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Hello,

Probably is not a new question but I can't find the related topic.
I have just had my first game: 1000 pt. tau (me) vs nids. We played on a 4'x4' table as suggested by the rulebook and I think we flood too much the board. I do not have line of sight on almost nothing and get charged in few turns. I attach a pics of the table before deployment. The center piece is considered open (units can move accross)

So my question is: How many terrain we should use on a 4'x4' field?

P.S.: don't look at the mess around the table

Nid list was one unit of 24 hormagaunt, one unit of 19 genestealer, swarmlord, trygon and broodlord and a haruspex. My list is 1 riptide,1 broadise, 1 commander, 3 unit fo fire warriors 7/7/6, 3 stealth darkstrider and a cadre fireblade.
It is first game for both of us, so the lists are made that we have painted.
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more. We agreed to not forgive any mistake each other.

I decided not to consider visibile unit in which only the "hand" of 1 genestealer was visibile.

tneva82 wrote:Howabout try something other kind of strategy than deploy in castle in corner and expect to gun down everything down?

Yeah, for sure next game i will not play like this. I thought it was the best way to play was to keep everything within "for the greater good range", but i was wrong.

catbarf wrote:

Bearblu wrote:
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more.

You've got a good amount of terrain on your table- the general guideline is 25-33%, which you can assess by piling up all the terrain in one corner and seeing how much it covers. If anything, you might not have enough terrain, especially with most of it being too small to hide a unit behind.

As a shooting army, your job is to use that terrain to funnel the enemy into predictable paths, giving you opportunities to fire before they can get close. But by deploying bunched up in a corner and then not moving, you allowed your (melee-focused) opponent to exploit the terrain against you.

This is pretty much Working As Intended. Next time, don't castle up. Force him through chokepoints where his numbers work against him, spread out so that he can't hide or engage multiple units at once, and stay mobile to avoid contact.

Thanks mate I will definitly try to channel him trough some path and definitly i will not play inn one corner.

Stormonu wrote:Table has plenty of big terrain, but needs more infantry-sized scatter terrain - fences, bushes, blown-out cars, etc.

Thanks for the suggestion, for sure we will replace some ruin with something smaller. At the moment i am still waiting the other terrin from TTCombat which I have ordered in May

Kayback wrote:
I've always found terrain and more importantly the placing of it to be a sore point. People generally like to try to maximize the terrain to their advantage, which one should do as it makes sense, but literally designing the terrain to suit your units is vastly different to choosing the best of what's available.

I'm *personally* of the opinion that more is better, with varying effects. You want a mix of stuff that provides shelter, provides movement, and provides fun.

I also like to have lots of terrain, but after the match I was a bit puzzled if the ammount of terrain was ok or not.

Kayback wrote:
I'd say that terrain was a little light, depending on how you described it. Yes it should be obvious but sometimes, like you said, certain items can get described as more or less effective than they look.

I'd have had issues with the declaration that the center was open, unless it means it can be shot through. I get that Nid's are super mobile but that seems almost like terraining for advantage. "Oh my CQC units can move through it unhindered but you can't shoot through it." Ah, no. IF it provides enough cover spots to prevent me simply hosing down your infantry they can't move over it fast.

It is a balance between open fire lanes and mazes I know, neither side should have an advantage without a narrative reason and in a pickup game that's not really a thing you should be worried about. But you can't design the terrain so one side has an obvious advantage.

I got your point. We agreed that the center was LOS blocking but crossable, maybe was a choice too much in favour of Nids, but my in-game mistakes helped in my defeat.

Kayback wrote:
I must say I'm liking the look of the laser cut wooden structures. I wasn't really on board with them, especially in the raw, but they seem pretty good looking honestly.

The terrain are from Tabletop Combat they are pretty cheap. We paid 130,00 € for the things you see on the table plus 3 more kit which are not delivered yet. They are not so well detailed and misses a bit of texture. To be fair they are too much 2D style, with flat surfaces but they can be fixed.