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Thing is, in Karol's nightmare hellscape of a community it probably is.

Karol wrote:
Thing is, if it isn't an L shaped ruin, it may as well not be on the table, considering how the game looks right now. Playing armies with low or no damage ability without heavy "L" terrain saturation instantly drops to a level of not worth bringing the army to the store. While some armies, the best one, suddenly become even more efficient and a lot of the games turn in to "I got turn 1, so I won".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Wyldhunt wrote:


Basically, we just have to face the awkwardness of talking to people (yuck) pre-game and negotiating the type of experience we're looking for. And if someone is still busting out a hardcore list after you've communicated that's not what you're into, just politely decline games with them in the future. Or reiterate that you want to face something a bit less gnarly in your next game.

I know. Communicating like adults. Isn't it just the worst?

Talk or not, the problem is the terms. One person will claim that not playing a highlander list, from a weak faction, is playing a WAAC list. On the flip side someone who plays eldar often claims having a casual list, which somehow always ends up with their opponents requiering a tournament style list to have a game of any sorts to beging with. Then there is people having one army of 2000pts, armies with limited unit options and/or pre build by GW. How is a knight, custodes or GK player suppose to not have a "tournament" and a working list at the same time? At the same time an eldar player can bring a list of 1500pts then slap 500pts of random stuff, or even forget 500pts of reserves, and he is going to be punching down against everything, but strickt GT build lists. At some point it starts to boil down to stuff like, to have a balanced game you need to play a mirror, or 3 top or 3 bottom or 3 mid lists and only play specific lists, which again requiers a large collection.

Uh huh.

They could do all of those things.

And if they do, you have every right to refuse to play against them again, regardless of how 'nice' their qctusl banter is. A couple of dodgy games is annoying but not the end of the world. You're not obligated to say 'yes'.

Wargaming is like dating. Bad dates happen. Meeting folks with an incompatible approach/perspective also happens. Neither prrson has to be 'wrong' either. We've all been there. Trick is to learn from it and not go on a second date/repeat experience.

Yes and then you are left with a 1000$ army, which you can't play. One would REALLY have to be in to painting to be okey with an investment like that. This is, and by that I mean the type of terrains ment for w40k, not about agreements, gaming being like dating etc. It is about game mechanics. It is like basketball or volley ball. There is no rule in the world that you can't be a 165cm tall player of either of the games. But good luck finding anyone that size playing either of the sports .


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Karol wrote:
Thing is, if it isn't an L shaped ruin, it may as well not be on the table, considering how the game looks right now.

That's not even slightly true.

I didn't invent the L shape ruin. Neither did my community, not even the "hellscape kurwa meta" Poland. It was intreduced in, at least 8th ed, because the experiments with other types of terrain ment that certain match ups would end up with one side being blown in to a no longer able to win state, turn 1. And this got adjusted (in L shaped buildings hight reguierment )even more when the ravellan started to be the choice to taken in every imperial army. Windows and first floor "holes" being blocked, again a 9th ed and later rules consequance. And by the way it is easy to check. Just play a few dozen games without L shaped buildings, but with a lot of "non ruins", rubbles, trenches (that are see through) etc For the game quality it doesn't matter that much if the table has 2, 4 or 8 hedges on it. But if it doesn't have those "ruins" and L shapes the impact is huge. One of the main problems with had in early 10th was the fact that some units could ignore the L shaped terrain. With that fixed an army which was considered to be top 5 (imperial knights) is now in top 5 bottom. L shaped buildings make certain builds (knights, large tanks) limited in how they are used, because vehicles, unlike infantry, can't cross those easily. The impact of the "L" and ruins is huge. The impact of a small wall, statue etc that just gives cover is minimal or easily ignored by the good armies. And again this does have to be me, Poland or my store meta. GW themselfs created a lay out of terrain themselfs, to avoid prior editions quick ending games. Now because of other factors this doesn't always work, but if GW thinks that the ruin/L shape has to be used, then this means they are important. Meanwhile no focus is put on how much non LoS blocking "rubble" style terrain is suppose to be used. There can be more, there can be less. In the end it is unimportant.
And to make the changes and differences more visible, one can do a comperation between events that use the GW terrain lay out, those that don't and those that use modified GW terrain rules. In all cases it is visible that certain armies start do better and some do worse (and some models are less seen) on different style of tables. This concept isn't even a GW games only thing. Anyone who plays infinity knows what a US style board is and what unit/factions it buffs up and which ones it debuffs.

I'm pretty sure the GW tournament layout doesn't actually include any Ls at all. All the ruins they use are actually fairly large squares. L-shaped ruins being required is absolutely a fabrication of certain tournament crowds, mainly brought about by how easy they are to make, rather than how useful they are in-game. What you need is a good amount of LoS-blocking terrain and a selection of other terrain. I think the fixation on specific types and amounts of terrain creates a skewed experience in tournaments that is unhealthy for the game overall.

Just this week, I played a game against Death Guard without a single L-shaped ruin on the board. In fact, most of the terrain was pretty small pieces of terrain we mostly designated as ruins, which created a unique battlefield while still serving the main purpose of blocking LoS. The key difference was you couldn't just dump an entire army in an L-shaped ruin and be immune to attack in turn 1 (incidentally, the idea that ground-floor windows are always closed can also GTFO).

Karol wrote:

Talk or not, the problem is the terms. One person will claim that not playing a highlander list, from a weak faction, is playing a WAAC list. On the flip side someone who plays eldar often claims having a casual list, which somehow always ends up with their opponents requiering a tournament style list to have a game of any sorts to beging with. Then there is people having one army of 2000pts, armies with limited unit options and/or pre build by GW. How is a knight, custodes or GK player suppose to not have a "tournament" and a working list at the same time? At the same time an eldar player can bring a list of 1500pts then slap 500pts of random stuff, or even forget 500pts of reserves, and he is going to be punching down against everything, but strickt GT build lists. At some point it starts to boil down to stuff like, to have a balanced game you need to play a mirror, or 3 top or 3 bottom or 3 mid lists and only play specific lists, which again requiers a large collection.

In my experience, it's worth just talking to your opponent pre and post game. See if you're on the same page about how strong your list was, then continue to tweak things as needed. If you come at it with a genuine desire to have a mutually-enjoyable casual game, then you should be able to find a rough power level/style of list that you can enjoy fielding and your opponent can enjoy facing. If you try to bring a casual list and it still ends up being too spicy for your opponent, you can always try toning things down even more and trying again.

I've played eldar when they were OP and managed to have enjoyable casual games against weak lists; usually by just choosing a sub-optimal theme and running with it. Eldar always have something OP, but that's usually limited to a handful of optimal units.

I've played dark eldar when they were UP and considered very hard to make work and still had enjoyable casual games against strong factions. Sometimes you have to play a more optimized build to meet your opponent in the middle, and it does stink that that can mean your army is largely built for you, but the games themselves can still be fun.

Basically, going off of personal experience, if two people sincerely try to have a reasonably balanced casual game, they will succeed in doing so. Albeit with a little trial and error.

WH40K City Fight edition is absolutely predicated on the need for tons of LOS blocking terrain. Not even tall terrain to block LOS just imaginary ones that are infinitely high. Remove the ruins on your table and play with forests. Then watch as this house of cards game crumbles under its own oppressive load of lethality. I said from the start this game was built with the crutch of pure LOS terrain everywhere and now the players wear it like a crown. GD Wyldhunt has such reasonable people to play with, his experience is the exception to be sure.

I think there is a few things all playing into it.

If your meta can effectively just drop off any casual/Narative play. Then it probably wasn’t healthy to begin with.

But I do think 40K pushes more into a tournament style play. There isn’t really all that much in its rules for narrative without extra work.

From a more personal perspective, all the narrative players here are just playing other games for the most part for that.
Wit those few still playing 40K exclusively doing a more casual tournament style.

Slipspace wrote:
I'm pretty sure the GW tournament layout doesn't actually include any Ls at all. All the ruins they use are actually fairly large squares. L-shaped ruins being required is absolutely a fabrication of certain tournament crowds, mainly brought about by how easy they are to make, rather than how useful they are in-game. What you need is a good amount of LoS-blocking terrain and a selection of other terrain. I think the fixation on specific types and amounts of terrain creates a skewed experience in tournaments that is unhealthy for the game overall.

Just this week, I played a game against Death Guard without a single L-shaped ruin on the board. In fact, most of the terrain was pretty small pieces of terrain we mostly designated as ruins, which created a unique battlefield while still serving the main purpose of blocking LoS. The key difference was you couldn't just dump an entire army in an L-shaped ruin and be immune to attack in turn 1 (incidentally, the idea that ground-floor windows are always closed can also GTFO).

If you can't hide T1 then importance of going first increases as anything that isn't hidden just dies.

Not sure how much you enjoy game where winner is decided by first turn roll...but then again that seems to be trend these days. Preference for game to be decided as early as possible. Preferably in list build stage.

tneva82 wrote:

Slipspace wrote:
I'm pretty sure the GW tournament layout doesn't actually include any Ls at all. All the ruins they use are actually fairly large squares. L-shaped ruins being required is absolutely a fabrication of certain tournament crowds, mainly brought about by how easy they are to make, rather than how useful they are in-game. What you need is a good amount of LoS-blocking terrain and a selection of other terrain. I think the fixation on specific types and amounts of terrain creates a skewed experience in tournaments that is unhealthy for the game overall.

Just this week, I played a game against Death Guard without a single L-shaped ruin on the board. In fact, most of the terrain was pretty small pieces of terrain we mostly designated as ruins, which created a unique battlefield while still serving the main purpose of blocking LoS. The key difference was you couldn't just dump an entire army in an L-shaped ruin and be immune to attack in turn 1 (incidentally, the idea that ground-floor windows are always closed can also GTFO).

If you can't hide T1 then importance of going first increases as anything that isn't hidden just dies.

Not sure how much you enjoy game where winner is decided by first turn roll...but then again that seems to be trend these days. Preference for game to be decided as early as possible. Preferably in list build stage.

Again, you seem to have failed to read what I wrote. Wouldn't be the first time.

You don't need L-shaped ruins in order to block LoS. The prevailing attitude that you do is part of the problem of modern 40k, IMO. You can have terrain that blocks LoS from the majority of the enemy army and you can still protect your most important units without having to cover the board in some of the dullest terrain imaginable. It's also not the case that you have to be able to hide an entire army in T1. Some trade-offs between being completely hidden and having to expose something are a good thing.

I wouldn’t worry about your entire store switching overnight to a competitive only mindset. Even if it did there are some steps you can take now to ensure you continue to get in good games.

1. Make a list now of fun people to play about and talk to them about the desire to continue to have casual non competitive games. More then likely there is a large group of players not interested in meta chasing constantly
2. Start a store discord where you can look for games and say if you want competitive or casual. (This works well at my store as most of the time competitive players are looking to practice for events and don’t want easy wins against non optimized lists)
3. Only play against painted armies. If you are worried about meta chasers one of the easiest ways to weed them out is to politely decline games against those who have unpainted armies. (Also greatly enhances the game and allows for great photos)
4. Just avoid tournaments or understand the first round or 2 will most likely be cutting edge lists. We even had a “learn to play” even locally that I made the mistake of bringing a fun list to only to have multiple players wearing team jerseys show up playing eldar at the start of the edition.

Do these and you will quickly have a solid group of players you can consistently get in games against

Jaredthefox92 wrote:
While I have no ill will against such events

make my gaming store's scene more crowded and toxic

Slipspace wrote:


You don't need L-shaped ruins in order to block LoS. The prevailing attitude that you do is part of the problem of modern 40k, IMO. You can have terrain that blocks LoS from the majority of the enemy army and you can still protect your most important units without having to cover the board in some of the dullest terrain imaginable. It's also not the case that you have to be able to hide an entire army in T1. Some trade-offs between being completely hidden and having to expose something are a good thing.

Oh sure. Polystyrene solid wall works. Unfortunately many FLGS don't have terrain that has no holes enough to fill multiple boards.

And it still isn't good if you have multiple units in visible because then those are dead t1 if you go 2nd and game got decided by losing that roll off and losing multiple units for no compensation. Congrats. You decide game on turn 1.

Anything that is exposed t1 dies. And if you just allow entire units to wiped out t1 just like that the turn 1 roll off has too big impact. You get to objectives first AND kill off significant amount of units from enemy. Opponent can't come back unless player going 2nd has OP codex or player going first is idiot. Neither is situation you desire or should bank on. OP codexes shouldn't exist and just because one side won 50-50 roll off doesn't mean he's idiot.

You might not like it but ability to hide your army efficiently has ensured t1 roll off doesn't decide game like it used to. Like it or not evidence points out you are wrong. Ability to hide armies has reduced importance of going 1st to pretty damn close to 50-50 win rate. Not the ideal 50-50 but closer than it has been ever.

Can't admit being wrong eh?

I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

Really the main aim is to not be on planet bowling ball. "Anything you can see dies turn 1" feels a bit hyperbole - its not mid 2021 (or not for quite a few armies anyway), but letting your opponent distribute their shooting in an optimal manner is obviously bad. "Oh look, I've nuked your 3 most important units, I've almost certainly won" is a thing.

Ultimately the "hardening of the meta" is a phenomenon that I think various people experience. I certainly felt it in 5th edition - I know others have said 3rd, and perhaps now. I feel though the Karol Thunderdome world is a bit of a myth. I'd echo the fact that the majority - probably vast majority - of tournament players are going just to get a day's gaming in. They aren't all desperately dreaming of winning the LVO.

With that said, I feel the issue is in how extreme the gap between the "haves" and "have nots" is. I don't think unit/faction balance in 10th is remotely perfect (insert DE sob story here), but I think GW are a lot better in that respect than they were back then. Overpowered stuff gets nerfed on a reasonably quick timeline rather than being the best for about five years.

Tyel wrote:
I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

And because of the festering brain bug that took over during 8th and 9th that terrain had to be symmetrical in order to be "balanced".

tneva82 wrote:


Anything that is exposed t1 dies.

No, it doesn't. It's possible to set up terrain in such a way that some units can only be hidden from the majority of, but not all, of the enemy army. In those situations those units could die, but they may also be exposed to little enough firepower that they can survive. Even if they die, losing a unit in the first turn shouldn't be game losing anyway.

tneva82 wrote:

You might not like it but ability to hide your army efficiently has ensured t1 roll off doesn't decide game like it used to. Like it or not evidence points out you are wrong. Ability to hide armies has reduced importance of going 1st to pretty damn close to 50-50 win rate. Not the ideal 50-50 but closer than it has been ever.

The problem is, all this "evidence" is a self-fulfilling prophecy because the only solution presented to the alpha strike problem is the kind of terrain we see at tournaments. There simply isn't enough data about other ways of using and setting up terrain to draw any solid conclusions about whether the current situation is the only one that works. It's used because it's easy to build and convenient, not because it's necessarily the best solution.

The case for L shaped ruins is that they allow vehicles and big stuff some ability to move around the table vs C shaped ruins.
They're sold by the tourney folk who made this edition (conflict of interest much?).
More stable/durable then an I shaped ruin of polystyrene.
All of this is because the game is too killy (at range).

On a personal note, the answer to the lethality problem is lower AP and some dmg profiles. Better yet, have BSvBS and WSvWS charts. Shooting at a skilled sniper will be harder then an orc with an axe, they know angles and cover better.

GW sells plenty of L-Shaped ruins on their own. The maddening thing is just that their terrain rules have never worked particularly well with the terrain they create.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

And because of the festering brain bug that took over during 8th and 9th that terrain had to be symmetrical in order to be "balanced".

Or that Terrain has to be balanced at all. Borrow from the NFL coin flip. You can choose the ball, or you can choose the wind. You can choose to go first, or you can choose to have the good terrain.

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

And because of the festering brain bug that took over during 8th and 9th that terrain had to be symmetrical in order to be "balanced".

Or that Terrain has to be balanced at all. Borrow from the NFL coin flip. You can choose the ball, or you can choose the wind. You can choose to go first, or you can choose to have the good terrain.

You could just do it the Sigmar way.
Defender sets the terrain, attacker chooses the deployment zone.

No chance of that, too much like common sense.

While I like having terrain guidelines in theory, I don't love it when people go out of their way to try to follow the tournament guidelines for terrain placement.

There was something more cinematic about asymmetrical tables. They felt more like a place and less like a collection of perfectly identical walls. I even remember doing the occassional weird narrative game where I was storming the outskirts of a city, so we put a ton of ruins on my opponent's side of the table and left my side mostly barren. Obviously not balanced, but definitely told a story.

Again, probably best to keep thing symmetrical for tournament play, but I do wish people were a bit less focused on turning the table into a mirror for casual games. It just seems to be many players' automatic instinct these days.

 Wyldhunt wrote:
While I like having terrain guidelines in theory, I don't love it when people go out of their way to try to follow the tournament guidelines for terrain placement.

There was something more cinematic about asymmetrical tables. They felt more like a place and less like a collection of perfectly identical walls. I even remember doing the occassional weird narrative game where I was storming the outskirts of a city, so we put a ton of ruins on my opponent's side of the table and left my side mostly barren. Obviously not balanced, but definitely told a story.

Again, probably best to keep thing symmetrical for tournament play, but I do wish people were a bit less focused on turning the table into a mirror for casual games. It just seems to be many players' automatic instinct these days.

I tend to prefer generally symmetrical - city blocks generally are - with a few oddballs.

 Gibblets wrote:
The case for L shaped ruins is that they allow vehicles and big stuff some ability to move around the table vs C shaped ruins.
They're sold by the tourney folk who made this edition (conflict of interest much?).
More stable/durable then an I shaped ruin of polystyrene.
All of this is because the game is too killy (at range).

On a personal note, the answer to the lethality problem is lower AP and some dmg profiles. Better yet, have BSvBS and WSvWS charts. Shooting at a skilled sniper will be harder then an orc with an axe, they know angles and cover better.

Or hear me out, actually make cover even light cover worth something.

That said, raw killyness is an issue, it'd be nice if we got AoE denial and suprression effects.

ccs wrote:

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

And because of the festering brain bug that took over during 8th and 9th that terrain had to be symmetrical in order to be "balanced".

Or that Terrain has to be balanced at all. Borrow from the NFL coin flip. You can choose the ball, or you can choose the wind. You can choose to go first, or you can choose to have the good terrain.

You could just do it the Sigmar way.
Defender sets the terrain, attacker chooses the deployment zone.

Back in my day, event organizers set up the tables, not the players.

Also back in my day, the tables actually looked good and interesting to play on.

 Platuan4th wrote:

ccs wrote:

Breton wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Tyel wrote:
I feel the rise of the L-Shaped Ruin was more to do with the fact it was breachable in 9th edition (and perhaps 8th, but I forget 8th's terrain rules) than that it uniquely blocked LOS. It facilitiated the trading of units into objectives in a way solid polystyrene walls didn't.

And because of the festering brain bug that took over during 8th and 9th that terrain had to be symmetrical in order to be "balanced".

Or that Terrain has to be balanced at all. Borrow from the NFL coin flip. You can choose the ball, or you can choose the wind. You can choose to go first, or you can choose to have the good terrain.

You could just do it the Sigmar way.
Defender sets the terrain, attacker chooses the deployment zone.

Back in my day, event organizers set up the tables, not the players.

Also back in my day, the tables actually looked good and interesting to play on.

I'm not concerned with how it's done in tournies.
I assume TOs set the terrain in that environment as anything else is less practical.

And despite what you're reading from some posters here? It's still possible to set up & play on good looking interesting tables.

ccs wrote:
I'm not concerned with how it's done in tournies.

Kinda what the whole thread's about...

ccs wrote:
And despite what you're reading from some posters here? It's still possible to set up & play on good looking interesting tables.

Again, we're not disputing that, but the reduction terrain to 'tournament standard' is something that has spread like wildfire across the community. Have you not noticed?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

ccs wrote:
I'm not concerned with how it's done in tournies.

Kinda what the whole thread's about...

ccs wrote:
And despite what you're reading from some posters here? It's still possible to set up & play on good looking interesting tables.

Again, we're not disputing that, but the reduction terrain to 'tournament standard' is something that has spread like wildfire across the community. Have you not noticed?

ccs wrote:


And fighting it is simple. Those not interested in that style of play simply need refuse to play it.

That's fine if you've got a large enough group of like-minded players. If not, your options are either don't play 40k or try to persuade the other group to move at least some way towards your preferred style. In that case, being able to show alternatives and reasoning as to why there might be merit in playing on something other than tournament standard boards is kind of required.

I don't know what you expect as a response from us but a. local store tournaments don't really do that to people and b. if you wont leave the store on these grounds but still complain about the players you are doing it to yourself.