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Now this one came up at ard boyz semi's. When a vehicle explodes, how big is the crater (the difficult terrain piece) that is left behind. I know the unit inside the transport has to be placed within the confines of where the vehicle was. What they had told us at the onset was that the crater is as big as the vehicle + D6 inches. Basically making something like a land raider create a huge huge area of difficult terrain on the battlefield if blew up an additional 6 inches.

Clarify for me. How big is the area of difficult terrain when a vehicle explodes?

I always thought it was the same size as the base of the vehicle and models had to be placed within those confines.

The d6 inches you are thinking you heard might refer to the area of effect of the explosion in which models are hurt by debris. That is not the size of the crater, just to determine what models are hit by debris.

we were told it was both the size of the crater and the area of effect of explosion.

That's as good a way of sizing it as any. If it was the ruling made for the event, then that's how it works for that event.


The rulebook doesn't actually say... just to replace the vehicle with an area of difficult terrain.

No mention of that terrain being any specific size.

I like that interpretation of the crater size, although I might go with d3 inches myself. Normally the crater is sized to the rough dimensions of the vehicle.

I just replace with one of the GW craters, qickest way I know.

Using wood putty and cardboard I made (surprisingly) some sturdy craters that are roughly the size of a chimera or rhino chassis, two of them touching make a land raider imprint. Once they dried, were flocked with sand & gravel, and painted they turned out pretty darn good. Might be a neat side-project for you to work on if you like that sort of thing. I made about half a dozen and donated them to my Local FLGS, and they have come in handy for many people (we don't do the extra d6 inch thing, that just sounds silly to me).

I made some markers out of old CDs.
The tutorial is on the site Age of Strife and can be seen here. http://www.ageofstrife.com/viewtopic.php?f=45&t=4211

I think it depends on the size of the vehicle personally.

Then again if you roll a 6" explosion on your "vehicle explodes" result that's a big crater!

I think they should clarify it personally. Say:

3" crater for small vehicles (buggies, killa kans, dreadnoughts)

6" crater for transports (rhinos, razorbacks, trukks etc)

up to 12" crater for large models (Land Raider, Hammerhead, Baneblade etc)

The problem is. It really does often times matter when it comes down to a tournament. At the semi's they claimed the rulebook was RAW in that you roll a D6 for the explosion, and that is how big the crater needs to be. That is my question is whether it is RAW, or was just a house rule. Ive always seen it just laid out that the crater is as big as the vehicle.

If you read it word-for-word (pg 61, BRB, btw), it does not say that the D6" area is the area of the difficult terrain, since "area of difficult ground representing scattered wreckage or a crater" doesn't specifically refer to "Flaming debris is scattered D6" from the vehicle". A little word printed like the just between representing and scattered would've solved it.

It's a very good representation of how large the area need to be (as long as you're consistent (pun intended) and account vehicle shape + D6", not just D6"), but not how the rules are written. I'm not even sure I'd go so far as to claim it was how it was intended, either, since it's fully possible that they intended the are or crater to be an area which looked roughly realistic. Literally like that.

Natfka wrote:The problem is. It really does often times matter when it comes down to a tournament. At the semi's they claimed the rulebook was RAW in that you roll a D6 for the explosion, and that is how big the crater needs to be. That is my question is whether it is RAW, or was just a house rule. Ive always seen it just laid out that the crater is as big as the vehicle.

It's not RAW. It's also not RAW that the crater be the same size as the vehicle. Again, the RAW doesn't tell us how big the crater should be... just that you should put one down if you have one.


And while I think the 'vehicle plus blast size' is a nice way to determine the size of the crater, for a tournament it means either having a very large supply of variably-sized craters on hand, or not placing them very often... and there's no point determining the size of it if you don't actually have a crater to put down anyway.

The rule at my FLGS is that the player whose vehicle it was gets to use whatever crater piece he or she decides, but must provide one. If he or she does not have one, the opposing player may provide one. As long as it does not force other terrain pieces to move, then it's legal. The rationale was that if you lose a vehicle, you should at least be within your rights to take it out on the other guy by messing up his movement for a turn.