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Our group is looking on stepping up our game and one thing we feel is lacking is the terrain. What do boards look like in high end competitive events here? how many pieces? What kinds like LoS blocking and area? Is or should anything every be mysterious?

Sorry if this is in the wrong section, given I'm going for specifically the tournament feel I thought it would be here.

What system?

In my experience most tournaments have next to no terrain, and the terrain they do have consists mostly of pieces that have next to no impact on the actual game.

at least LEAST, 2 line of sight blocking pieces of terrain, this help mitigate the massive advantages things like tau and eldar have, and to a lesser extent grav vs nids

In the present meta, recommend at least ... 2 x 12"x12" pieces (rough) that more or less fully block LOS to larger items, meant to be placed in middle areas of the table to provide advance points and help with aforementioned Tau/Eldar; at least 2 more such pieces perhaps with a little less LOS blockage, meant to give deployment zone protection to key units for each player; then enough partially blocking or non-blocking, area, scattery, etc., pieces to get to the density you want per the game recs and your own play group's stylings.

If you don't have some solid LOS blockage for deployment zones, and some solid LOS blockage for midfield, IMO you aren't playing with a sufficient amount (which is why there are no tournaments, including my own, fully up to speed with 6th edition yet).

25% of the board.

I play one large, two medium, three small pieces of terrain. this is in addition to minor scatter terrain.

 arinnoor wrote:
Our group is looking on stepping up our game and one thing we feel is lacking is the terrain. What do boards look like in high end competitive events here? how many pieces? What kinds like LoS blocking and area? Is or should anything every be mysterious?

Mysterious Terrain is often ignored and is more often noted as not part of the tourney. For over a year of 6e, I haven't used those rules and no one else has either. I do play in a big pool.

Mysterious *Objectives*, yes! Use those.

 arinnoor wrote:
Sorry if this is in the wrong section, given I'm going for specifically the tournament feel I thought it would be here.

Seems to be in the right place to me.

I just checked my photobucket libraries and, disappointingly, didn't find any good pix of just tables. So, check out several of the tourney threads on this forum, and look at the pictures.

Also, jy2's batreps. He is a tourney-journeyman. He typically plays GT or RTT missions and in his pictures, you'll see the kind of terrain layouts that are standard in California.

And I'll second what MVBrandt described.

I'd recommend doing a Google search, and take a look at the images:

https://www.google.ca/search?q=40k+tournament&client=firefox-a&hs=WvB&rls=org.mozilla:en-USfficial&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ei=u_2YUp_sNpLboAT9xoDoDQ&ved=0CAkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1435&bih=750

This should give a you a wide range of options and inspiration.

Here's what I see as a typical tourney setup, taken from the search results at random:

http://fortbuyaki.blogspot.ca/2010/10/warstore-weekend.html (larger photos on site)




It's a bit sparse, since they're trying to cover a lot of tables. I'd personally prefer more LOS-blocking pieces, but my dark eldar don't react well to being shot. As I said, if you're looking to make your own, Google's your friend for ideas.

You definitely want a mix of terrain that blocks line of sight and terrain that will provide cover. Hills should always be at least 2" tall to block infantry LoS, otherwise the hill serves no purpose other than to look pretty. Definitely at least 25% of the board should have terrain; more, depending on the theme (city fighting, of course, should have lots of buildings and ruins).

Terrain that doesnt block LOS is almost essentially useless. I'm also a big fan of player placed terrain. Fixed terrain is a huge advantage to shooty armies.

I think you need at least 4 pieces of LOS-blocking terrain, or else you've essentially got an open table. LOS-blocking terrain also needs to block LOS from multiple directions.

 Brothererekose wrote:

 arinnoor wrote:
Our group is looking on stepping up our game and one thing we feel is lacking is the terrain. What do boards look like in high end competitive events here? how many pieces? What kinds like LoS blocking and area? Is or should anything every be mysterious?

Mysterious Terrain is often ignored and is more often noted as not part of the tourney. For over a year of 6e, I haven't used those rules and no one else has either. I do play in a big pool.

Mysterious *Objectives*, yes! Use those.

That's a shame, as my group enjoys mysterious terrain.

 kronk wrote:

 Brothererekose wrote:

 arinnoor wrote:
Our group is looking on stepping up our game and one thing we feel is lacking is the terrain. What do boards look like in high end competitive events here? how many pieces? What kinds like LoS blocking and area? Is or should anything every be mysterious?

Mysterious Terrain is often ignored and is more often noted as not part of the tourney. For over a year of 6e, I haven't used those rules and no one else has either. I do play in a big pool.

Mysterious *Objectives*, yes! Use those.

That's a shame, as my group enjoys mysterious terrain.

I've not experienced the 40k mysterious terrain simply because I don't play it enough, and it adds another complex rule to an already complex game (not the fun complex mind you), but I've played with mysterious terrain in Fantasy, and let me tell you nothing says, "Feth you" like having a holy river that gives penalties to your entire army and it's a river you have to cross to get to your opponent.