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I was having a discussion with my gaming group this weekend, and we got to talking about terrain. A lot of the threads I see on here and a lot of complaints about the current game balance in general have to do with CC being inferior to shooting. We really haven't seen this in our group nearly as much as others seem to. CC-heavy armies like Tyranids and Space Wolves seem to do just as well in our meta as the shooty armies like Necrons and Tau. I think it comes down to the fact that most of us use a lot of LoS-blocking terrain on our battlefields. Most of our games feature at least 60% of the board covered in ruins, rocks, etc. We have one battlefield that our Ork player dubbed "Killpit Kanyon" that is probably 90% terrain. Without wide shooting lanes, shooters are forced to move around to get a "clean shot". CC units are able to get in tight and even the odds.

I was just wondering if other players use as much terrain as we do.

It's hard to block LOS with forests and ruins, so most terrain I get to play on usually just helps Tau and Eldar.

That poll is kinda meaningless. It isn't just how much but also what kind. if you swamp the field in swamps most gun lines will be having a blast.


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How much do I use -> until both players agree that it is enough.

I voted 51-75%, but that is a mix of mostly ruins (which block or limit line of sight), a few forests areas, a few impassible los blockers, and maybe one or two dilapidated (or non functioning) pieces of fortifications.

Usually it's important that you can't park a blob of shooters to get clear los to the whole board, and you can't cross the board completely in cover to get to assault. A few good firing lanes, and a few good areas for assaulters to maneuver through/around really make a good table.

Doesn't matter, terrain is almost irrelevant to either of my armies.

I like a lot of terrain, and would pretty much cover the battlefield with it if I could. However, the main guy I play against runs AM so he hates terrain as he likes to just sit back against my "tear your face off with my claws" style of 'Nids.

I can kind of work with lower terrain levels with my Orks, but I don't really have enough of them to have a proper game.

More terrain... More cover... More LoS blocking...

As much as I can get. I love dense boards, usually themed around something like a ruined city or a forest or a mountain city, etc.

Sadly my club has restrictions on terrain that lead to about 15% coverage at the most.

I can play well on either open or dense terrain boards as Tau.

We have ours typically at about 35-50% cover. My friend has tried more cover than this but finds its just slowing down his ability to get to objectives as Nids.

Open battlefields to me are just boring. Very little strategy in those games. I always feel like we may as well just stand on opposite sides of the table and throw dice at each other.

It is funny to see that most posters like more terrain then a typical game has. I wonder why this gap exists.

 oldzoggy wrote:
It is funny to see that most posters like more terrain then a typical game has. I wonder why this gap exists.

Speaking as one of the 'terrain guys' for my club - the gap exists because terrain is

-expensive
-time consuming to build/paint
-a pain to transport and/or store

I refuse to play on tables that don't have good terrain coverage, so I just made a lot of it for my club. That doesn't mean it's not a huge problem for a lot of people though.

Many players take terrain for granted. I think it's the third army on the table and should look great and set up interesting play scenarios.

About 40ish is what I've found to work best, though at times I get as high as 60.

Its not just quantity though, quality matters.
And I'm not talking about superior save terrain (like ruins), but things like line of sight blockers, neutral building, etc.

Here is the board setup of my previous games.
It might be a bit too dense though...

beir wrote:

 oldzoggy wrote:
It is funny to see that most posters like more terrain then a typical game has. I wonder why this gap exists.

Speaking as one of the 'terrain guys' for my club - the gap exists because terrain is

-expensive
-time consuming to build/paint
-a pain to transport and/or store

I agree on that it is kinda a pain to strore and trasnport
But is it really that expensive and time consuming ?
Making DiY terrain the oldskool way isn't that epensive at all. I might make half a table of terrain for just say 1/5th perhaps less of the cost of my army and only spend a few weekends on it.
On top of that it is fun.

I really believe in the Bring your own terrain mentality. Sure a store should have some terrain preferably the stuff that is a pain to transport such as GW ruins.
But if you want some decent terrain just bring it yourselves. If each player had some we would al be playing in on attractive and diverse tables. And you know it will all be painted instead of just black blobz.

2 pieces of terrain per 2'x2', which includes 2-3L LoS-blockers. Terrain is a mix of ruins, forests, and craters.

we play in the 25-50% range, mainly city fight, but I would LOVE to play some low % plains or Forrest fights. Maybe a fight at a mountain watch tower or something, 'cause there's only so many times I can play city fight and NOT get bored.

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I find as much as possible, with some small corridors in between works well.

Tank traps are nice (4+ cover that doesn't slow infantry).

7th is balanced around using tall, line of sight blocking terrain. Without it, assault armies cannot approach, and gunline armies just castle. With it, assault armies can get close while gunline armies require some mobility. And that's just terrain!

SJ

 jeffersonian000 wrote:
7th is balanced around using tall, line of sight blocking terrain. Without it, assault armies cannot approach, and gunline armies just castle. With it, assault armies can get close while gunline armies require some mobility. And that's just terrain!

SJ

That was the crux of the discussion I was having at my FLGS. There are many, many problems with 7th edition, but a lot of the complaints I see regularly on this forum can be mitigated by adding more LoS-blocking terrain.

7th ed works under a wide range of terrain and board size formats, however, different formats will bias different armies and play styles.

People get entrenched in playing the same terrain every game, and sadly start to think any other set up isn't 'proper' 40k.

Some terrain is completely neglected. Whens the last time you saw tank traps?

3rd edition?

 Brennonjw wrote:
we play in the 25-50% range, mainly city fight, but I would LOVE to play some low % plains or Forrest fights. Maybe a fight at a mountain watch tower or something, 'cause there's only so many times I can play city fight and NOT get bored.

This I do not like all battles to be fought over the same GW ruins

I'm lucky enough to have an FLGS owner who LOVES to make terrain. We have a solid mix of customer and official GW pieces to choose from.

I like a variety in terrain. Some battles the field is absolutely packed, some battles it's fairly open. On the balance, though, I prefer having more terrain, certainly more than you see in local tournaments where there is one big piece in the exact middle of the board and one or two smaller pieces in each quarter.

What I really like is having a clear narrative to the terrain, where the positioning makes sense. So a rocky valley with high ground on the flanks and outcroppings scattered about, or the edge of a city where ruins edge a highway leading up to a manufactorum, or a sprawling farming complex with walls and fields and orchards. I'll tolerate any amount of terrain so long as it looks good and tells a story that enhances the game.

I just use sandbags and some trees

Between me and my friends, we have enough terrain to completely cover multiple tables (thanks Mantic!), so we like playing in dense city areas (like really dense, with large streets just being able to have 2 rhinos next to each other) It makes 40k much more enjoyable.
I also really like having a combination, with some areas on the board being really dense with terrain, while others are more open and have room for superheavies and vehicle formations (I love tanks, so I just need open spaces )

The more terrain, the better the game. That's what GW said, so that's how I play

I love to add terrain, but we often run low at our store so we only have so much. Still, we usually try to have one big centerpiece that blocks LOS down the middle.

i like to use a lot of terrain because i love playing cities of death, my armies are built with urban warfare in mind, im a big fan of slamming you into a wall of bad maneuvering and then tangling your units in a knot. i would show you pictures but some of them are a hot mess with marines making last standing in buildings and terminators lumbering through buildings on there way to lop peoples heads off, and tanks blocking city streets all over.

i feel that with this much terrain vehicles and big minions are actually bad for your army unless you handle them responsibly, it punishes vehicle parks or monster squads because they start to get in everyones way

When playing at my FLGS, they have two boards that you can just play on. One is a field with rolling hills, a forest and a river and the other is a the RoB Ultima Quadrant board.