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The local Geedub has scratch built, official (including long out-of-print stuff, which is confusing because the store just opened on the day they released the Imperial Space Marine) and converted official stuff. I don't know how much water this idea holds

So basically people want to get rid of the more fun and interesting parts of 40k?

Count me out. Give me your custom ruins, I fething love it.

We use 90% home-made terrain on our gaming tables. We have a handful of GW Trenches / a Ruin or two, but that's just because a friend won a Gift Certificate or something, and wanted some trenches.

GW in London, ON, only allows GW terrain to be used. It rather sucks, because I'm not terribly fond of GW's terrain. Whenever I've been to other LGS, they usually have scratchbuilt terrain. I mean, you can make a playable ruin for about $5 worth of foam board and glue. Spray with a textured stone spray and you're off to the races for under $10, including a thinwood base and a handful of gubbins spread about. I figure I could build a respectable city fight board's worth of terrain for the cost of a couple of large ruin kits from GW.

Don't get me started on forests! I can buy $10 worth of aquarium plants at the dollar store, make a few bases, and make about 1/4 of a board's worth of trees for about $20.

Low walls? I like round dowel for the ends of the sections, so I can put them together at any angle and they match up ok. Cut some sections of foam board, spray the whole thing in textured paint, add a base and some gubbins... 48" worth of walls for under $20.

Hills? For me, a little more expensive. I like to use insulation board for the durability, and it comes in 1" thick plates. 4' x 8' sections costs about $50, if I recall, but you can make beautiful hills, heavy bastion type buildings... anything that you'd want to have a predictable thickness. I also bought a 1/2" thick piece, but I had money to burn at the time. I've lost count of the number of hills and buildings I've made from those pieces, but to be fair, I would probably make ruins out of the foamboard you can buy at dollar stores, now. And you can get cheaper foam, but the pink insulation stuff can be sanded to make nice, smooth edges and corners.

I can see where someone could be coming from if it's a purchased fortification, but even then I built a Bastion sized building that was within 1/2 inch on the dimensions, so I never had a problem with my gaming group. [$5 worth of the Foam, maybe another $5 worth of glue, paint, and craft sticks.] The low walls I've built could easily be used as an Aegis... I just bought that kit because I wanted the Quad-Gun... the walls were a bonus.

Thats weird... the only thing I can see may be a problem is in AoS with Sylvaneth Wyldwood... say if your opponent doesn't make them the correct size/shape.

I think the real problem is making terrain pieces part of the rules themselves. If I was a cynical type..... I would assume this is an intentional policy to promote the sale of terrain..... but I ma not that cynical.

 Easy E wrote:
I think the real problem is making terrain pieces part of the rules themselves. If I was a cynical type..... I would assume this is an intentional policy to promote the sale of terrain..... but I ma not that cynical.

I don't think it's really a problem as long as the rules are well defined. If the rules say to use a "Citadel Wood" which is 6" wide (or whatever it is) and has 3 trees and my opponent turns up with a 12" wide wood with 30 trees on it, at that point I'm blaming my opponent's stupidity rather than GW It'd be like proxying a Warlord Titan with a coke can or a goblin with a large cereal box.

I haven't touched Wood Elves in AoS so I don't know how the rules are now, but it made sense in 8th edition because WE had lots of forest-specific rules, so the free forest basically became part of your army.

 Red Harvest wrote:
I, for one, would never, not ever, not under any circumstance, play a game of Warhammer 40,000™ on a table with scratch-built terrain. Nor AoS. Nope. No way.

I would not play a game of Warhammer 40,000™ if any of the minis my opponent had were wearing "fur" either.

Your sarcasm game is strong. I like it!

Is it sarcasm if it is a fact? Not an *alternative fact* but a real fact.

I am not impressed by the Games Workshop™ terrain, any of it. Nor am I impressed by that Realm of Battle® table either. I'm surprised that that is not yet a required thing for play. I suspect it will be soon enough, in some capacity.

OTOH, any other tabletop miniature game I play will have plenty of scratch-built terrain. Check out my P&M blog (link in sig) to see just what sort of cool things would be on a gaming table where I played. Start at the beginnning. You'll see some interesting and unusual things including a genuine 'golden throne'

(Yeah, my first post was really just click-bait. Shameless self-promotion is in this year. And I have people telling me that if I do not make my weekly quota of page views I'll be in serious trouble. So help a brother out, willya?)

 kronk wrote:

 Easy E wrote:

I believe they have forgotten the Most Important Rule. It has been a long time since I bought a GW rulebook. I assume the Most Important Rule is still in them. Is it?

To crush your enemies, laugh at their tears, and mock their short comings?

Yes! Page 2!

No, sorry you are confused - that's the internet.

I have never encountered this 'rule', mentioned by the OP.

But I can say that any store that tried such shenanigans would never have to worry about me trying to run a game there.

Or buy anything there.

Or suggest that anyone else buy anything there.

The Auld Grump

 Red Harvest wrote:
I, for one, would never, not ever, not under any circumstance, play a game of Warhammer 40,000™ on a table with scratch-built terrain. Nor AoS. Nope. No way.

I would not play a game of Warhammer 40,000™ if any of the minis my opponent had were wearing "fur" either.

good. because otherwise i, and many other fellow amature legal scholars out there (wargaming and the study of international copyright infringement and intellectual property are my two hobbies), would personally have to write a notorized letter to games workshop informing them of the number of your transgressions and the dates on which they occured. should this happen be prepared to provide proof of purchase along with names and addresses of sellers of all your Games Workshop products.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Here's a link to when GW got rid of all of their scratch built terrain and OOP shop models.
https://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/297314.page
It was back in 2010, the stores lost all of their character back then and I had little reason to ever go into a GW other than for a pot of paint since.

Wow, the denial and GW apologism in that thread...

And yep, GW store tables are a joke now. Every independent store in the area has way better tables and terrain options than the cookie-cutter Official™ GW™ Hobby Center™ tables.

And I would have never have guessed by whom... /s

Nothing fething changes.

People willingly play with Games Workshop terrain over scratch built stuff (...or say even cardboard boxes with skulls stuck on them)? Eww.

All the GW's near here have their own tables, so the issue of using ones own terrain doesn't arise.

At the club I run, we do have a lot of "official" GW Cities of Death and Forge World ruined buildings, but we also have a lot of 3rd party terrain and a few boxes of individually-based trees. We leave it up to players to sort out how they'll be used, but I haven't heard any arguments yet.

To be honest, I usually still go with the rules from 4th edition Warhammer; forests grant cover to all models in them and block LOS over 2", regardless of individual actual tree models. I've found that rule works fine in subsequent editions of Warhammer, AoS, 40k, Infinity, Warmachine, etc, etc

Me too on forests. I have even ported the exact same rule into games without it, to great effect.

If there were such a a policy, enforcing it would be an uphill struggle as they've simply been surpassed by other ranges. I find their terrain good, with the exception of their 40k ruined buildings which are all a bit "samey" for my liking. But when you have the alternative of beauties like this, it's a hands down decision for most hobbyists. http://www.tabletop-world.com/watermill.php

I think people need to better understand the concept of "legal vs illegal". What a stupid policy to think that homemade terrain is somehow bad.

Warhammer 40k the rules, handheld edition, page 183 has a paragraph mentioning scratch-built terrain and how to use it. Basically, as long as both players can agree on how it works, nothing is banned.

I chalk it up to successful indoctrination by GW over the last 10-15 years, where the built up 40k and fantasy to be 100% off the (GW-stocked) shelf.

Imagine the shock of some of these people if they saw how the common 15mm fantasy or sci-fi game uses minis from several different manufacturers in one army! The horror!

Us oldies, and many lucky newer players, know better. So much more of this hobby is about imagination and fun.

That might be part of it (people that think that everything has to be a gw model, even the table lol)

But a lot of it is people trying to keep things that put them at a disadvantage off the table.

If you show up with forests that legit block line of sight, shooty type players are going to feel the rage. Which means if you are creating scratch built forests, you would be compelled to make the "forest" be nothing more than two or three trees.

This thread reminds me.

I've got a Skullvane Manse at home sitting in pieces (victim of a dodgy batch of plastic glue...)

Time to break out the araldite I think and get it serviceable!

 auticus wrote:
That might be part of it (people that think that everything has to be a gw model, even the table lol)

But a lot of it is people trying to keep things that put them at a disadvantage off the table.

If you show up with forests that legit block line of sight, shooty type players are going to feel the rage. Which means if you are creating scratch built forests, you would be compelled to make the "forest" be nothing more than two or three trees.

You seem to play with some of the absolute worst people, dude. My sympathies. Almost all your posts are about how people around you want to always play tournament type games, hate campaigns/narrative games, hate anything fan-made, and demand everything be "official" models.

Wayniac wrote:

 auticus wrote:
That might be part of it (people that think that everything has to be a gw model, even the table lol)

But a lot of it is people trying to keep things that put them at a disadvantage off the table.

If you show up with forests that legit block line of sight, shooty type players are going to feel the rage. Which means if you are creating scratch built forests, you would be compelled to make the "forest" be nothing more than two or three trees.

You seem to play with some of the absolute worst people, dude. My sympathies. Almost all your posts are about how people around you want to always play tournament type games, hate campaigns/narrative games, hate anything fan-made, and demand everything be "official" models.

Yeah. I mean, if that's your thing, I get it. But not everyone wants to play that way.

My view, honestly, is that competitive players tend to turn everything they touch to gak. that's hard, I get it. But it's always the min-maxer, WAAC, don't care about anything but whatever gives the most chance for victory that always tend to corrupt everything, because they just can't let it go and have fun without fun being 100% tied to "Did I win". And I say this as someone who loves Warmachine as a great example of a solid competitive game.

Codex: Catachans literally had a few pages dedicated to making trees out of household/generic hobby supplies, as well as how to make your own heavy flamer guardsman and some other goodies. Of course that was more common before 4th edition.

 auticus wrote:
That might be part of it (people that think that everything has to be a gw model, even the table lol)

But a lot of it is people trying to keep things that put them at a disadvantage off the table.

If you show up with forests that legit block line of sight, shooty type players are going to feel the rage. Which means if you are creating scratch built forests, you would be compelled to make the "forest" be nothing more than two or three trees.

Are there no rules or systems for randomising terrain placement, or at least mitigating it's deliberate placement? Divide the table in segments and roll for what's placed in each? Terrain is moved 2d6 in a random direction? Turn about for placing terrain? One player places terrain and the other chooses table side? Two or more of the above?

And what Wayniac and Kronk said: if these people are mathammering shooty armies and then throw a paddy when they don't get wide, flat expanses to show off their wind-up, line-up-and-shoot, one-trick ponies... it feels like that's on them. And the game.

I've never had a problem with homemade terrain. BUT... I reserve the right to have a problem with converted/homemade models when they are part of an army list.

In the case of Sylvaneth Wyldwoods, I expect the woods to either be official models OR be roughly identical. If you want to make them yourself, I think it's reasonable to have them on the same sized/shaped base and have three "trees" in roughly the same spots and roughly the same shape. Modelling for advantage becomes a thing for terrain when that terrain is a part of your army.

I have a friend who plays Sylvaneth. He traced the woods base on cardboard and cut out a bunch of templates. Sprayed them green. That's it. Flat green bases. Those were the woods he wanted to use. Dude... no. I want to see trees. "But they get in the way and I can't place all my models on the tree base." Tough. Those trees are supposed to be there and you're not supposed to be able to fit 30 Dryads on one tree stand. Clear modelling for advantage.

For regular terrain on the table, who cares? More variety means every game plays out differently.

Honestly, I've always played it as you remove the trees when you move into the woods, that's why they come off the base. Although that might be other games bleeding in

Wayniac wrote:
Honestly, I've always played it as you remove the trees when you move into the woods, that's why they come off the base. Although that might be other games bleeding in

You're probably confusing being "Practical / Sensible" with playing 40k.

I do the same. All my home-made forests are on bases that get plunked on a larger base that outlines the shape of the forest. If you want to move into the forest, just move the chunks of trees that are in the way, and put them nearby so you remember to put them back when you're done.

"But what about TLOS!?!" a person might frightfully enquire... I just agree pre-game with my opponent whether or not Forests block LOS. If they don't, you can shoot through them whether or not you can draw an imaginary line through the foliage, because really, if you try, you can do that. There will be some unimaginably small space you can "see" through that you can draw LOS to your target. Or we agree that forests block LOS regardless of TLOS, and generally have a more interesting game.

Using illegal homemade terrain? What what what? Someone call the GW terrain police!

 auticus wrote:
I've noticed a new movement that has picked up over the past couple of years (mainly dealing with games workshop games) where homemade terrain is called "illegal" and that a lot of people are refusing to play against homemade terrain because its not legal to use in games.

Creating homemade terrain has been a staple of wargaming since the 70s. Games Workshop itself sold a book on How To Make Wargaming Terrain (which has two printings, one with a red border and one with no border that is blue). Making terrain used to be as much a part of the hobby as playing the game itself.

Is this something that is becoming more common do you find or is this just a phenomenon that I myself am only starting to see and its not really reflective of the community as a whole?

I have thankfully never heard this argument before. I'd either just laugh hysterically pack my stuff up, or I'd laugh hysterically and shoot the place. Who's to say which would happen.