I have considered the best players to be the ones that can adapt to and use terrain to their advantage. Boring tables for a 40K game that look more suited for a WFB game are just plain pathetic to play on.

Saldiven wrote:
For years now I have considered the best players to be the ones that can adapt to and use terrain to their advantage. Boring tables for a 40K game that look more suited for a WFB game are just plain pathetic to play on.

An excellent point Saldiven! In this age of cut-and-paste army lists terrain seperates the tacticians from the rest (sadly many TO think that 'wacky! fun! crazy! missions' is the best way to do this).

I prefer themed tables that look as much as possible like all the parts go together, rather than just a random scattering of terrain.

So what generally winds up happening for games at home is that I set up the table and give my opponent the choice of either picking which side they want or rolling for sides.

And I tend to pack it on... The more scenery the better, where 40K is concerned.


If I'm playing elsewhere, I'll go with whatever is the norm for the venue.

25% terrain with the bigger bits towards the middle.

In a friendly then whoever's ready first sets up and the other person nudges a few bits around if he wants.

More competitive then take it in turns.


As far as classifying it, I find it's usually pretty obvious what terrain is. The only things that I usually have to clarify are stuff like clumps of big rocks on a base (usually difficult area terrain and impassable for vehicles - same as tank traps).

I agree 25%+ with a focus on the bigger (LOS blocking) terrain in the middle.

I realize that making enough terrain to handle even a midsized tournament is a major undertaking, but.....daaaaaamn! Some of the picture seen from tournaments shows some ridiculously small amounts of terrain (and usually placed in the corners too).

I don't have a problem with some of the larger pieces going in the corners/edges... after all, if you always put them in the middle, things can get stale.

Sometimes it is fun to attack/defend a large piece of terrain crawling with soldiers

And ratio of types of terrain?

My main opponent and I have figured out a semi-random system of deploying terrain.

First, we divide the table into six equal sections (and number them) and divide the terrain as evenly as possible in six parts. Then, for each group of terrain we roll a D6 - that group of terrain is then placed in the corresponding table section. If a group of terrain has already been assigned to that section, then we add +1 to the roll until we get to an unassigned section, wrapping around if necessary (so a 6+1 becomes 1).

Then we we roll off to see who starts setting up terrain first. There are some rules:

1. The winner of the roll-off deploys all the terrain in section 1. Then the loser deploys all the terrain in section 2 etc.
2. Each piece of terrain must be deployed within its table section more than 12" from another piece that has already been deployed if possible; if this is not possible, then the piece of terrain can be placed anywhere that is touching the border of the section it is in.
3. After placing a piece of terrain, roll a scatter die: the terrain is moved 2D6" in the direction indicated by the arrow. If this takes it into contact with another piece of terrain, then it just stops before coming into contact. If a 'hit' is rolled, then the terrain stays where it is.
4. After all terrain has been placed, any buildings and ruins are designated a 'front facing'. The scatter die is then rolled, and the building/ruin is pivoted so that its 'front facing' points in the direction indicated. If this makes any part of the terrain hang off the board edge or touch another piece of terrain, it is moved the smallest distance possible to avoid the contact.

It may be a little complex, but it works for us. We generally aim for about 25% board coverage with mostly buildings/ruins, some difficult terrain (the old crashed Aquila is perfect for this) and one large, impressive piece of terrain (usually a big ruin or the Skull Temple GW terrain piece or something).

Hopefully that all makes sense.

All my terrain placing have been friendly. There have been competitive lists and players, but never anyone who wants so badly to win the game that they feel the need to place the terrain to their advantage. I've never arranged a tournament, but I'd go by the same principles there. If I play in a torunament I expect the tables to be set up by the organisers.

I usually set up a scenario that seems as if it is somewhere. Today I fought over an imperial excavation site with a huge necron monument near one short end of the board, some research bunkers with fortifications and fences in the middle and a bunch of ruins near the other end. A few forests and hills along the long edges gave the feeling of wilderness. The "fill a quarter of the table" is a good indication of the volume needed. My regular gaming group got a huge "oooh..." moment the first time we tried it.

insaniak wrote:I tend to pack it on... The more scenery the better, where 40K is concerned.

Amen! The more the merrier- i generally set up *most* of the terrain when i play, but i always step back and go "what do you think?" to the other player/s to move some peices a little bit this way or that way.

In my corner of the world I think we generally do pretty well on terrain, coverage is usually pretty reasonable, with a good amount of LOS blockage. On a lot of Internet postings though there definitely seems to be a lot of boards that I would hate to play on---table after table of open plains. Combined with generally more static previous editions, I think the prevalence of that sort of setup in the past has contributed greatly to the perception outside the GW/40k community as 40k being a simple, static game of point-and-click shooting without any tactics or strategy. It can be cool once in a while to have a fairly open board, but enough is enough pretty quickly.

This might only be true in my area, but there also seems to be a definite tendency to just make basically everything a 4+ cover save. Recently I've been pushing to really use more varied cover saves and although I can't say it's affected strategy a ton, it has made things more thematic.

MeanGreenStompa wrote:And ratio of types of terrain?

Mine personally goes something like this:

1-2 large multi-level building, 2-3 single level buildings, 5-6 craters, 1 wood (I only have one :(), 1 temple of skulls, and about 10-15 sections of waist-head high wall.

But as I say, that can vary and it does take up a lot of the table (about 50% generally), but the ratios stay about the same, about 70-80% is LOS blocking, the rest is area terrain like craters. By table coverage though, it is about 50:50, as the walls are on quite small bases and the craters are fairly large.

For friendly games, I fill a quarter of the table with terrain to see how much terrain to use. Take it all off and then roll off to see who places a terrain piece first. Alternate placing terrain pieces until they are all on the table.

If my opponent is busy (last minute writing army list, chatting it up with other table, etc..) then i will just place the terrain spread out evenly and make sure opponent is okay with it before starting.

We usually agree that all terrain is difficult and gives a 4+ cover save.

I like to grab the ruins terrain because they are bigger (fewer trips to get the terrain), but if the ruins are already being used my FLGS has plenty of stuff like rocks and trees as well. I save a few craters to use for when my vehicles get blown up.