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 Horst wrote:

At least with Chapter Approved 2018 missions (and half the new ITC beta missions) this isn't a problem. The player who goes second gets to pick their deployment zone, so if you're going second, you pick the better deployment zone. Your opponent gets to go first, so he can hopefully do enough damage T1 to mitigate having a worse deployment zone.

If my opponent kills my NDK and a squad of termintors before I get to cast, move or use any psychic powers, then I may as well pack up and go home. I read the 2018 mission only a few times, but they didn't seem to be able top stop that from happening. Do you have any insight why the turn 1 game end doesn't happen under the rule set?

Chuck all the terrain on the table, leave some roads for vehicles to travel down and run cities of death rules. No other way to play imo. Cities of death is great

I do like Symmetry in pick up games.

For our larger Sunday games I like theme boards.

The rule of cool is what counts.

If you take time to model, convert and paint your army to look great and play on a subpar and boring board...well you are missing the experience.

I generally prefer a “realistic” table. For example, buildings / ruins tend to be clustered together in a “settlement” with fences / walls around them... maybe a road running through the middle with “nature” terrain around the settlement.

We generally have a few pieces of LOS blocking terrain nearish to the middle.

I mostly play garage hammer, with the same loose group of people I’ve been playing with for 20 years. I’ve found games are more interesting on cohesive boards rather than mirrored boards. It is my group’s experience that the last turn is usually an advantage that needs to be offset somewhat by the first player having a bit of terrain advantage.

I enjoy the challenge of asymmetrical boards. They just do it for me in a way mirrored setups never have. I find that if the board can set a story, it creates just enough narrative to create some realistic situations like crossfire against an overly aggressive push through the town, or squads moving over a ridge together to create a sort of ambush.

An army that bunkers down in their defensive terrain gets boxed in and can’t break out to get to objectives. They take few casualties but they lose the battle.

At the risk of sounding overly casual, I really do like it when the board acts as the setting for a story. The people I play with also seem to like that... though we do mix it up sometimes if someone wants a more competitive game night.

admironheart wrote:I do like Symmetry in pick up games.

For our larger Sunday games I like theme boards.

The rule of cool is what counts.

If you take time to model, convert and paint your army to look great and play on a subpar and boring board...well you are missing the experience.

Air Base

Spoiler:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/1005229-.html

Demon World

Spoiler:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/997418-Daemons%20on%20the%20Crone.html

Hive City

Spoiler:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/997417-Take%20the%20Hive%20City.html

Your images don't have [img] tags and don't display.

I enjoy the challenge of asymmetrical boards. They just do it for me in a way mirrored setups never have. I find that if the board can set a story, it creates just enough narrative to create some realistic situations like crossfire against an overly aggressive push through the town, or squads moving over a ridge together to create a sort of ambush.

An army that bunkers down in their defensive terrain gets boxed in and can’t break out to get to objectives. They take few casualties but they lose the battle.

At the risk of sounding overly casual, I really do like it when the board acts as the setting for a story. The people I play with also seem to like that... though we do mix it up sometimes if someone wants a more competitive game night.

Same, I like a something memorable, something challenging.

Am i the only one who dislikes cities of death?

Well, the board has generally a larger piece of terrain (ruin) at the center.
Then there are four larger pieces (ruins) at each corner.
All other pieces are smaller and set up between the larger ruins.

I don't play pickup games - the idea doesn't sound like fun to me. However, for any game, I try to set up a battlefield, not just a table. The scenery needs to look like something. That usually means I set up ruins to look like streets and city blocks, but usually at an angle so the fire lanes don't run directly across the table (and then put barricades, vehicles, etc in the streets). Perhaps mix it up a bit with a forest area, or intact buildings on one side with ruins on the other. Tall or large pieces will get placed closer to the middle of the board than at the back of deployment zones. I also try to vary the density - have some areas where Knights and super-heavy tanks will fit, and others where only infantry can go.

There's nothing more depressing than seeing a table with one or two ruins plonked down randomly amongst a couple of blobs of forests and a pointless barricade.

One pet peeve - using a mat but not taking account of the features printed on it. If it's got a street pattern, don't just slop down buildings willy-nilly - line them up with the roads!

Martel732 wrote:
Am i the only one who dislikes cities of death?

Probably not. But you seem to dislike everything about the rules for the game, so...

I'll usually let the opponent decide on how much terrain he feels he wishes out there and go with that. If it feels like we're battling in the mojave, I'll suggest we add some more. However as I usually enjoy having a heavy shooting list being a guard primary player they tend to go terrain heavy. Which is good, I like it, making choices is good on where to fire, how to deploy, choke points, etc. I don't tend to complain about much in my games though, I'll usually take softer lists and try to fight through it. I've played the game a long time now and I like the up hill struggle, even more so if I manage to win despite it.

I still have the old terrain charts from 3rd ed. I carry them over in to all my events. So the terrain on my tables are always random and left to chance of die rolls.

 Galef wrote:
I find it very interesting/surprising that so many have mentioned asymmetrical terrain preference.
I understand the "boring" aspect, but how else do you make it fair?

Experience, basically. I think most people talking about asymmetrical set-ups aren't necessarily talking about empty plains at one end and huge cityscape at the other, but rather set-ups that are roughly equivalent without literally using the same pieces of terrain mirrored on each side of the board. We'll tend to try to put the same amount of LoS blockers in each deployment zone, for example, and roughly the same amount of terrain in each half, but not to the point of taking forever to make sure it's as fair as possible. The choice of sides should be a meaningful choice, but not an immediately game-winning choice.

Martel732 wrote:
Am i the only one who dislikes cities of death?

Why? It's way better than the regular terrain rules which might as well just be there for decoration. I think the Cities of Death rules need to become the baseline, honestly.

Let me guess: They benefit hordes/Guard and make them harder to kill?

I set the board up to look like an actual place. Then modify to balance it out, without disrupting the theme of the table.

In my experience most people will choose the deployment zone which happens to be on the side of the table they are standing by.

Wayniac wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
Am i the only one who dislikes cities of death?

Why? It's way better than the regular terrain rules which might as well just be there for decoration. I think the Cities of Death rules need to become the baseline, honestly.

Let me guess: They benefit hordes/Guard and make them harder to kill?

Well, i dont like models that paid for 4+ getting 2+ vs ap 0. For starters.

Models that survive shooting make it to close combat.

Come on, the glass is clearly half-full.

I guess its true that marines can get 1+ which gives them 2+ vs -1 ap. Thats pretty good.

So far I've found Cities of Death to heavily favor mobility and Assault. Seems like BA territory to me.

I set up as much terrain as my opponent allows lol and try to make it balanced somewhat. Another way to do it is roll a dice for each zone of the board for how much terrain to put in it. This can be unbalanced but fun.

If it's with a stranger I like to have a 3rd party do it so there is no possibility of bias in design. When I design maps I like to have them be balanced both sides with plenty of LoS block and the like, but am not opposed to having wacky stuff in the middle or sides. A little asymmetry can be great if done well. It's really match dependent.

I prefer to either agree on a general theme with my opponent or have a third party set up the table. A table should tell a story and have a theme.

Some players at my local store alternate putting down random terrain pieces on the board after they picked sides and they end up with a weird random smattering that was placed to try and advantage their side. I find such tables to be ugly and not fun to play on.