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I've been in several situations lately where half the game was spent dealing with terrain instead of fighting.
Because we are all new players, we are starting to have suspicions that in our zeal for terrain, we've put too much on the table.
Anyone have any hard and fast rules for how much terrain to use on any given table?

The rulebook suggests 25% coverage on a 6x4(P88).

The rules say approx. 25% of the table should be terrain (If I remember correctly)

if you are finding you have too much, just cut back a bit.

My friends and I usually play 3 pieces(no bigger than 9 inches by 9 inches) per side, it usually works well.

Actually, the rules say that the coverage should be 25%, and there is a parenthetical statement that more is better.

@DeathReaper: That is woefully inadequate terrain; that little terrain gives purely shooty armies a very distinct advantage. Your stated use of six pieces of terrain of no more than 9" x 9" yields a total amount of terrain not exceeding 486 square inches. Assuming a standard size table, 25% of the table is 864 square inches.

@OP: If you discover that terrain is causing issues during the game, you and your opponent should spend time before the game starts (even before deployment) identifying what each terrain piece represents as far as game play is concerned; what is impassible, what is difficult, what is dangerous, what type of cover save is granted, ,etc. Take the time to do this before the game, and you'll have a lot fewer issues in game.

The best way to make sure you're right at the 25% coverage is to cordon off a 2' x 3' corner of the gaming table and fill it with terrain. Then, spread that terrain about the total area of the board as evenly as possible. Do not neglect terrain pieces that will block TLOS; these are the things that force players to actually maneuver their units rather than sitting still and shooting all game.

DeathReaper wrote:The rules say approx. 25% of the table should be terrain (If I remember correctly)

if you are finding you have too much, just cut back a bit.

My friends and I usually play 3 pieces(no bigger than 9 inches by 9 inches) per side, it usually works well.

I would suggest that is the absolute minimum acceptable but far from optimum.

Well, I usually play on a crafter table so no terrain problem there!

But when I use moveable terrain, I like to play at slightly over 25%.

It has stated since the second ed. rulebook (iirc) 'that the more the better'. 25% is just a number given which TO's have latched unto. EDIT: A good hard and Fast rule is a Big 'bunker' style piece of cover in each deployment zone and three LoS blocking pieces of terrain in NML. Other terrain like barricades and DT is supplementary to this.

I am with the 'more is better' terrain camp myself. We set up with a hill or two, 4 or 5 sections of woods, half a dozen ruins on bases, another half dozen smaller unbased ruins scattered around and a crater or two.
Having too little terrain, as has been noted, makes the game just a 'stand and shoot' fest. With a good amount of terrain you have to find and maneuver into (or out of) fire lanes and objective placement becomes almost something of an art!

@Saldiven, how is it 'woefully inadequate terrain'?

It works for us, sometimes we use more, but we have found that the edge of the table to 6 inches into the deployment zone is useless for us to put terrain in, so we usually leave it clear.

OP: whatever works for you guys, use that much.

matphat wrote:I've been in several situations lately where half the game was spent dealing with terrain instead of fighting.
Because we are all new players, we are starting to have suspicions that in our zeal for terrain, we've put too much on the table.
Anyone have any hard and fast rules for how much terrain to use on any given table?

divide your playing area into quarters. Fill one quarter with terrain. There you go, easy way to figure out 25% terrain for your games.

matphat wrote:I've been in several situations lately where half the game was spent dealing with terrain instead of fighting.
Because we are all new players, we are starting to have suspicions that in our zeal for terrain, we've put too much on the table.
Anyone have any hard and fast rules for how much terrain to use on any given table?

I agree with DeathReapper, you are new on the game guys so it will take some time before you realize how much terrain is good for you and also how much terrain is good for every army, because is also true that to much terrain is a lot of cover for horde armys whereas just a few gives more line of sight for shooty armys. You guys have to find a balance on that and that will take a couple battles. The important thing is that you have fun, and both players feel confortable with the setting.

Its woefully inadequate because you are not meeting the 25% minimum .... pretty obvious id say.

It works well, all my friends and I have fun, and it is still woefully inadequate? I do not understand your logic.

If you choose to play a game on a 'Empty Parking Lot" battle board, devoid of any terrain, and if those games work for you guys, do it.

It only says there should be About 25% of the field being terrain, it is a guideline to start and find what works for you guys.

Well, there's a difference between deliberately playing on Planet Bowling-Ball, and unintentionally underestimating what "25% of the table" is.

If you take your terrain and push it all into one corner, if it fills that corner of the board that about 25% of the table.

Personally, there is no such thing as too much terrain. There's only, "Okay, maybe we should add some open areas."

I find the 25% to be perfect for most of my games. I play both shooty and assaulty armies and find it rarely benefits one over the other. About half of it tends to be line of sight blocking terrain and half as ground cover that gives a small cover save for being on top of it.

We find that any more than this and ranged shooting becomes more or less inconsequential, while any less makes shooting too potent.

I used to make terrain for my local GW store between 02 and 07 and some of it is still being used to this very day. The red shirts were my friends and they knew of my modeling skills so I'd help them out and in return I got in some neat games after hours. Missed those good times. I even got an open ended invitation to run tournaments for a few stores. Someday I'll take that offer up.

Anyhow.

25% of a 4ft x 6ft board is 2ft x 3 ft or 6 square feet. That is plenty of terrain for a standard game.

People are forgetting that this is square feet not volume. You can have a area terrain for trees that is 12 x 12 inches or a building that the base is 12 x 12 but the height is over 6 inches tall. Both take up one square foot but the building takes up more volume and you have more opportunity to hide your models against your opponents.

Most terrain pieces are volume pieces. That is the dynamics of the game. The more terrain there is on the board the more it favors close combat armies in game play.

Now there are always caveats to this, such as City of death or in a jungle theme but overall 25% is the standard practice.

DeathReaper wrote:@Saldiven, how is it 'woefully inadequate terrain'?

It works for us, sometimes we use more, but we have found that the edge of the table to 6 inches into the deployment zone is useless for us to put terrain in, so we usually leave it clear.

OP: whatever works for you guys, use that much.

Well, firstly it's in the rules. The rules call for 25% terrain, which would be 864 square inches. You're at about half that, assuming all of the six terrain pieces you pick are the maximum size you listed at 9" x 9". Approximately 13% terrain will never qualify as "about 25%," especially when the rulebook says that more is better.

Secondly, one of the main reasons that armies like Leaf Blower IG and Longfang Spam are as effective as they are in tournaments (not the only, but one of the reasons) is because of lack of LOS blocking terrain. If one player can park his army in one corner of the board and have unfettered ability to lay fire on 90% of the board, then the other player is at a disadvantage unless they're playing an identically shooty army. Non-shooting armies MUST have adequate terrain in place to have any significant hope of making a game of it against a highly shooty army. Also, terrain forces players to actually maneuver their forces and make difficult choices during the movement and assault phases of the game, rather than merely shuffling around and skipping to the shooting phase. As stated in the main rules, more terrain makes for better games; however, if you're not used to having more terrain, it will take a little while to adjust to how differently the game plays with a large amount of terrain.

Our group has always used a fair amount of area terrain.

However, after reading battle reports and looking at other people's tables, we've started adding a few larger line-of-site blocking pieces to the mix.

matphat wrote:I've been in several situations lately where half the game was spent dealing with terrain instead of fighting.
Because we are all new players, we are starting to have suspicions that in our zeal for terrain, we've put too much on the table.
Anyone have any hard and fast rules for how much terrain to use on any given table?

I've had this same problem when just starting out as well. I used the recommended 25%, but it did seem like I was wrestling with terrain for much of the game as well.

However, what you'll realize is that this is due, in part, to the fact that when you're just starting out you have no idea how to use terrain and the terrain seems to add a lot of undue complexity.

As you game more, you'll find that you get better at the flow of the rules and all the issues with the terrain will start to disappear as you get used to playing the game. You'll also get better at assessing the terrain on the table and using it to your advantage.

I started with the Assault on Black Reach set myself, and moving a 20 model unit of Boyz around terrain was daunting for a while. But as I got used to the movement rules and got into the flow of the game more, it became much less of a big deal.

I did try removing much of the terrain, but as my opponent was Space Marines, my Orks had to walk through a meat grinder of bolter fire to get any assaults. After that, we doubled the terrain to see what would happen. I still had issues moving my boyz through everything, but I did get way more chances to snake through cover and assault the marines while taking very few casaulties.

So, my advice is to stick to the 25% rule and keep playing. You'll get used to the terrain eventually.

25% is a pretty broad palette to work with. Some can be LOS blockers, some can be woods, some can be little walls, or craters. It makes a huge diffeence what type of terrain that 25% is.

I find that players with assault oriented armies like to complain that there isn't enough terrain. I think that terrain should be clumped a bit, not just scattered everywhere, so the 48" and 36" guns have a chance to use their advantage too instead of the whole game boiling down to charge range as soon as you can get LOS. I HATE when some armies can cross the entire board without ever being in LOS to be shot at. That means the way the terrain is dispersed massively favors the assault army.

yeenoghu wrote:25% is a pretty broad palette to work with. Some can be LOS blockers, some can be woods, some can be little walls, or craters. It makes a huge diffeence what type of terrain that 25% is.

I find that players with assault oriented armies like to complain that there isn't enough terrain. I think that terrain should be clumped a bit, not just scattered everywhere, so the 48" and 36" guns have a chance to use their advantage too instead of the whole game boiling down to charge range as soon as you can get LOS. I HATE when some armies can cross the entire board without ever being in LOS to be shot at. That means the way the terrain is dispersed massively favors the assault army.

This merely requires you to have mobile shooting platforms in addition to static shooting platforms so you can adjust your firing position to account for your opponent using terrain to hide behind.

Like I said; having lots of terrain forces players to think a lot harder about their choices during deployment, movement and assault than does having only a small amount of terrain.

Of course, it is completely possible to have so much terrain that the game becomes unplayable.

matphat wrote:I've been in several situations lately where half the game was spent dealing with terrain instead of fighting.

This is the sentence that I think sums up the intent here. I'm starting out as well, and I find it difficult to keep track of what's impassable, what's difficult, how do I move through the terrain, how does this terrain affect LOS, etc.

So he may be playing with the right amount of terrain, but he's just having trouble getting used to terrain in general. That's my opinion, though.

Which is why you keep it simple to start. Same as AoBR only has a few types of models.

Impassable terrain should be fairly rare on a normal board (as in, outside of models whcih are always impassable)

Difficult terrain is 2D6 or, very rarely, 3D6, or dangerous if you are riding a bike, jump packing or driving

LOS is the easy one - it is TLOS all the way baby, for actual LOS questions.

Our club plays more is better, and we're trying to use more LOS blocking terrain.

More LOS blocking terrain! Not too much, obviously. But, you HAVE to have some terrain that is like that. Certain types of lists will just get cremated if you can't hide your units anywhere.

Kurce wrote:More LOS blocking terrain! Not too much, obviously. But, you HAVE to have some terrain that is like that. Certain types of lists will just get cremated if you can't hide your units anywhere.

This!

Unless you absolutely hate Tyranids, LoS blocking terrain is necessary to keep your games from turning into RNG worship. We've recently built a table cover to have a legal 6'X4' area, and using the 25% rule/suggestion has made a world of difference to our games. One thing I would suggest is the plastic crater sets that GW sells (or, ofc, find something similar and cheaper). They are a good source of difficult terrain that can still be (mostly) shot around, and moved through, but make game-play decisions more interesting.

I am a 'nid player, so i am always arguing for more terrain, but i am not opposed to using less. the people I play with do the 25% rule to start, not including raised areas on the board. then throw in a few LoS to boot. some times i convince the guys to roll off for extra terrain pieces. like a 2d6 extra. filling the entire board with terrain doesn't really give a disadvantage to the shooters, but the Tyranid want nothing to do with a bare planet.
my problem comes with tournaments. for some reason they are set on only using exactly 25% makes me have to take a lot of shooting nids.

Saldiven wrote:one of the main reasons that armies like Leaf Blower IG and Longfang Spam are as effective as they are in tournaments (not the only, but one of the reasons) is because of lack of LOS blocking terrain. If one player can park his army in one corner of the board and have unfettered ability to lay fire on 90% of the board, then the other player is at a disadvantage unless they're playing an identically shooty army. Non-shooting armies MUST have adequate terrain in place to have any significant hope of making a game of it against a highly shooty army.

The reasons for this are mostly economical. Tournament opperators want less terrain because they have to supply it, and GW wants less terrain so they can sell you more transport vehicles. And so you get the current crop of online 'experts' who only think in terms of tournament play and low terrain density and both acceptible internet lists are highly mechanised "or you won't survive".

About 35% terrain is better.
You don't want too much or the shooty armies will get chopped up in melee... you don't want too little or there will be no melee

25% is a minimum, but not really enough

25% works fine, as long as a decent percentage of it is LOS-blocking. If you divide the 25% coverage into three equal proportions- completely LOS-blocking (even to vehicles; so 2.5" and taller, plus with some width) / LOS obcuring/blocking only for infantry (partial walls, 1" hills on bases or 1.5" unbased), and open difficult, even that 1/12 of the table that blocks LOS to anything behind it is enough.

No one (except the guys actually running gunlines) actually WANTS less terrain. TOs and GW want more terrain on the tables. It's just a hurdle in terms of logistics/amount of work/cost & storage space issue for TOs.