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Hi all, new poster so hope this is in the right place.

I've just re-joined 40k 7th edition having not played for 25 odd years and the last game I had was Rogue Trader era. My son now wants to play and I've bought DV for him. So far so good and while there has been some simplification and the need to buy so many codexes is a bit irritating the game still works more or less as I remember it.

But one thing that seems to be completely absent is decent terrain rules. Having already shelled out a pile of money on DV, paints and some other bits, I wanted to scratch build a table and terrain just as we did in the old days. In fact I can do a lot better now I have a proper workshop rather than just a few cereal boxes!

But the terrain rules seems incredibly thin in the book. I get the data sheet idea, although the examples you are supposed to copy aren't all that generic or flexible. I mean showing how scratch built works by combining two GW sets isn't really all that helpful. But I can live with that for buildings. But what about more general scenery. Where are the rules for rivers or ponds, and didn't elevated terrain use to give an advantage? Without terrain tabletop is pretty dull and the rules I've seen so far (roll for how many inches you can move and then you get a cover save) just seem rather bland and everything acts the same way. Am I missing something here, is there a terrain codex I need to buy, or a collection of 'standard house rules' that people use?

GW kind of gave up on generic terrain rules when they worked out they could sell specific rules / kits instead.

There isn't a specific terrain codex - there is one for Fortifications (Stronghold Assault, written in 6th, contains rules for bunkers, walls / barricades, barbed wire etc.) where players can buy specific bits with points when making army lists.

There's also a couple of pages of interesting / random terrain rules in the 6th edition rulebook (which you should be able to pick up for pence, or find electronically online somewhere) with random tables for forests / jungle / woods and rivers / lakes / pools and some other bits and bobs.

Generally elevated terrain just gives you a better line of sight for shooting, the Cityfight book (fighting in urban environs, written in 6th or 5th, I can't remember) included a rule for shooting the "top" armour of vehicles if you were high enough.

If you're just (re)starting out, be careful not to make things too complex. There's quite alot going on with just some foamboard-ruins and lollipop-forests.

Please post images of the board when it's done

I know, I'm not planning to go nuts, but I do want to teach my son tactics rather than just lining up in ranks and rolling dice!

In 6th ed there was randomly generated rules for water hazards, jungles, cities, etc. I used them one time I think, and the random factors of it made it a bit annoying.

I'm not so bothered with placement and Radom generation, more the actual scenery rules for hard cover, soft cover, water, etc...

I'm not sure there have ever been rules that specific, though I've only been playing since 2nd so I never knew RT.

Generally everything is covered by the Difficult / Dangerous / Impassible, and how much of a cover save it gives (6+, 5+, 4+ etc.):
Rivers could be fordable (difficult), fast running (dangerous), or turbulent-and-made-of-acid (impassible), and might not give a cover save at all. Amphibious units (such as imperial guard Chimera) have it listed in their unit rules. There's no requirement to keep track of which units now have water-logged kit.

I'm not really sure what else to suggest.

Thanks for the suggestion on checking 6th, having acquired a copy there's some good stuff there. One question, I'm thinking of getting the fortifications book, but several reviews I've read say it's now included in the 7th core rules so is it worth it?

Still a bit underwhelmed by hills though. In real life and most other games hills are key tactical objectives and having the high ground infers an significant advantage, which I'm not really seeing. The 'better LOS' argument doesn't really make much material difference and of course works both ways!

I'm thinking of putting in some house rules along these lines

Up or downhill means changing elevation by more than 2", i.e about the height of a normal mini.

Units charging uphill lose 2" of charge distance
Unit charging downhill gain 2" of charge
Targets in cover being shot at from downhill gain +1 to cover save
Targets in cover being shot at from uphill suffer a -1 to cover saves

What you think? I'm hoping this would allow weaker units to take and hold hilltops in cover, with some practical protection, but it won't massively buff everything.

 TPO wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion on checking 6th, having acquired a copy there's some good stuff there. One question, I'm thinking of getting the fortifications book, but several reviews I've read say it's now included in the 7th core rules so is it worth it?

Stronghold Assault includes modifications to the 6th edition rules on buildings, but these are either included or nullified by the differences in the 7th edition rulebook.

It still contains datasheets for several fortifications, and the 7th edition book doesn't include any (the 6th ed had 3 in it), so it's worth it if you want to run those.

 Quanar wrote:

 TPO wrote:
Thanks for the suggestion on checking 6th, having acquired a copy there's some good stuff there. One question, I'm thinking of getting the fortifications book, but several reviews I've read say it's now included in the 7th core rules so is it worth it?

Stronghold Assault includes modifications to the 6th edition rules on buildings, but these are either included or nullified by the differences in the 7th edition rulebook.

It still contains datasheets for several fortifications, and the 7th edition book doesn't include any (the 6th ed had 3 in it), so it's worth it if you want to run those.

Thanks, those might be worth having as templates for scratch built stuff so I'll maybe try and grab a copy cheap on fleabay.

Yeah, you have to generalise from the datasheets.

If you are making your own hills, and want to make them strategically important, you could just add loads of rocks to them, so that models on the hills will tend to be 25% obscured. i did this to some extent with my last hill
http://iron-legion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/246-cork-tor-hill.html

Wood/Forest
By analogy with the datasheet for the Citadel Wood (Twisted Copse), models on the base of a forest have a 5+ cover save regardless of whether or not they are 25% obscured.
Difficult terrain
models 25% obscured by difficult terrain gain a 5+ cover save, unless there are other special rules simply being within an area does not confer a cover save.
Hills
open ground. book mentions hills on realm of battle boards are open ground. no cover save, even if partially obscured!
Ruins
4+ cover save area terrain. Difficult terrain.

 ColonelFazackerley wrote:
Yeah, you have to generalise from the datasheets.

If you are making your own hills, and want to make them strategically important, you could just add loads of rocks to them, so that models on the hills will tend to be 25% obscured. i did this to some extent with my last hill
http://iron-legion.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/246-cork-tor-hill.html

Nice scenery! Lovely job you've done there.

Mine are concentric rings of angle cut wood, but not attached to each other so the height and layout of the hills can be varied by using different pieces. Rather than permanently attaching the cover, I've got a number of stone walls and DIY defence line pieces (made from plastic shims), so I can put them on top of the hills to create strong points. Just standing on a plain hill shouldn't confer any particular advantage beyond LOS, but if you are behind something you should have better protection from those at the bottom of the hill, and vice versa as you can shoot over their cover.