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OK. Think we can agree the rules need work, shame GW can’t write rules, but there you go.

The increase in shooting range, shots and cover giving advantage to the well armoured leads to static games if you want to take advantage of these (our house rule is that each obstruction a shot goes through gives -1 to hit. Three obstructions, -3).

To avoid dice modifiers, you could go back to Stone Age technology.

Back in the Dim Distant Past, before GW existed (yes, there was a time - the Grandfathers still remember it), if a target had Soft Cover, eg bushes, obscurement, Hits were halved. Four Hits became two. If a target had Hard Cover, eg walls, protection, Hits were quartered. Four Hits became one. You could round up, or roll for fractions, as desired.

So, no modifiers, and low Save models get a chance to survive.

GW could also finally make some real narrative/matched rules for terrain. Abstract, balanced and streamlined rules for matched play and more complex but realistic rules for narrative.

Make everyone happy!

Working terrain rules would be sweet.
A code sheet included in the mission paperwork and codes on the bottom of the terrain pieces would be cool.

Terrain piece-

Flat land
S- +1
O- 0
H- 0
R- 0

Barricade
S- +1
O- 0
H- 1
R- 3’

Saplings
S- 0
O- -1
H- 1
R- 0

Trees
S- +1
O- -1
H- 2
R- 3’

S= Save - Units completely on or within Range of this terrain adds this bonus to its armour save value.
O= Obscure - Units targeting a unit on or within Range and behind this piece suffer a -1 to their to hit rolls (to determine if a model gains the benefit of being behind this piece measure the terrain at its widest points and round up to the nearest inch then measure a direct line between the closest point of the targeting unit and the closest point of the targeted unit then apply the terrain’s measurement to the closest point of the targeted unit with 50% on either side of the direction line. If more than 50% of the targeted unit falls within the measurement it gains the benefit of this terrain piece and the unit targeting it suffers the penalty).
H= Height - Units can sometimes be too big to gain the benefit of this terrain unless standing directly on it.
1- Infantry+Swarm
2- Units already listed+Cavalry+Beast
3- All units with the exception of units bearing the Titanic keyword and units with a minimum move value above zero can claim effects caused by this terrain piece.
R= Range - Only units wholly within range of this terrain piece or targeting a unit wholly within range of this terrain piece are effected while being targeted.
It could probably do with some refining - feel free.

I do miss the ruins and buildings 4+ and area terrain 5+ somethign akin to that I would also assist in makign it so some of the top armies were nerfed a bit. a space marine in ceramite armor standing behind a shin height wall suddenly being a 2+ is difficult to deal with. but by that same token even they woudl get the 4+ if beign hit by ap-2 weapons. take a cover save or armor save pick the best. lasgun fire? why would they take cover. incoming missile hit the deck.

Yes... flat inv cover saves were easy peasy

fine when ap was a number, equal to armour.

but cos ap is now a "-2" etc. i think play testing the old terrain system of 4+ building 5+ crater would prove difficult and not yield results you expect.

could be wrong but i can see it making it so nothing ever leaves terrain ever if you brought that back.

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
fine when ap was a number, equal to armour.

but cos ap is now a "-2" etc. i think play testing the old terrain system of 4+ building 5+ crater would prove difficult and not yield results you expect.

could be wrong but i can see it making it so nothing ever leaves terrain ever if you brought that back.

Back in old hammer AP was all or nothing, it neither broke it or it didn't and coven was that middle ground, you new if you needed it or now.

In 8th it would fit the same style, if you always got a 4+ or a 5+ (maybe larger units like tanks/mc are -1 to that save for a 5+/6+) and it ignored AP, it would still work about the same, and IMO players would like it even better.

Right now Marines are 3+, but ap -2 effectively makes their high cost stats pointless, hence why no one takes them, as soom as you are 100% guaranteed to have a 4+ save, that might make them more playable, not saying thats why they are not playable as Primaris are straight up just better, but its 1 example.

Or take Gants, something have has 0 save right no against 90% of all guns, them always having a 5+ save running across the table would make them much more enjoyable to play, i could now actually live a turn or 2 with some of my units instead of just removing them without and dice being rolled on my side. Removing your models without interaction is just bad, cover could change that.

Not saying it would work but i see no downside to it with the power level of shooting 8th has.

1) fitting 30 gants into terrain with the current rules is nigh impossible. They will never get that bonus.

2) Jorm gets them a 5+ save as is.

 Lance845 wrote:
1) fitting 30 gants into terrain with the current rules is nigh impossible. They will never get that bonus.

2) Jorm gets them a 5+ save as is.

No one said they have to be 30 mans, and not all cover you have to be "wholly in" many of it is actually "within" meaning you just need your base touching. Which is a lot easier than it looks to fit 30 gants "within" terrain. For example Woods are wholly within, Ruins and craters are On or Within.

Once you start to see its within a ruin can easily fit 30.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
1) fitting 30 gants into terrain with the current rules is nigh impossible. They will never get that bonus.

2) Jorm gets them a 5+ save as is.

No one said they have to be 30 mans, and not all cover you have to be "wholly in" many of it is actually "within" meaning you just need your base touching. Which is a lot easier than it looks to fit 30 gants "within" terrain. For example Woods are wholly within, Ruins and craters are On or Within.

Once you start to see its within a ruin can easily fit 30.

It will be 30 man units. They get a bonus at 20 models and if you don't want that bonus to go away as soon as the enemy fires one unit at you you need that 10 man buffer. Spreading out the unit to surround a piece of terrain to get the bonus will slow them down for running up the board to do their thing. At which point, why are you using them again? A 5+ save isn't going to get any more of them into effective range if they are being crippled by these drawbacks.


The point I am making is that 40k has inherent issues in the way terrain works. Not just what benefit it gives but the way in which that benefit is gained. Hormagaunts and termagants are negatively impacted by terrain on every level from having to manipulate the way they move to get the bonuses to the not great benefit of trying to accommodate that stuff.

 Amishprn86 wrote:

 SeanDavid1991 wrote:
fine when ap was a number, equal to armour.

but cos ap is now a "-2" etc. i think play testing the old terrain system of 4+ building 5+ crater would prove difficult and not yield results you expect.

could be wrong but i can see it making it so nothing ever leaves terrain ever if you brought that back.

Back in old hammer AP was all or nothing, it neither broke it or it didn't and coven was that middle ground, you new if you needed it or now.

In 8th it would fit the same style, if you always got a 4+ or a 5+ (maybe larger units like tanks/mc are -1 to that save for a 5+/6+) and it ignored AP, it would still work about the same, and IMO players would like it even better.

Right now Marines are 3+, but ap -2 effectively makes their high cost stats pointless, hence why no one takes them, as soom as you are 100% guaranteed to have a 4+ save, that might make them more playable, not saying thats why they are not playable as Primaris are straight up just better, but its 1 example.

Or take Gants, something have has 0 save right no against 90% of all guns, them always having a 5+ save running across the table would make them much more enjoyable to play, i could now actually live a turn or 2 with some of my units instead of just removing them without and dice being rolled on my side. Removing your models without interaction is just bad, cover could change that.

Not saying it would work but i see no downside to it with the power level of shooting 8th has.

Remember, AP-2 guns used to be AP3 [by and large]. Marines currently get a 5+ against things they used to just die period too.

The only weapon they experience a weaker resilience against is AP4/AP-1, where they would have had a 3+ but now have a 4+. And of course there's the wound table, which also favors marines compared with previous editions, as there's basically nothing that wounds marines easier now but weapons S6 and S7 wound less easily. A modern marine is actually more resilient versus a plasmagun than his pre-8 counterpart would have been, being wounded on a 3 instead of a 2 and having a 6+ instead of no save.




I think my complaint for cover is that there's no "partial cover" and that being behind a building doesn't protect you if you're not in the building. For resolving the partial cover situation, I think the matter wouldn't be difficult: models have cover instead of units, and the defender chooses which model the hit is allocated to among eligible targets before rolling saves, with hidden models being unable to be allocated hits.

Being behind a building for cover has the issue of arguing whether the tank is 50% obscured or what have you, and I don't see a way to do it elegantly, but it can be done inelegantly.

As a further note, there needs to be a clause that states that aerials, tank commanders, decorations, gun barrels, etc. don't count for drawing LoS to and from vehicles. Some of them are just illogical, like shooting at or from the aerial to damage the tank, and some create the interesting situation of "I point the gun out from behind the building when I want to fire, and then slewing the turret back around so it doesn't stick out against when it comes time for the enemy to shoot."

But back then there was so limited AP 3 or 2, it was basically missile weapons and plasma type weapons (and then it wasn't insanely spammed). You had Marines running on the table and it was a threat. Thats laughable now.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
But back then there was so limited AP 3 or 2, it was basically missile weapons and plasma type weapons (and then it wasn't insanely spammed). You had Marines running on the table and it was a threat. Thats laughable now.

??? So limited?

This is not congruent with my experience.

At the very least, it's not like it's drastically more available than it used to be [sort of, Space Marines themselves notwithstanding thanks to Doctrines]. There's like 1 new high special weapon density unit for 8e [Hellblasters] total, and a couple of tanks that are comparable with other existing tanks of the class and performance.

I think that 40K has become a bit too lethal. Better terrain rules could bring the game towards a less-lethal scenario.

Aso it could help to balance a bit the balance between CC and shooting.

Almost all existing and suggested terrain rules favor shooting units over CC units though.
Reduced movement, movement blocking, rules for charging up in ruins, for fighting stuff above you and area terrain all favor shooting units.
In my experience terrain only ever helps ranged armies, never those focused on getting into melee.

psipso wrote:
I think that 40K has become a bit too lethal. Better terrain rules could bring the game towards a less-lethal scenario.

Aso it could help to balance a bit the balance between CC and shooting.

Doesn't it have to be that way, because of how many models armies have right now? If the basic game is 2000pts, and even elite armies are running around with the number of models being 50+, the shoting has to be leathal, because otherwise horde win everything and for everyone else the game turns in to a gigantic mosh pit.

Gadzilla666 wrote:

Karol wrote:

Voss wrote:

 catbarf wrote:

...which is because TLOS often leads to arguments and is generally a colossal pain in the ass, and IMO not worth the benefits it adds.

I'm a bit puzzled by this. Back when TLOS was added to the game, I found the number of arguments went down, not up.
I was playing a lot when TLOS was first introduced, and what had been arguments turned into 'I can see that guy.' 'Yeah, OK' and games suddenly got bogged down a lot less.

okey, but this means you have to build specific terrain for w40k. high flat walls with no windows or doors, because if there are any the terrain may as well not exist. Also the I see that guy thing is very fun when your dudes come with big banners, or you decided to put your smash captin swooping down, instead of laying down belly flat on his base. All ancients in my area are called , what could be translated as, dirt gathers , because all their banners are pointed flat down, and out of all people that do use them, I can think of only one guy who really did resculpt the mode to make it look good. everyone else just fliped the arm of the ancient by 160 degree.

Yes this. Just because the tip of a model's sword can see the top of another model's topknot shouldn't make it target able. At the least you should get a minus to hit in that situation. Same goes for shooting through windows. The way you model a unit shouldn't offer an advantage or disadvantage.

http://tsoalr.com/?p=83

This sums it up

Karol wrote:

psipso wrote:
I think that 40K has become a bit too lethal. Better terrain rules could bring the game towards a less-lethal scenario.

Aso it could help to balance a bit the balance between CC and shooting.

Doesn't it have to be that way, because of how many models armies have right now? If the basic game is 2000pts, and even elite armies are running around with the number of models being 50+, the shoting has to be leathal, because otherwise horde win everything and for everyone else the game turns in to a gigantic mosh pit.

Try playing a game necrons vs death guard - 1500 points of models left on the board when the game ends

 Jidmah wrote:

Karol wrote:

psipso wrote:
I think that 40K has become a bit too lethal. Better terrain rules could bring the game towards a less-lethal scenario.

Aso it could help to balance a bit the balance between CC and shooting.

Doesn't it have to be that way, because of how many models armies have right now? If the basic game is 2000pts, and even elite armies are running around with the number of models being 50+, the shoting has to be leathal, because otherwise horde win everything and for everyone else the game turns in to a gigantic mosh pit.

Try playing a game necrons vs death guard - 1500 points of models left on the board when the game ends

I don't have to try, I saw an orc mirror being rolled off, at a moment when both players started to stop to identify whose models where whose. So yeah, maybe the sensible thing to do would be to play 1000 or 1500pts games. But the problem with this is that people who have knights or have powerful high cost units or models. A G-man re-rolling for a dread and two or three units isn't as scary , as one that re-rolls a whole stadium of units. Aura in w40k do not scale very well, specialy comparing to one unit or even one model buffs. The chaplain self buff is laughable comparing to all the re-roll auras, to compare it would have to double the strenght of the chaplain and make him do +1 or even +2 wounds.

Jidmah wrote:Almost all existing and suggested terrain rules favor shooting units over CC units though.
Reduced movement, movement blocking, rules for charging up in ruins, for fighting stuff above you and area terrain all favor shooting units.
In my experience terrain only ever helps ranged armies, never those focused on getting into melee.

I play on some terrain-heavy tables, using area terrain which incurs a -2 to charge rolls, and haven't felt like my melee army is penalized. On the contrary, being able to avoid LOS, and position units to take advantage of cover as they move up the board, has increased their lethality. I find getting an extra 2" is easier to come by than avoiding the wounds I'd otherwise take, but I also play a mobility-heavy subfaction, so YMMV.

Karol wrote:

psipso wrote:
I think that 40K has become a bit too lethal. Better terrain rules could bring the game towards a less-lethal scenario.

Aso it could help to balance a bit the balance between CC and shooting.

Doesn't it have to be that way, because of how many models armies have right now? If the basic game is 2000pts, and even elite armies are running around with the number of models being 50+, the shoting has to be leathal, because otherwise horde win everything and for everyone else the game turns in to a gigantic mosh pit.

No? The issue is proportionality, it doesn't matter how many models are on the table. A 2000pt army right now can conceivably kill 1000pts of enemies in a single turn, or a 500pt army can conceivably kill 250pts, it's the same issue either way. I often see games decided by the end of turn 2 and that points to excessive lethality.

 catbarf wrote:

Jidmah wrote:Almost all existing and suggested terrain rules favor shooting units over CC units though.
Reduced movement, movement blocking, rules for charging up in ruins, for fighting stuff above you and area terrain all favor shooting units.
In my experience terrain only ever helps ranged armies, never those focused on getting into melee.

I play on some terrain-heavy tables, using area terrain which incurs a -2 to charge rolls, and haven't felt like my melee army is penalized. On the contrary, being able to avoid LOS, and position units to take advantage of cover as they move up the board, has increased their lethality. I find getting an extra 2" is easier to come by than avoiding the wounds I'd otherwise take, but I also play a mobility-heavy subfaction, so YMMV.

Every LOS blocking piece of terrain increased the amount of ground you need to cover. Each LOS blocking piece of terrain also means that less units can get the charge on something, they create choke points which can be held by minimal amount of models and force you to move out of cover to get to your opponent.
If you have something like jump troops or jetbikes, this doesn't matter. For your average dread, monster, demon engine, vehicle, biker, or any other close combat unit that has to cross no-mans land on foot, terrain just hinders them while they get blasted from a safe distance. Twice the fun if the thing blasting you doesn't even need to see you and halves your movement.

 Jidmah wrote:
Almost all existing and suggested terrain rules favor shooting units over CC units though.
Reduced movement, movement blocking, rules for charging up in ruins, for fighting stuff above you and area terrain all favor shooting units.
In my experience terrain only ever helps ranged armies, never those focused on getting into melee.

it was a tradeoff. liek in 5th if mr orks could not be under a kff i would terrain hop to keep that 4+ or 5+ save. It did slow me down, but ultimately if i knew i could not make a charge that turn it helped them survive a shooting phase... then once 6th came about and GW released thier worst codex ever killing orks for 2 editions terrain stopped mattering to my orks because they would auto lose every match due to being rotting roadkill in a gutter bad

That ork codex was released during 7th, it only felt like two editions...

6th reduced cover to 5+ (including the KFF) and made a bunch of other changes to screw over orks though.

 Jidmah wrote:
That ork codex was released during 7th, it only felt like two editions...

6th reduced cover to 5+ (including the KFF) and made a bunch of other changes to screw over orks though.

i keep forgetting that the 6th v7th. both were rough for orks but... yea that codex was so bad i am still unconvinced who looked at orks and thier doign terrible already and said... you knwo what lets nerf em. for gaks i played a edlar vs orks game with the new codex after realizign how bad it was and we agreed to 3k orks vs 1500 elar... i still lost. we traded armies and the other player (who also played both armies) lost with orks
too.

 Jidmah wrote:
Every LOS blocking piece of terrain increased the amount of ground you need to cover.

Well, a lot of terrain we use is house-ruled LOS-blocking area terrain (jungles, forests) which units can move through but not see through. LOS-blocking = movement-blocking is only a thing with the default (bare-bones) terrain rules, since the only way to actually block LOS is with a wall. Even ITC's houserule for first floor ruins allows units to move unhindered through ruins that they can't shoot through.

So yeah, I'd say better terrain rules could help melee armies, by giving them ways to avoid shooting that don't simultaneously represent funnels and chokepoints.

Option #4 for me.
Definitely need better/stronger terrain rules (one of my absolute 8th pet hates) but wouldnt want to go back to 2nd ed granularity for example.

 catbarf wrote:

 Jidmah wrote:
Every LOS blocking piece of terrain increased the amount of ground you need to cover.

Well, a lot of terrain we use is house-ruled LOS-blocking area terrain (jungles, forests) which units can move through but not see through. LOS-blocking = movement-blocking is only a thing with the default (bare-bones) terrain rules, since the only way to actually block LOS is with a wall. Even ITC's houserule for first floor ruins allows units to move unhindered through ruins that they can't shoot through.

Only infantry can move through ruins and only during their movement phase. For ork bikes, walkers or deff rolla wagons, a ruin is a piece of terrain that blocks their charges and movement, makes units on them invincible to melee and allows them to get shot anyways.

So yeah, I'd say better terrain rules could help melee armies, by giving them ways to avoid shooting that don't simultaneously represent funnels and chokepoints.

Agree, but the vast majority of posters in this thread seems to think the opposite.

Allowing your units to run and extra X" if they don't shoot when moving out of cover could really help melee armies if that is what you want. If you want a fluff perspective as to why they get a bonus move, well they are hiding so harder to notice what they are doing and setting up for a good move while they have cover fire.

Honestly i would rather have a more activated system that rewarded better movements and cover fire with pin down rules, etc.. but that would be a whole other game lol

I'm gonna throw something out here, because a lot of these proposals don't even begin to help daemons.

Cover should provide a -1 to hit modifier that is not stackable (you can still stack other negatives as you wish).

 Lance845 wrote:


It will be 30 man units. They get a bonus at 20 models and if you don't want that bonus to go away as soon as the enemy fires one unit at you you need that 10 man buffer.

Have you ever heard of the concept of a "design trade-off"? In game design terms it actually helps keep things interesting and results in more considerations and tough choices that need to be made. In any case, its silly to say "that terrain rule is no good because I can't take full advantage of it with my max size squad". If thats your argument then my counter is that Chimeras need a larger transport capacity because I can't fit a full size conscript blob inside of it.

Almost all existing and suggested terrain rules favor shooting units over CC units though.
Reduced movement, movement blocking, rules for charging up in ruins, for fighting stuff above you and area terrain all favor shooting units.
In my experience terrain only ever helps ranged armies, never those focused on getting into melee.

Thats a very twisted perspective, one that I don't think the vast majority of players would agree with. Generally speaking, terrain HELPS melee units, which tend to be more vulnerable to ranged attack, by increasing their survivability as they approach their targets and by hampering the effectiveness of ranged attacks in general by obscuring line of sight or providing their targets with benefits which make the lethality of ranged attacks less effective.

Beyond that, any benefit that ranged armies would derive from terrain was historically counterbalanced by the fact that CC was significantly more lethal than shooting.