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 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

True, but at least it’s one way to prevent arguments, or someone bringing terrain entirely suited to their play style.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

Not necessarily. It could also encourage a wider use of 'counts as' for terrain. If there are defined terrain 'pieces', rather than just keywords that you apply to terrain to define it, you could point at your own conglomeration of pipes and say "This counts as a haemotropic skullating pipulator" and both players would be able to see what rules that had.

I don't have any problem with terrain keywords, either, but people have been playing converted and kitbashed models for decades, despite official models having official rules, so converted and kitbashed terrain should be fine with official rules too, right?

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

True, but at least it’s one way to prevent arguments, or someone bringing terrain entirely suited to their play style.

I dont know about that..
Whenever I finish setting up table I like to point at stuff and say "are you happy with this counting as ruins from here to here, this count as crater etc."

And if we forget to cover soemthing pre battle and it comes up we just roll for it it it becomes material or ask if we are playing this as cover before making movement decisions.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

True, but at least it’s one way to prevent arguments, or someone bringing terrain entirely suited to their play style.

In my experience, the basic terrain rules already do a good job at that. We habe multiple boxes of self-build terrain and you can fit almost anything into the basic categories. We sometimes change a single keyword, for example the imperial statue rules when the piece in question is clearly chaos or ork (we have both in our collection), so we just change the keyword for the aura.
The only thing that I feel is not properly represented is trenches.

the new rules for terrain are much better for self made ones then the 8th ed ones. We had so many arguments ranging from if something was visible to a new player being informed by their tau opponent that the forests don't really do anything in w40k , we stoped using some terrain just to avoid problems. Now it is all nice and clear. We use bases for each type of terrain and it is the base and not the terrain out line that decides how wide a terrain is. the 5" rule for blocking LoS is very good too. No more models being sniped, because someone decided to give them a bigger base or GW made a model that is dynamic, instead of crawling on its belly.

But will the rules cover pringles cans and margarine containers?

Those would be either industrial structures or ruins. Most likely ruins.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

True, but at least it’s one way to prevent arguments, or someone bringing terrain entirely suited to their play style.

Isn’t the whole point of this book to encourage bringing terrain that’ll benefit your army?

I mean, I know for sure it’s not a book our group will bother getting, but the WHC write up seems to suggest it’s encouraging you to add beneficia terrain to your army.

 Jidmah wrote:
Those would be either industrial structures or ruins. Most likely ruins.

Those look like the tower buildings for people with higher income. We have those in every larger city. I have one like 20m away from where I live. Funny enough when they build it the underground garage part was build on less stable and sandy ground, so over years the garage and the building are trying to split. Every summer they put new clamps to pull them closer and the garage has a small hill build to it side to stop it from going its own way.

We have those in the city where I went to college as well. Their solution was to fill the three level underground parking garage with concrete

But yeah, I was talking about terrain types

Our FLGS has shelves of terrain some of it official GW some from other sources or custom made. since i love my tables to look good i have quite a bit of my own terrain for various games and scales. love me the fully painted ESLO terrain and a bunch of the smaller scale stuff 6-15mm from brigade models among others.

As always in the US at least, the acceptance will depend on if the major tournaments adopt the missions and rules or not. If they don't they will likely be completely ignored. If they do then you'll see widespread acceptance.

Personally I rarely if ever see anyone remember any special rules for terrain beyond the bare minimum. I saw the same thing in AOS where nobody remembered the mystic terrain rules so eventually they stopped using them because they were always ignored despite being an important addition.

'Brothers, now is the time to strike at the foul xenos! Forward and attack! Brother techmarine, if you could just dismantle that ruined engine shed and cart it around with us? Never know when it might come in handy, y'know. For the Emperor!'

Bringing your own terrain is standard practice for many historical games. It is an interesting and essential part of playing the game, and setting up the field is a whole mini-game with its own rules and strategy. However, this is best done with 15mm armies as the terrain is small enough to be easily transported. For 28mm it can be a real pain in the neck.

I frickin' knew they'd take this approach:

GW wrote:All of these new missions and terrain rules are brilliant for all games of Warhammer 40,000, but they really shine when it comes to competitive play. No longer will you be at the mercy of random terrain placement – you’ll now bring your own and have just what you need when you deploy your army. Choose the exact terrain you want to complement the units in your force and lead your army to tournament glory!

First they change the board size, and tournaments and mat makers jump on that bandwagon. Now they're trying to make the terrain their own.

When GW says jump, the answer needn't be "How high?".

I somehow doubt that tournaments will be adopting this.

Personally I don't think they will either, but that doesn't mean GW aren't trying to make this happen.

Table sizes, tournament terrain rules, changing core Blood Bowl mechanics, the fact that 9th is basically 'Tournament Edition' and launched with a whole tournament book.

They're trying real hard to take tournaments back from the organisers and make people dependent on them.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

Oh noes. GW makes games to play with GW stuff.

If you can buy third party, I am sure you can make rules to use the third party stuff, no?

FFG doesn't make rules to use Wings of Glory planes in X-Wing either. If you wanna include that stuff, you gotta get creative yourself.

Sunny Side Up wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
By having datacards defining the exact rules for specific terrain pieces, it’ll reduce, if not eliminate entirely, arguments about what’s what.

But only when using Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™.

Oh noes. GW makes games to play with GW stuff.

If you can buy third party, I am sure you can make rules to use the third party stuff, no?

FFG doesn't make rules to use Wings of Glory planes in X-Wing either. If you wanna include that stuff, you gotta get creative yourself.

Did you miss his post further up (plus all the people mindlessly changing their board sizes too because daddy GW said so... )?

People will adhere to this because GW have told them to. They have fostered the perfect closed ecosystem that many companies would kill for and certain fans are lapping it up. GW can jog on if they think I'm bringing my terrain into town with me, nor am I buying their terrain. It is overpriced, locked to their aesthetic and scratchbashing terrain is far more fun.

You have to think there is some line past which the lemmings will not march. My money is on this being it. If nothing else, the sheer logistical nightmare of transporting your own terrain to a tournament should be enough to cause mass revolts if TOs actually try to force people to buy into this transparent cash grab.

Also, the previewed terrain is downright ridiculous. So much for taking rerolls out of the game - now you can get them just from being within your fancy overpriced GW terrain!

yukishiro1 wrote:
You have to think there is some line past which the lemmings will not march. My money is on this being it. If nothing else, the sheer logistical nightmare of transporting your own terrain to a tournament should be enough to cause mass revolts if TOs actually try to force people to buy into this transparent cash grab.

I honestly don't know how they expect you to transport most of their bigger minis (especially when you don't drive), let alone terrain...

I always liked how 6th edition approached pregame battlefield creation.

You rolled a D3 for each 2'x2' section of the gameboard to see how many terrain pieces would be placed in that 2'x2' section. You and your opponent would then alternate placing one piece of terrain until all 2'x2' sections reached their max. amount of terrain pieces.

Battlefield creation was done before determining table sides and deployment zones as to encourage balanced placement.

This had always created the most interesting and enjoyable battlefields. For me, there's a lot of fun to be had in just the battlefield creation and this mechanic made it part of the game.

This definitely seems like a gimmick to sell their terrain kits, but I'll try to reserve judgement until we have a more complete picture.

I almost always bring my own terrain when gaming. As much as I like them, the FLGS can have some spotty looking terrain be it the last picked stuff, stuff that should have been retired or stuff the store hasn't had a chance to finish. However, I have a car and can generally park rather close to the store and take more robust terrain pieces. So this usually isn't much of an issue for me. Well worth the effort as I enjoying the spectacle of miniatures wargaming more than any other individual aspect of the hobby.

For the last two years, I was bringing at least enough terrain to setup two fairly dense Kill Team boards. If I thought/knew there was going to be more than 4 players I would bring 4 boards worth of terrain. See the spoiler below for some pictures of it.



The store I currently play at, well when the pandemic eases up anyway, has some nice terrain especially for fantasy/Age of Sigmar. The store doesn't have enough quality terrain for every table and even less that works well with the 40k aesthetic save some actual 40k terrain generally just brushed. Which is fine, but since I have my own decently painting stuff I bring it in. It works much better for Kill Team than 40k as a good portion of it is scatter. But I like a good looking table so I usually set the boards/tables and try to balance appearance with playablity.

I have been doing this long before playing 40k. With the exception of Bolt Action which the store I went to have some outstanding pre-painted MDF stuff well suited for WWII Europe, I usually brought my own to supplement the store I was going to. When I played Dust Warfare/Battlefield (pics in spoiler below) I used mine as to allow far more urban games that the store's terrain would allow.



At the same time, I don't think I like this idea of 40k having players bringing terrain for specific mechanical effects. If kinda feels like GW is trying again like they did in 7th. Just now they know they can't tie terrain to the points resource and expect players to make use of it (that was 7th right with all the terrain in the BRB?). I can't see it being anything more than a hassle. For me, it has a good chance of spoiling the table's theme. Well in theory anyways, terrain is so dominiated by IoM stuff that it makes the space marine line compare to everything else look modest. Then there is throwing yet another ball to be juggled balence-wise. I mean I have no issue generating special rules for terrain on a table, but I generally play with people that trust I am not doing those rules to gain an advantage but to make the game more interesting just like they are free to introduce all manner of crazy rules to spice things up. I just don't see the terrain rules GW working that great in a more PUG manner of gaming.

 Jidmah wrote:
I somehow doubt that tournaments will be adopting this.

Depends on the tournament.

I could absolutely see the bigger ones with Warhammer Community coverage and those up-and-comers who're desperate for attention from GW to recognise them. There's a difference between clearly optional rules like Cityfight/Cities of Death/Urban Conquest and GW putting out their own 'official' rulesets for tournaments, a scene that has been chomping at the bits for recognition since basically forever. ITC is one thing, but in recent times there's definitely been a shift to try and cling onto the word of the Party Line more than there was before. If the bigger tournaments do it, I think there'll be a lot more 'follow the leader' going on in smaller tournaments and LFGS' which will, overtime, eventually settle into normality.

The board size thing has already been mentioned a few times but I'll just echo it again. This might be a bit less 'unquestionable' since it comes in a supplement, but I'd not be shocked if by 10th these will be part of the core rules and thus unquestionable to most (especially those who already went out and bought GW(tm) official terrain).

They tested the waters by giving armies their own terrain piece and found that terrain sells more if the army can use it.

So now all terrain gets special rules beyond basic generic ones. How transparent.

I think another way this will be pitched by the GW Defence Force is that you're helping to take the financial strain off TOs by bringing your own terrain rather than expecting the tournament to 'cover it'.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
They tested the waters by giving armies their own terrain piece and found that terrain sells more if the army can use it.

So now all terrain gets special rules beyond basic generic ones. How transparent.

I feel like AoS' terrain was successful because it costs literally 0 points and even if your army piece is a dud, there is literally no negative for bringing it anyway. Compare it to 40k where almost every bit of faction-terrain is a dud, although I'm sure upcoming Marine bunker will probably change that - but then, it does cost points, so who knows.

 Jidmah wrote:
I somehow doubt that tournaments will be adopting this.

Depends on if the Minister of Propaganda decides to adopt it for ITC, if so that will cause a big chunk of people to start using it...

 Arbitrator wrote:
I think another way this will be pitched by the GW Defence Force is that you're helping to take the financial strain off TOs by bringing your own terrain rather than expecting the tournament to 'cover it'.

Cause it's not like there are tens of popular Youtube channels out there showing you how to make good-looking cheap terrain...

Oh wait, that's right. They want to play on the homogenized smaller, officially approved GW boards with officially approved expensive GW terrain kits. Can't be besmirching the appearance of the game with chipboard and recycled items. Gotta flash the cash to let everyone know you play at your elite pro level tourney that will totally be a for realsies esport one day! I will mum I'll show you, then you'll be sorry!

Oh there's a clear incentive for TOs to adopt, it lowers their costs substantially if they just wash their hands of terrain entirely and tell participants it's their own responsibility to bring their own terrain. That's presumably the hook that GW is using to try to leverage their way into getting TOs on board the terrain cash grab train.

You just have to hope the community finally shows some backbone here and says no to terrain just becoming another part of your army. The idea of "bringing your own terrain so you'll always know you have exactly the terrain you need!" is utterly contrary to the whole idea of terrain in the first place, and you have to hope that will wake people up a bit to what's going on here. I don't want my terrain giving me rerolls, and I have to hope that most of the community doesn't want that either.

yukishiro1 wrote:


You just have to hope the community finally shows some backbone here and says no to terrain just becoming another part of your army. The idea of "bringing your own terrain so you'll always know you have exactly the terrain you need!" is utterly contrary to the whole idea of terrain in the first place, and you have to hope that will wake people up a bit to what's going on here. I don't want my terrain giving me rerolls, and I have to hope that most of the community doesn't want that either.

But... but... muh 40k is sooper dooper tactical!

Bringing your own terrain removes all pretence of there being any tactics and strategy left in this game when you can just point and click after you've set up your battlefield before you even play a game. The whole point of terrain is it is random and a good general learns how to use it to his advantage on the fly.