Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So, the buyable terrain we have currently is all either stuff to protect your gunline (like an ADL or a skyshield), or is stuff to enhance your gunline (fortress, most of the wall of martyrs stuff), or both.

Is there any rumor of there being terrain that you can add to your FoC that's not that? If not, how would you house rule buyable terrain to fix this?

The best I can think of for anti-gunlining terrain would be either something like a tunnel system a la WWP that deploys after deployment, or perhaps something like an earthshaker battery that only opens fire on enemy units that haven't moved at least 6" in the previous turn (after turn 2, or something).

Or are we more or less doomed to the only point of terrain being stuff to hide your guys in that may or may not either give you more guns, or the ability to shoot over other terrain?

Given them time, Given the current trends, I'm sure we'll have a supplement sooner or later that requires players to purchase all the (Citadel) terrain on the table as a part of their FOC.

We have the buyable terrain but we just treat it as misc terrain. I think once since 6th edition someone actually used an aegis. Other than that they just make the board look nice.

So in Kapiti New Zealand, we are not affected at all.

If they just let you buy a bunch of 4"+ flat vertical boards and put them anywhere to block LoS that alone would be huge. ~3" tall tunnels would be awesome...actually those would be similar to the IG trenches which I think have been insinuated as being a part of this.

 ansacs wrote:
If they just let you buy a bunch of 4"+ flat vertical boards and put them anywhere to block LoS that alone would be huge. ~3" tall tunnels would be awesome...actually those would be similar to the IG trenches which I think have been insinuated as being a part of this.

I purchased a trench line puzzle type system a while back and we played it like it was the tunnels of a space hulk. Absolute carnage. The congestion and limited firing halls etc was crazy. Might do that again some time actually.

Terrain/fortifications typically favor gunlines. Not sure what GW could add terain/fortification wise that benefit a more mobile force. Maybe some sort of deployable antenna that buff movement/assault?

Edited for spelling.

It would be interesting if they made something like "Teleport Inhibitors" or "Elevated roadways"; things that thwarted mobile forces or aided them.

Haven't heard anything official, but I'd be shocked if we don't see additional terrain coming down the line.

Given the fact that you define "gunline" as "any army I don't like", no, there is no non-gunline terrain.

 Peregrine wrote:
Given the fact that you define "gunline" as "any army I don't like", no, there is no non-gunline terrain.

That was a highly unnecessary personal attack, though I agree Ailaros' definition of gunlines is a little...broad.

Considering he made several examples of 'Non-Gunline terrain', I'm not sure how you can make a statement that there is no terrain he would consider 'non-gunline'.

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
That was a highly unnecessary personal attack, though I agree Ailaros' definition of gunlines is a little...broad.

I don't think you understand the concept of a personal attack very well. "Ailaros sucks" is a personal attack. "Ailaros has an absurd definition of 'gunline' that covers everything from static IG/Tau to an Eldar army where everything in the army can move 36" a turn" is an argument against his ideas.

Considering he made several examples of 'Non-Gunline terrain', I'm not sure how you can make a statement that there is no terrain he would consider 'non-gunline'.

Because he'd find a way to call it gunline terrain. A tunnel would be used to re-deploy a gunline once you get close, artillery terrain would be used by a gunline to clear objectives, etc. For Ailaros "gunline" is just an insult thrown at any army that doesn't play the game the way he wants it to be played, regardless of how appropriate it is.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
It would be interesting if they made something like "Teleport Inhibitors" or "Elevated roadways"; things that thwarted mobile forces or aided them.

Yeah, adding roads back in to potentially speed up movement (Extra D6 - choose the highest for run moves, extra D6 movement for vehicles, say) would be an obvious option.

Tank traps, energy barriers, short-range teleportals, monorail trams, automated transport vehicles, spotlight emplacements, ... all sorts of options that could be easily incorporated with the right terrain.

It's possible. I think that we will also see an army whose niche is terrain and fortifications, on the table top. As in they can take more of it, or they get some kind of buff fighting inside fortresses, or they have take terrain like other armies take dedicated transports for certain units. This would be a good niche for Sisters, in my opinion.

I doubt any terrain will ever be designed to help assault armies. The only way I can see that happening would involve tyranids somehow.

Skyshields and Bastions can be used to help assault armies, just toss them near midfield. And advance behind/on top of them. Maybe not exactly what you mean, but my Daemon list gets great use out of the Bastion.

With the supplement released I will resurrect this thread...mwhahahahahaaa!

There is definitely terrain to help assault armies now. They are;
-The void shield generator (100 pts for 3 shields); having to kill 3 AV12 HP before you can even hurt the units beneath is a significant improvement. The bubble is also big enough to cover most of the mid board. The building can also be modeled as a large LoS blocking terrain...which is great of assault armies
-Promethium relay (340 pts for 1 ADL pieces of piping and 3 void shield generators); same but the pipes can be modeled to block LoS as well. Alpha strikes will be largely negated for most armies unless they come within 12" of the building (which is where you want them)

These next ones don't help the assault portion of the assault based army but do make assault armies more feasible.
-skyshield landing pad...yes, I am serious. The upgrade to put a flyer on the table can really help assault armies as it gives them tools to cover their weaknesses (ie shooty stuff they cannot reach to punch). Even a single hellturkey can really make a difference against a tau broadside line. Even a hades cannon turkey could be great to pop fast transports your punchy cannot catch.
-Vengeance weapons battery; these things don't really work great when compared to the heavy hitters in codices. Their damage per point is relatively low in comparison. What they are great for is they don't require any support and are very resilient against the most common problem targets of assault based armies. A few of quadd las of goes a long way to account for the utter lack of AA in assault units and the battle cannon is great against broadsides. I like the quadd las though. You can also use them as LoS blockers in the midboard (probably the best place to set them anyways).

Anyways I figured I would share as stronghold assault is being largely ignored due to escalations waves. I also would enjoy another berserker batrep from Ailros if he ever has the time and interest again.

Additionally Bel'kor is also a great toolkit unit for assault armies however he is a different thread. In combination with some of the above however he can really shield your forces.

 ansacs wrote:
With the supplement released I will resurrect this thread...mwhahahahahaaa!

There is definitely terrain to help assault armies now. They are;
-The void shield generator (100 pts for 3 shields); having to kill 3 AV12 HP before you can even hurt the units beneath is a significant improvement. The bubble is also big enough to cover most of the mid board. The building can also be modeled as a large LoS blocking terrain...which is great of assault armies
-Promethium relay (340 pts for 1 ADL pieces of piping and 3 void shield generators); same but the pipes can be modeled to block LoS as well. Alpha strikes will be largely negated for most armies unless they come within 12" of the building (which is where you want them)

These next ones don't help the assault portion of the assault based army but do make assault armies more feasible.
-skyshield landing pad...yes, I am serious. The upgrade to put a flyer on the table can really help assault armies as it gives them tools to cover their weaknesses (ie shooty stuff they cannot reach to punch). Even a single hellturkey can really make a difference against a tau broadside line. Even a hades cannon turkey could be great to pop fast transports your punchy cannot catch.
-Vengeance weapons battery; these things don't really work great when compared to the heavy hitters in codices. Their damage per point is relatively low in comparison. What they are great for is they don't require any support and are very resilient against the most common problem targets of assault based armies. A few of quadd las of goes a long way to account for the utter lack of AA in assault units and the battle cannon is great against broadsides. I like the quadd las though. You can also use them as LoS blockers in the midboard (probably the best place to set them anyways).

Anyways I figured I would share as stronghold assault is being largely ignored due to escalations waves. I also would enjoy another berserker batrep from Ailros if he ever has the time and interest again.

Additionally Bel'kor is also a great toolkit unit for assault armies however he is a different thread. In combination with some of the above however he can really shield your forces.

The upgrade for the Skyshield is pretty cheap as well why would you not take the skyshield over the Aegis if you have flyers. I would even take the Void Shield array over an Aegis.

 Peregrine wrote:


I don't think you understand the concept of a personal attack very well. "Ailaros sucks" is a personal attack. "Ailaros has an absurd definition of 'gunline' that covers everything from static IG/Tau to an Eldar army where everything in the army can move 36" a turn" is an argument against his ideas.

Because he'd find a way to call it gunline terrain. A tunnel would be used to re-deploy a gunline once you get close, artillery terrain would be used by a gunline to clear objectives, etc. For Ailaros "gunline" is just an insult thrown at any army that doesn't play the game the way he wants it to be played, regardless of how appropriate it is.

I'd like to see him call a screamerstar a gunline. And I doubt he likes it.

Throwing in an argument irrelevant to the thread is not nice. When he says gunlines, treat it as your interpretation of 'gunline'.

Most of the assault stuff available right now isn't actually terrain, it's some sort of thing added on to the terrain like Comm Arrays. I'd like to see roads re-implemented though, and its not like a bunch of interlocking flat panels would be that difficult to produce.

Honestly there's a whole facet of warfare that GW could make rules and models for just in the logistics of engineering. Walls, demolitions, tunnels, and all the possibilities of sci-fi future innovations like teleportation. I wish ruins weren't such a ubiquitous thing that offered no more than a 4+ cover save.

Bolstering ruins should be a thing, like temporary sandbag defenses or purchasable gun emplacements you can scatter around an area. And mines! Where are all the mines, and mine layers, and mine detectors, and mine destroyers. You could have all sorts of wacky explosive traps that slow people down or spawn monsters.

If you can get your opponent to agree to use 4e terrain rules, then any area terrain piece can be use to break of lines of fire (just define everything as size 3). Personally, I preferred the 4e rules to the 5e and 6e TLOS rules, because I felt they made the game and lot more tactical and movement based. But apparently abstract LOS just was "cinematic" enough, so now your stuck with everything on the other side of the table shooting you starting round 1.

 Warboss_Waaazag wrote:
It would be interesting if they made something like "Teleport Inhibitors" or "Elevated roadways"; things that thwarted mobile forces or aided them.

You mean "Warp Quake"?

It's a common myth, though, that merely adding in LOS-blocking terrain is necessarily good for assault armies. Assault armies still get slowed by LOS-blocking terrain, still fail assaults more frequently by assaulting into LOS-blocking terrain, and have problems assaulting through said terrain (after all, LOS cuts both ways - you need to be able to see a unit to assault it).

Meanwhile, there are weapons out there that don't need LOS to blow you up, like barrage weapons and smart missiles, which means they get all the advantages of being out of LOS from YOUR stuff while also not suffering the penalties. And of course there are things like fast skimmers that ignore terrain when they move, and can quickly redeploy around LOS-blocking terrain. And that's nothing to say about things like deepstrikers, etc.

Terrain is mostly useful to shooting armies, as it gives them cover saves and helps prevent already anemic 6th-ed assaulters from ever doing anything.

I suppose what you'd need to do to have terrain that is good against gunlines is to have terrain that HURTS gunline units.

For an obvious example, you could have something like geothermal vents where they're your standard 5+ area terrain, but if a unit ends its movement phase in the terrain two turns in a row then every model in the unit suffers a S4 hit, or something. Or have either as a terrain characteristic or as an upgrade or something, you'd have terrain pieces that are considered landmarks, and if you have models in them, your opponent can call down free artillery barrages (or something) on them.

Or you could do terrain that helps units that rely on short-range shooting or close combat units, like the 4th ed roads as mentioned. Or like a sewer system, or something, I don't know.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of offensive terrain. With your one fortification slot, instead of taking something that you place in your deployment zone that buffs your army, instead you could take a piece that you put in your opponent's deployment zone that debuffs theirs. Like a "toxic cloud" fortification option where you nominate a point in your opponent's deployment zone and all units within 12" are at -1BS until the end of the game, or the old cityfight demolitions where for 150 points and your fortification slot you can secretly nominate a piece of terrain anywhere on the board, and, starting turn 1, on the roll of a 4+, the bomb explodes, removing the terrain piece from the board and causing a S10 Ap1 to everything inside it.

I'd gladly pay points to be able to undo the points paid by my opponent to put up giant castles on the table.

You do realize assault armies will get slowed by terrain regardless of whether it blocks line of sight. The difference is if it doesn't interrupt LOS, your assault troops will be getting shot to pieces (standard 5+ only goes so far), while you can deny your opponent's shooting entirely by outmaneuvering him if significant LOS blocking terrain is present. Sure, lack of LOS can block charges as well, but charge range averages to about 7", while shooting range can easily extend the length of the board, so guess who comes out ahead on that one. Plus, you don't need to charge nearly as often as shoot due to the decisive nature of charging, so reducing the frequency at which LOS is established is a blessing in this respect as well.

In regard to weapons that ignore LOS, there simply aren't that many of them. A Tau player is not going to take out your entire army using SMS alone, and it is not like he is going to stop using his SMS just because you are visible. Even if your opponent brings 25% of his firepower in LOS ignoring format (highly unlikely), you are still negating 75% of his firepower.

Also, if your trying to assault opponents, why do you care if they have cover saves? You don't benefit from cover in assault. Heck, one of the biggest arguments for bringing and assault unit or two even in this shooting dominated addition is to dig something out of cover like Eldar rangers.

There is no need for some kind of special anti-gunline unit terrain. Just bring back LOS denying terrain. With the proper use of the movement phase, you can keep out of LOS as you close, drastically reducing shooting casualties, which should make assaulters other than deathstars and MCs viable again.

 Peregrine wrote:

 ImotekhTheStormlord wrote:
That was a highly unnecessary personal attack, though I agree Ailaros' definition of gunlines is a little...broad.

I don't think you understand the concept of a personal attack very well. "Ailaros sucks" is a personal attack. "Ailaros has an absurd definition of 'gunline' that covers everything from static IG/Tau to an Eldar army where everything in the army can move 36" a turn" is an argument against his ideas.

Considering he made several examples of 'Non-Gunline terrain', I'm not sure how you can make a statement that there is no terrain he would consider 'non-gunline'.

Because he'd find a way to call it gunline terrain. A tunnel would be used to re-deploy a gunline once you get close, artillery terrain would be used by a gunline to clear objectives, etc. For Ailaros "gunline" is just an insult thrown at any army that doesn't play the game the way he wants it to be played, regardless of how appropriate it is.

Yeah it was indeed a personal attack.
That said I agree. A little blunt though.

Phanixis wrote:You do realize assault armies will get slowed by terrain regardless of whether it blocks line of sight.

Right, my point is that terrain always hurts units trying to move forward to close range (well, unless they're in skimmers). Meanwhile, terrain is always net helpful for gunline units. Even when you're talking about LOS-blockers, it's still not a straight win for the closers. Furthermore, it's far, far away from the magic cure-all that some people tout it to be.

Believe me, the moment it became anywhere near that, you'd have the entire tau community decrying how their codex is unplayable, or at least a lot more gunline players complaining about it. As it is, they don't, because it's too easy to work around (in part because LOS-blocking terrain is still terrain, with all of the problems that that causes for people closing range).

 Swastakowey wrote:

 ansacs wrote:
If they just let you buy a bunch of 4"+ flat vertical boards and put them anywhere to block LoS that alone would be huge. ~3" tall tunnels would be awesome...actually those would be similar to the IG trenches which I think have been insinuated as being a part of this.

I purchased a trench line puzzle type system a while back and we played it like it was the tunnels of a space hulk. Absolute carnage. The congestion and limited firing halls etc was crazy. Might do that again some time actually.

That sounds fairly cool. We'll have to give it a go with my group.

Hypothetically, what if there were smoke grenades available to only the more dedicated melee units, that could provide a mobile cover save - or reduce the ballistic skill and increase scatter of incoming fire - without hindering movement? Basically your unit would throw some grenades, represented by an area around a line between two points, and if a model has to draw their line of sight through it, they get the penalty.

Gunline armies could get a benefit from it, but if it were limited to dedicated melee units - Assault Marines, Daemonettes could justify it as a Warp-based visual distortion, I'd say Ogryns but they might be too stupid to use grenades in the first place, Banshees, Scorpions, Raptors, Wyches, a lot of Ork units if Orks use grenades at all, things of that nature - they'd have to spend the points on such units, which would limit the amount of firepower they can pack into a list.

I'm just remembering how annoying smoke grenades are in PlanetSide 2.

I actually really like that idea. Adding in more player choice, and adding in more tactics. And yeah, any unit could make use of something like this, but it would bias in favor or units that needed to rely on mobility and closing range.

Something like once per game at the beginning of a player's turn, a unit can use its smoke grenades which makes it so that the unit is untargetable by any shooting attacks, and undoes the effect of assault grenades (while making them count as in cover for the purpose of rolling charge range, even if they're not), but the unit can only snap fire in the shooting phase of the turn they activate the grenades.

That sounds neat. I'll have to find someone to play a few games with that as a house rule.

Using smoke to make a unit "untargetable" is too extreme. I can see a great cover save, but if some an enemy unit threw smoke grenades at you before a charge you'd probably still shoot into the cloud and get a few hits. A really dense cloud might even slow the moving unit too.

Ailaros wrote:It's a common myth, though, that merely adding in LOS-blocking terrain is necessarily good for assault armies. Assault armies still get slowed by LOS-blocking terrain, still fail assaults more frequently by assaulting into LOS-blocking terrain, and have problems assaulting through said terrain (after all, LOS cuts both ways - you need to be able to see a unit to assault it).

Meanwhile, there are weapons out there that don't need LOS to blow you up, like barrage weapons and smart missiles, which means they get all the advantages of being out of LOS from YOUR stuff while also not suffering the penalties. And of course there are things like fast skimmers that ignore terrain when they move, and can quickly redeploy around LOS-blocking terrain. And that's nothing to say about things like deepstrikers, etc.

Terrain is mostly useful to shooting armies, as it gives them cover saves and helps prevent already anemic 6th-ed assaulters from ever doing anything.

I suppose what you'd need to do to have terrain that is good against gunlines is to have terrain that HURTS gunline units.

For an obvious example, you could have something like geothermal vents where they're your standard 5+ area terrain, but if a unit ends its movement phase in the terrain two turns in a row then every model in the unit suffers a S4 hit, or something. Or have either as a terrain characteristic or as an upgrade or something, you'd have terrain pieces that are considered landmarks, and if you have models in them, your opponent can call down free artillery barrages (or something) on them.

Or you could do terrain that helps units that rely on short-range shooting or close combat units, like the 4th ed roads as mentioned. Or like a sewer system, or something, I don't know.

Actually, the more I think about it, the more I like the idea of offensive terrain. With your one fortification slot, instead of taking something that you place in your deployment zone that buffs your army, instead you could take a piece that you put in your opponent's deployment zone that debuffs theirs. Like a "toxic cloud" fortification option where you nominate a point in your opponent's deployment zone and all units within 12" are at -1BS until the end of the game, or the old cityfight demolitions where for 150 points and your fortification slot you can secretly nominate a piece of terrain anywhere on the board, and, starting turn 1, on the roll of a 4+, the bomb explodes, removing the terrain piece from the board and causing a S10 Ap1 to everything inside it.

I'd gladly pay points to be able to undo the points paid by my opponent to put up giant castles on the table.

Well, the only thing in that post I agree with is some offensive fortifications would be pretty awesome. Actually I would like a lot of the stratagems from Apoc (scaled down in effect) to appear in 40K. The problem being that to sell these properly models would have to be developed and sold. Either way perhaps we will see something in Tyranids codex as they already have something similar just not effective.

Your argument about LoS blocking terrain is largely false. Most LoS blocking terrain is buildings of various dimensions. To circumvent a medium+ building to draw LoS the unit must either move huge distances (24"+) or get close to the building...Perhaps what your not understanding is when LoS blocking terrain is brought up in these context's it is only meant to reduce the damage you take either by a # turns of shooting or a % of the opponent's army. If it remove shooting completely that would be called playing by yourself. Imagine if you could pay 40 pts to reduce any alpha strike to barrage weapons only and you only had to sacrifice 2" of movement turn 1? That is a pretty good deal most of the time.

It also appears you did not read my post about shield generators at all. Against your theoretical Tau army they literally cannot hurt you until they kill the equivalent of 3 waveserpents. Then if they manage that you have LoS blocking terrain to allow only their SMS to shoot you. Not that they would likely have any SMS systems left as all the best SMS platforms tend to be their best AV12 platforms too. You also are neglecting the fact that a few turns of SMS fire or the equivalent is not scary in the least. There is only 1 army that can blow anyone away with barrage weapons and that is IG. Though the popular IG builds have been pretty lacking in barrage compared to what you would need for this.

Pouncey wrote:Hypothetically, what if there were smoke grenades available to only the more dedicated melee units, that could provide a mobile cover save - or reduce the ballistic skill and increase scatter of incoming fire - without hindering movement? Basically your unit would throw some grenades, represented by an area around a line between two points, and if a model has to draw their line of sight through it, they get the penalty.

Gunline armies could get a benefit from it, but if it were limited to dedicated melee units - Assault Marines, Daemonettes could justify it as a Warp-based visual distortion, I'd say Ogryns but they might be too stupid to use grenades in the first place, Banshees, Scorpions, Raptors, Wyches, a lot of Ork units if Orks use grenades at all, things of that nature - they'd have to spend the points on such units, which would limit the amount of firepower they can pack into a list.

I'm just remembering how annoying smoke grenades are in PlanetSide 2.

There is actually a really awesome strategem in Apoc that is a smoke screen that blocks all LoS between two points. It is incredible for assault armies because blocking LoS does reduce most shooting armies firepower by 75-90%.

 Ailaros wrote:

Phanixis wrote:You do realize assault armies will get slowed by terrain regardless of whether it blocks line of sight.

Right, my point is that terrain always hurts units trying to move forward to close range (well, unless they're in skimmers). Meanwhile, terrain is always net helpful for gunline units. Even when you're talking about LOS-blockers, it's still not a straight win for the closers. Furthermore, it's far, far away from the magic cure-all that some people tout it to be.

Believe me, the moment it became anywhere near that, you'd have the entire tau community decrying how their codex is unplayable, or at least a lot more gunline players complaining about it. As it is, they don't, because it's too easy to work around (in part because LOS-blocking terrain is still terrain, with all of the problems that that causes for people closing range).

Those Tau players that would be decrying that their codex is unplayable will be the bandwagon players; The ones that don't know how strategic it is for Crisis Suits and Stealth Suits having LOS blocking terrain to protect them after they JSJ.