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Since terrain and boards come in many shapes and sizes, not to mention bolted into the board, the manipulation of them by player means mid match in this way seems pretty dumb. Might be a fun mess once or twice, but a city fight board with a couple of psykers both happening to land 6's will get out hand, big time. :_D

Should atleast include a rough maximum size for the pieces affected.

Seems fine.

It's not even remotely the most powerful thing in that book.

 Meos wrote:
Since terrain and boards come in many shapes and sizes, not to mention bolted into the board, the manipulation of them by player means mid match in this way seems pretty dumb. Might be a fun mess once or twice, but a city fight board with a couple of psykers both happening to land 6's will get out hand, big time. :_D

Should atleast include a rough maximum size for the pieces affected.

Though I would pay to see that matchup.

Not going to bother playing against people who run on Geokinesis.

Not even because of the potential for abuse for winning, because the ruleset is pretty bollocks anyways as it is, but because this is really not how I picture the 40k universe with dudes flinging buildings at one another.
If I wanted to see that, I'd play The Force Unleashed thank you.

The power sounds awesome. I can't wait to play someone that uses it, especially watching it against those stupid pansies otherwise known as Tau!

This is worse than Fzorgle ever was by a long way. If you thought it was bad back in the day when that power used to give your opponent carte blanche to put his Cheeto-hands all over your models, think of how awesome you'll feel as he attempts to move that 4-story ruin with your metal Lord of Change balanced precariously at the top.

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
This is worse than Fzorgle ever was by a long way. If you thought it was bad back in the day when that power used to give your opponent carte blanche to put his Cheeto-hands all over your models, think of how awesome you'll feel as he attempts to move that 4-story ruin with your metal Lord of Change balanced precariously at the top.

The Smurf player will simply insist that it's your fault for obviously placing your LoC in a bad position, where it could so easily be carelessly broken!

This power is hilarious, good but situational, randomly rolled, and is warp charge 3. You can also play against it by having your units leave a guy just behind the terrain piece so they can't drag you away with the forest, or staying behind other terrain so if they fling a piece up to your lines with a deathstar, they can't get it close enough to assault without having two libbies in two units both roll up and cast the power. (One to get your terrain piece out of the way, the other to send theirs towards you.)

Now there would need to be some GROUND rules (hehehe) about what happens with objectives and the like, but after those are set, I'd gladly play with/against the power.
In fact I'm probably going to challenge someone to a game where we both bring conclaves and guarantee pre-game that 1 Libby from each has it, because that game sounds awesome.

Experiment 626 wrote:

 Abadabadoobaddon wrote:
This is worse than Fzorgle ever was by a long way. If you thought it was bad back in the day when that power used to give your opponent carte blanche to put his Cheeto-hands all over your models, think of how awesome you'll feel as he attempts to move that 4-story ruin with your metal Lord of Change balanced precariously at the top.

The Smurf player will simply insist that it's your fault for obviously placing your LoC in a bad position, where it could so easily be carelessly broken!

If they don't give you the courtesy of picking your models up first, tell them that they can't place it anywhere since they can't place the terrain within 1" of another piece and open ground is technically terrain

EDIT: Niv, that is an amazing idea and I'm gonna ask my friend if he wants to do it for the 4k game we're playing this week

To me the real star of the Geokinesis show is Phase Form. Friendly unit within 24" gets Move Through Cover, Ignores Cover, and doesn't need LoS to attack an unit. I know what my Lascannon Devastators are getting for Christmas!

I will laugh in the face of any Tau or Eldar player who balks at me using this power.

In a very friendly environment without TFGs, this would have to be the funniest power imaginable.

I can't wait for the ITC clarification/errata/houserule that comes out of this new Angels of Death and psychic cards ridiculousness. The furor and threads devoted to that will be the real spectacle.

 the_Armyman wrote:
I can't wait for the ITC clarification/errata/houserule that comes out of this new Angels of Death and psychic cards ridiculousness. The furor and threads devoted to that will be the real spectacle.

My expectation is that Shifting Worldscape will be banned entirely tbh, it's just too much of a hassle for long-form tournies...

I get the genuine concern about models being in danger if they take a roller coaster ride across the board, but I have this crazy 3 step solution:

1) Take the models off the terrain piece
2) Move the terrain piece
3) Put models back where they were on the terrain piece

At this point you can proceed with life.


If your concern is that it breaks the game or whatever, no. No it does not. Even the re-rolling saves power doesn't "break the game". Understanding how to tactically approach the game is what distinguishes people who think the game is broken from people who understand how to play the game.

If you can't kill a deathstar, ignore it. It's really not complicated. And anyone who is both reliably getting veil of time AND making good use of the re-roll (so something like 4++ or 3++ saves on the unit) is absolutely an expensive deathstar.


All that aside, I think it is a thematically awesome power.

Thanks to everyone for all the replies and points of view. So far it is a pretty close poll, with the Yes side slightly ahead. Since I started the poll and thread, I feel I should chime in with more detail about my perspective. I voted No in case anyone was wondering. And I voted that way for many reasons, but I am only going to touch on what I feel is the actual real world Physical Impact this new power has on the game.

The first thing I thought when I read the rule was WTF?? LOL. But my first serious thought was how I as a player always extend the courtesy of not touching my opponents models, without their express request; and even then I take the utmost care when moving them. However this power allows one player the option of moving an entire piece of terrain up to two feet around the board, without need the owning players consent (from a rules perspective). It goes without saying that in many games, models are sometimes placed in less than ideal conditions with respect to stability. We've all heard of the Wobbly Model Rule.

So my first thoughts were not regarding power levels, first turn charges, etc... but the simple possibility that the action of using Shifting Worldscape could cause catastrophic results in the case that someone's hand slips. I can't speak to what sorts of tables and terrain features you all play with, but I have seen some fairly sizeable and complex pieces in my time. This rule just seems extremely poorly thought out with regards to the actual logistics of moving terrain around after the game has begun.

How will your view of the game change after your opponent, or even yourself decides to move a multi level ruin across the board; only to have your 'embarked' squads fall off and possibly break. Ask yourself the following questions.

Would you start to reconsider placing models in certain terrain because of the possibility that your army could suffer real damage in the run of a game? A real world consequence impacting your imaginary world tactics.

Would you not use the power on an opponent because you might be afraid that doing so could potentially damage their models?

Would you change your approach to making your own terrain when considering Shifting Worldscape?

Would you change how you place terrain on the board before the game, either loading it up to limit the power, or opening it up to make it logistically easier to perform the necessary physical actions of moving terrain?

I don't feel I have even begun to scratch the surface of the implications that Shifting Worldscape brings to the table. And I really don't feel that GW considered them very thoughtfully either. Looking forward to reading more of your thoughts and perspectives.

 luke1705 wrote:
If your concern is that it breaks the game or whatever, no. No it does not. Even the re-rolling saves power doesn't "break the game". Understanding how to tactically approach the game is what distinguishes people who think the game is broken from people who understand how to play the game.

Yeah, you effing scrubs! Git gud.

 luke1705 wrote:
I get the genuine concern about models being in danger if they take a roller coaster ride across the board, but I have this crazy 3 step solution:

1) Take the models off the terrain piece
2) Move the terrain piece
3) Put models back where they were on the terrain piece

At this point you can proceed with life.

You make a very good point Luke. I'm only picking you out of the crowd because my last post was specifically about his issue.Your suggestion is very sensible and reasonable. And in most circumstances sensible and reasonable is the way to go. But...

However, this is not how I want to play the game. Games are already long enough without having to add effectivly another movement phase. This could be required several times over the course of the game, and if you have a large squad you may find it to be a significant time sink. Not to mention that there will inevitably be issues with keeping track of which model was where.

SpookyRuben wrote:
Ask yourself the following questions.

Would you start to reconsider placing models in certain terrain because of the possibility that your army could suffer real damage in the run of a game? A real world consequence impacting your imaginary world tactics.

Would you not use the power on an opponent because you might be afraid that doing so could potentially damage their models?

Would you change your approach to making your own terrain when considering Shifting Worldscape?

Would you change how you place terrain on the board before the game, either loading it up to limit the power, or opening it up to make it logistically easier to perform the necessary physical actions of moving terrain?

But that's all part of the fun! It adds an extra level of immersion to the game helping players to Forge the Narrative. You'll think twice about sending your men into harm's way, just like your Warlord would! And broken models are just another opportunity to engage in the best part of the Hhhobby - purchasing Games Workshop product!

I'm surprised they don't have a WC3 power that lets you smash your opponent's models. Hammer of the Emperor ftw!

SpookyRuben wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
I get the genuine concern about models being in danger if they take a roller coaster ride across the board, but I have this crazy 3 step solution:

1) Take the models off the terrain piece
2) Move the terrain piece
3) Put models back where they were on the terrain piece

At this point you can proceed with life.

You make a very good point Luke. I'm only picking you out of the crowd because my last post was specifically about his issue.Your suggestion is very sensible and reasonable. And in most circumstances sensible and reasonable is the way to go. But...

However, this is not how I want to play the game. Games are already long enough without having to add effectivly another movement phase. This could be required several times over the course of the game, and if you have a large squad you may find it to be a significant time sink. Not to mention that there will inevitably be issues with keeping track of which model was where.

I feel like you're really making a mountain out of a mole hill here. The most often result is that the models in the terrain piece will be not precariously balanced and you will simply move the terrain piece, or ask your opponent to move the terrain piece if his models are in it. If the models in the terrain are an issue because of precarious balancing or some other situation, you could simply move them off the terrain, keep them in the formation that they were in, and then replace them after the terrain has moved. That's gonna take like 20 extra seconds. And being that this power is a warp charge three, you will not see it cast over and over in the same turn. That is assuming they roll up the power at all.

And if you get into a really complicated terrain situation, you can just snap a picture with your phone.

It's not as ridiculous as a few of the warp charge two powers like invis or fortune, and it's not going to be incredibly useful all the time like those are as well. If this power was banned for any reason, then we should be taking a serious look at some of the other powers as well as some of the more ridiculous units. All it needs is a quick FAQ to clarify how it interacts with objectives really.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

It's not as ridiculous as a few of the warp charge two powers like invis or fortune, and it's not going to be incredibly useful all the time like those are as well. If this power was banned for any reason, then we should be taking a serious look at some of the other powers as well as some of the more ridiculous units.

Well, ideally events would have already done this. Alas, most really don't

But yes absolutely some of the more outrageous elements of the game should be curtailed and this power isn't unique amongst that.

So I posted this in the 'tactics' thread, but here's some cool options for the power:

1: Void shield generators that move with your army.
1a: Void Shield generators that abandon the enemy army to join yours.
2: Entire army on a Skyshield for mobile 4++.
3: Move terrain (Aegis?) in front of your army to force enemies to assault through cover.
4: Army embarked on an Aquila Strongpoint Assault Transport. Any hill or crater is now a 24" move assault transport, but you may as well do it in AV15 D-Blast toting style.
5: Make your enemies move as if they're on a treadmill. Cycle their assault units towards the backfield every turn.
6: Just move the terrain 6" in front of him every turn. Make his infantry spend the entire game embarking & disembarking from that terrain piece to chase the objective.
7: Is an enemy unit safe behind some BLOS terrain? Not for long!
8: Is your unit looking down the barrel of some Riptides? Not for long - move that BLOS piece in.
9: Pull your opponent's models in to first turn charge range with you.
10: Too lazy to go grab objectives? Bring objectives to you!

Just doing any of these things once in a game would be game-winning. Even just having the ability to use the power is game-changing; your opponent will spend the entire game worrying that he can't move models on to terrain, he can't place objectives in terrain, he can't hide behind terrain. Even if he plays 'sensibly' by leaving one model of a shooty unit off the back of a hill so the unit can't be brought to you on a silver platter, that means he's effectively playing that unit down one model the entire game.

It being WC3 is a little bit of a downside... if the librarius conclave didn't already exist. The only saving grace is that you need to roll for it and powers 0, 1, 2, and 5 are all pretty lame.

As I said in the other thread, many of you seem to be assuming that the moved terrain is put down in the same orientation. What do you do if your opponent turns the hill your unit is standing on upside down?

Trasvi wrote:
So I posted this in the 'tactics' thread, but here's some cool options for the power:

1: Void shield generators that move with your army.
1a: Void Shield generators that abandon the enemy army to join yours.
2: Entire army on a Skyshield for mobile 4++.
3: Move terrain (Aegis?) in front of your army to force enemies to assault through cover.
4: Army embarked on an Aquila Strongpoint Assault Transport. Any hill or crater is now a 24" move assault transport, but you may as well do it in AV15 D-Blast toting style.
5: Make your enemies move as if they're on a treadmill. Cycle their assault units towards the backfield every turn.
6: Just move the terrain 6" in front of him every turn. Make his infantry spend the entire game embarking & disembarking from that terrain piece to chase the objective.
7: Is an enemy unit safe behind some BLOS terrain? Not for long!
8: Is your unit looking down the barrel of some Riptides? Not for long - move that BLOS piece in.
9: Pull your opponent's models in to first turn charge range with you.
10: Too lazy to go grab objectives? Bring objectives to you!

Just doing any of these things once in a game would be game-winning. Even just having the ability to use the power is game-changing; your opponent will spend the entire game worrying that he can't move models on to terrain, he can't place objectives in terrain, he can't hide behind terrain. Even if he plays 'sensibly' by leaving one model of a shooty unit off the back of a hill so the unit can't be brought to you on a silver platter, that means he's effectively playing that unit down one model the entire game.

It being WC3 is a little bit of a downside... if the librarius conclave didn't already exist. The only saving grace is that you need to roll for it and powers 0, 1, 2, and 5 are all pretty lame.

Again, being randomly rolled and wc3, you're not going to see this power being thrown around like candy. If they do get it, it will just come once per turn from the conclave IF there's something useful to do with it. I highly disagree that doing one of these things once will win a game. (The void shield counter is really good, but I think void shields deserve a hit anyway.)

-we don't know how objectives interact with it yet. You may just leave the objective there on the ground. Needs clarification.
-riptides don't care unless your blos terrain piece is 12" long and moderately tall. They can move and fire with table wide range. Also they are jet pack, so they could just hop on or over the thing.

-your armies are going to be more than just 1 unit. Average 1850's have 15-20, with some sporting near 40. With you getting one cast of shift per turn, you're not going to be breaking his back with just that power anytime soon.

-it can be played around. One dude moves out of the terrain and the unit is now immune to being hurled anywhere. Anyone who sees you roll up the power will do this.

-libbies are entirely killable. If the power could really mess with you, make the Libby a priority target. Culexus says hi.

-randomly rolled means you can't really build around the power, especially since there's no Loth equivalent that can guarantee it. If you set up a deathstar so that you can fling the forest they start in into charge range, some games will just have you marching to your death with the other crappy geo powers. Consistency is important in competitive games. You need things that are going to perform 6 games straight.

The only way I'll consider this power to be a bit over the top is if tourneys rule objectives to move with the terrain. If not, I'd only ever give the discipline a nod to try and counter a VSG. (Or have some fun in a funsies game.)

Lol I am going to have a field day dispelling that with all my psyker dice if you dont like it or think its going to be too meta then build khorn or more psykers, or just improve your deny the witch in general

What happens with it when a single model unit is like 10% out of the terrain? What about 50%? 90%?

 Unit1126PLL wrote:
What happens with it when a single model unit is like 10% out of the terrain? What about 50%? 90%?

I would assume they would be considered "in the terrain" much like how MC's get toe-in-cover for doing exactly the same. Just my assumption though.

Reavas wrote:
Lol I am going to have a field day dispelling that with all my psyker dice if you dont like it or think its going to be too meta then build khorn or more psykers, or just improve your deny the witch in general

??
How often do you ever see people dispelling 3 WC powers? You need 16 Warp Charges to have a 50% chance of dispelling a 3 WC power when it is cast. That leaves pretty much Daemons, and maybe GK.
There is no way to 'improve your deny the witch in general' apart from adding more psykers to your army. Something that 6 factions can't do at all, and another 3-4 factions would put themselves at severe detriment to do so. 15 Psychic dice represents at very significant investment for most forces. Adamantium will, collars of khorne or whatever, don't work on this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 niv-mizzet wrote:
Again, being randomly rolled and wc3, you're not going to see this power being thrown around like candy. If they do get it, it will just come once per turn from the conclave IF there's something useful to do with it. I highly disagree that doing one of these things once will win a game. (The void shield counter is really good, but I think void shields deserve a hit anyway.)

Lib Conclave + Tiggy. Harness on 2+ with re-rolls. 3 successes is easy.

-we don't know how objectives interact with it yet. You may just leave the objective there on the ground. Needs clarification.

We won't get it and theres no particular reason to think that it wouldn't move. Leave that up to whatever third party FAQ you favour.

-riptides don't care unless your blos terrain piece is 12" long and moderately tall. They can move and fire with table wide range. Also they are jet pack, so they could just hop on or over the thing.

Oh great, your opponent just put a riptide on terrain for you!
Of course, riptides aren't the only thing with firepower. Anything that needs to shoot at you (ie, about half the things in the game) can be hampered by this power going off. You can make non-relentless models move and snapshot, or fast vehicles lose a weapon...

your armies are going to be more than just 1 unit. Average 1850's have 15-20, with some sporting near 40. With you getting one cast of shift per turn, you're not going to be breaking his back with just that power anytime soon.

And seeing as most armies contain some units that are more important than others, you don't need to cast this on every rhino, but on an Imperial Knight every now and then would be a different story.
Its a bit like invisibility. No, you can't invisible your entire army - but that doesn't make the power worthless. You can still hide the elements of your army that are about to get shot at; you can throw up a screen in front of a deadly but slow enemy unit

-it can be played around. One dude moves out of the terrain and the unit is now immune to being hurled anywhere. Anyone who sees you roll up the power will do this.

Sure, terrain can be played around. But it means you're ceding control to your opponent. He gets to decide where you place objectives (even if you can't move them, they can't be deep inside a ruin that he can throw you off of. He gets to decide how you deploy. He gets to take control of your bunkers and void shields and skyshields and AEGIS. He decides where you can move your army during the game; and even if you manage to play perfectly with positioning your own models, he is still in control of what he does with his own models on his own terrain.
You can play around it in exactly the same way that you can play around terrain - but we know that having terrain on the table is a game changer and good players will take advantage of it.

libbies are entirely killable. If the power could really mess with you, make the Libby a priority target. Culexus says hi.

If only they could join some kind of Super Friends deathstar to put a bunch of ablative T5 re-rollable 3++ save wounds between them and danger.

randomly rolled means you can't really build around the power, especially since there's no Loth equivalent that can guarantee it. If you set up a deathstar so that you can fling the forest they start in into charge range, some games will just have you marching to your death with the other crappy geo powers. Consistency is important in competitive games. You need things that are going to perform 6 games straight.

As I said, this is the saving grace. Even still, Tiggy has a 75% chance to get the power on his own; with another 3 Lv2 Librarians you're up to a 95% chance to get it.

 niv-mizzet wrote:

SpookyRuben wrote:

 luke1705 wrote:
I get the genuine concern about models being in danger if they take a roller coaster ride across the board, but I have this crazy 3 step solution:

1) Take the models off the terrain piece
2) Move the terrain piece
3) Put models back where they were on the terrain piece

At this point you can proceed with life.

You make a very good point Luke. I'm only picking you out of the crowd because my last post was specifically about his issue.Your suggestion is very sensible and reasonable. And in most circumstances sensible and reasonable is the way to go. But...

However, this is not how I want to play the game. Games are already long enough without having to add effectivly another movement phase. This could be required several times over the course of the game, and if you have a large squad you may find it to be a significant time sink. Not to mention that there will inevitably be issues with keeping track of which model was where.

I feel like you're really making a mountain out of a mole hill here. The most often result is that the models in the terrain piece will be not precariously balanced and you will simply move the terrain piece, or ask your opponent to move the terrain piece if his models are in it. If the models in the terrain are an issue because of precarious balancing or some other situation, you could simply move them off the terrain, keep them in the formation that they were in, and then replace them after the terrain has moved. That's gonna take like 20 extra seconds. And being that this power is a warp charge three, you will not see it cast over and over in the same turn. That is assuming they roll up the power at all.

And if you get into a really complicated terrain situation, you can just snap a picture with your phone.

It's not as ridiculous as a few of the warp charge two powers like invis or fortune, and it's not going to be incredibly useful all the time like those are as well. If this power was banned for any reason, then we should be taking a serious look at some of the other powers as well as some of the more ridiculous units. All it needs is a quick FAQ to clarify how it interacts with objectives really.

Didn't there used to exist a spell for fantasy where you tossed a ping pong ball. I'm pretty sure it was some WD stuff, maybe some weird ass scenario. Anyways, terrific idea! What about shifting worldscape where instead of measuring you literally get to fling the terrain about, anything hit gets squished and removed from the game (and probably your collection too).

I play against Tau, SMs with GSF, Eldar Scatterbike/Wraithknight/Warp Spider/Triptide lists... so yes.