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In past editions of 40k terrain setup was hugely important. The outcome of a game could be decided by the amount and placement of terrain, as well as the type of terrain.

How important is terrain in 8th edition? Both in your opinion and in your experience so far?

No experience yet but my gut tells me that I'll be wanting to play with slightly more terrain than before and that line of sight blocking terrain will be very important indeed, so much so that I'd like the next set of terrain my group gets hold of to be built with that in mind.

It's probably easier to get away with slightly more denser tables now.

With guns generally shooting more and cover rules being poor for units with bad armor, I think at least a couple of pieces of LOS blocking terrain are crucial this edition.

Only enormous sealed boxes matter. If it's not 12" wide and 6" tall and completely solid, it might as well not be on the table.

So far, I would say that ruins, forests and other cover-granting terrain is slightly less important than it was in the past, since it's no longer as vital to survive shooting and no longer hampers assault forces. It's still important, but not as important as it was back in 7e.

However, line-of-sight-blocking terrain is critical now.

I think it's important to note that the fully LOS blocking terrian being the only thing that matters is only valid in the core rules of the game (the 14 pages) where no specific terrain is detailed in any capacity.

It seems like most people are using all their terrain only factoring in the 4 sentences in a side bar.

The advanced rules for Battlefield Terrain, City Ruins, Fire in the Hole, and Height Advantage give a lot more tactical depth to your table top including not every single model in a infantry unit needing to be standing on the piece of terrain to get the benefit of it.

I think once people start expanding out into some of the advanced rules some of these are going to become considered a standard across the majority of table tops.

 Lance845 wrote:
I think it's important to note that the fully LOS blocking terrian being the only thing that matters is only valid in the core rules of the game (the 14 pages) where no specific terrain is detailed in any capacity.

It seems like most people are using all their terrain only factoring in the 4 sentences in a side bar.

The advanced rules for Battlefield Terrain, City Ruins, Fire in the Hole, and Height Advantage give a lot more tactical depth to your table top including not every single model in a infantry unit needing to be standing on the piece of terrain to get the benefit of it.

I think once people start expanding out into some of the advanced rules some of these are going to become considered a standard across the majority of table tops.

Only craters work on a per-model basis and even that's probably a typo.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I think it's important to note that the fully LOS blocking terrian being the only thing that matters is only valid in the core rules of the game (the 14 pages) where no specific terrain is detailed in any capacity.

It seems like most people are using all their terrain only factoring in the 4 sentences in a side bar.

The advanced rules for Battlefield Terrain, City Ruins, Fire in the Hole, and Height Advantage give a lot more tactical depth to your table top including not every single model in a infantry unit needing to be standing on the piece of terrain to get the benefit of it.

I think once people start expanding out into some of the advanced rules some of these are going to become considered a standard across the majority of table tops.

Only craters work on a per-model basis and even that's probably a typo.

I think that the recent designers notes told us that first casualties are applied to models not benefitting from cover then models in cover take saves with the cover modifier. So cover applies to models not units in the end.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
I think it's important to note that the fully LOS blocking terrian being the only thing that matters is only valid in the core rules of the game (the 14 pages) where no specific terrain is detailed in any capacity.

It seems like most people are using all their terrain only factoring in the 4 sentences in a side bar.

The advanced rules for Battlefield Terrain, City Ruins, Fire in the Hole, and Height Advantage give a lot more tactical depth to your table top including not every single model in a infantry unit needing to be standing on the piece of terrain to get the benefit of it.

I think once people start expanding out into some of the advanced rules some of these are going to become considered a standard across the majority of table tops.

Only craters work on a per-model basis and even that's probably a typo.

The basic rules do not recognize craters as being different from anything else. The entire unit must be in terrain for the unit to have cover. If the models not in terrain are removed as casualties than the rest of the unit would then have cover.

Battlefield terrain rules (where ruins, craters, etc... Are given specific rules), which are advanced rules, do not change that stipulation on any piece of terrain except barricades. City ruins (under the cities of death advanced rules) make it so infantry gain the benefits of ruins so long as they are between the shooting unit and the target. While any non infantry units need to be 50% obscured to get the same (amongst other effects).

All the rules basic rules require every model to be in terrain to gain any benefit and only barricades and cities of death start to allow for more flexibility.

Create a thematic table and enjoy it. That's never changed.