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The last two games I've played were done using using a GK foot gunners list, taken under the expectation that there would be enough terrain on the board spread out equally enough to allow me to run from cover to cover until I could get the enemy within 24", only to find that terrain for the first game was set up by a third party as a row of ruins in each deployment zone, with a practically barren no mans land in between, and the second board had even less, looking more like it had been set up for a game of fantasy. In the first game, I believe that this was done deliberately by the third party to screw me over and that his claiming this is how terrain was set up for tournaments - we normally load the tables with the 25% terrain coverage spread across the board and he knew what kind of army I was running - was his way of taking advantage of me never having attended a tournament anywhere else. As such I brushed it off and got on with the game, but in the second game at a different gaming club I came across this second, even sparser table, and got told the same thing, and that with tournaments you need to take your own terrain ie. vehicles.

Are tournament games seriously run with next to no cover or cover practically only suitable for long-range gun lines?

It really depends on where you are at.

25% used to be the norm however like you I am seeing either seeing less (a great deal less mind you) or the exact opposite (over 35%).

Kind of a sad state of affairs actually.

I've never heard that people should bring their own terrain to tournaments, but the idea that you have to adapt to a battlefield no matter how much or how little terrain is the norm.

There is no "standard" of tournament terrain where it's all barren and crappy. Larger GTs tend to be 25% covered, spread across the board. Smaller or ill planned events are often plagued by bad or sparse terrain, which may give your tormentor third parties a skewed perspective, if all they do is the local scrubscene.

I travel around the NC/NC/GA area for tournaments and terrain is hit or miss depending on where you go. Some stores have preset boards that are basically one giant terrain piece and they add modular parts. These usually end up around 40% coverage and questionable difficult ground areas. Then there are stores that will have roughly 5 buildings spaced evenly on the 6x4 board with little to no additional terrain. I think so long as one side is not stacked and the other barren then as someone already said it becomes an adapt/overcome situation.

I will give a blaring example of poorly thought out scenery from when I went to the Ard Boyz prelims year before last. In the second match I got on a board with two very small buildings on the flanks of the one side and a damn near four story monster of a building dead center on the other. There was little to no cover in between the sides. I won the roll, took the monster building, and loaded it with Long Fangs and CML squads. I had 21 missile shots going off a round with almost 100% clear LOS to anywhere on the table. Being on the 4th floor the chance of ever reaching them was slim to none so all I had to do was have my troop units avoid being shot for a round or two of missile barrages. By turn three majority of his stuff was gone and I had lost a razorback and a few guys. This is a situation where the board dictated the game as much or more than any skill on either of our parts or dice rolls would have. Organizers IMO should do their best to avoid having stacked tables like these at their events.

MVBrandt wrote:There is no "standard" of tournament terrain where it's all barren and crappy. Larger GTs tend to be 25% covered, spread across the board. Smaller or ill planned events are often plagued by bad or sparse terrain, which may give your tormentor third parties a skewed perspective, if all they do is the local scrubscene.

QFT.

Small and/or understaffed stores are the usual suspects for failing to update their terrain to 5th ed. Back in 3rd and 4th, you had plenty of LOS-blocking on the table because you could not see across a forest or area terrain; nearly all the store needed for functional/playable tables were some flat area pieces and a couple of trees to stand on them. In 5th tables need to have actual, solid LOS-blocking hills, ruins and buildings on them. But those take some work to make, and some stores either a) haven't done the work at all, or b) have only done enough for the 2-3 tables they need every week, but not enough to properly outfit all the tables they need for a tournament.