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GW seems to be pushing this as a book usable withing the competitive arena. Most of it seems centered around using the new terrain and having players bring terrain to a tournament rather than terrain being supplied by the organizer.

There's also a "pipeway access point" on the featured piece, which sounds interesting, but i'm not at all keen on buying specific terrain for rules.

Beyond that there are additional secondaries, which could be useful and a mission that also looks to allow you to put your home objective in terrain and dictates where you must place some terrain.

I'm pretty lukewarm until I can understand how it all comes together more, but has anyone seen any enthusiasm for this among competitive arenas?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/09/23/prepare-to-deploy-tactically/

I'm sure the big and up-and-coming tournaments who desperately want Daddy GW to notice them will be all over it. For everybody else, it's probably adding too much convoluted, bloated rules on top of bloated rules.

I'm not paying £20 for DLC Mission Packs that should've already been in the rulebook released barely two months ago and I've no interest in lugging around official GW(tm) Approved terrain with me, as well as everything else.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
GW seems to be pushing this as a book usable withing the competitive arena. Most of it seems centered around using the new terrain and having players bring terrain to a tournament rather than terrain being supplied by the organizer.

There's also a "pipeway access point" on the featured piece, which sounds interesting, but i'm not at all keen on buying specific terrain for rules.

Beyond that there are additional secondaries, which could be useful and a mission that also looks to allow you to put your home objective in terrain and dictates where you must place some terrain.

I'm pretty lukewarm until I can understand how it all comes together more, but has anyone seen any enthusiasm for this among competitive arenas?

https://www.warhammer-community.com/2020/09/23/prepare-to-deploy-tactically/

Every terrain piece they've previewed so far has utterly defeated the purpose terrain has on the battlefield: Making the game less deadly.

as such, I anticipate I will give the entire thing a miss.

The fact that I can drive my ding dang tank into a building and it doesn't matter one single bit to how difficult it is to kill my vehicle, but, somehow, being now parked inside a damn building makes my vehicle reroll 1s to hit, is the height of stupidity to me.

I'd be happier with stuff like Storage Fane (ammo dumps) if they could explode...

Unless the rules drop for this shows a far different theme than has been previewed so far, this is a hard pass for our gaming group. Just with what we have seen so far, even assuming the rules are fantastic, there are 3 issues we've identified that would make implementing this on a tournament basis "problematic" to say the least.

I'm not a fan of the approach... as has been stated, adding convoluted rules for individual pieces of terrain is the worst culprit here, no-one's going to remember the terrain rules on top of all their unit rules, Stratagems, psychic powers, Warlord trait, and primary and secondary objectives...

There is one really great idea here that I hope does stick around, though - the idea of having a certain amount of terrain "points" to suit the size of battle. It's often been discussed how having too much or too little terrain can seriously mess with balance depending on the armies turning up - setting a decent expectation here would be a big help.

It’s a nope from me and from our group tbh.

I think the general consensus has been "no".

All of these new missions and terrain rules are brilliant for all games of Warhammer 40,000, but they really shine when it comes to competitive play. No longer will you be at the mercy of random terrain placement – you’ll now bring your own and have just what you need when you deploy your army. Choose the exact terrain you want to complement the units in your force and lead your army to tournament glory!

Yes, let me game the hell out of this game even more than people are already doing. Random terrain forces you to work with what you have on the board. Or, play ITC which had a pretty standard and reasonably fair terrain layout.

I like the idea of different themed battle zones where the terrain has some advanced functionality; but for narrative play games.

That said, am I going to lug my terrain around? Hell no!

I think it's fair to say that this is a gimmick so sell their terrain kits.

 oni wrote:
I think it's fair to say that this is a gimmick so sell their terrain kits.

Yea that was my feeling as well. I wasn't eager to jump in and looks like everyone feels the same so far. Thanks all.

Terrain is my fav thing in the hobby. I no longer like building miniatures, but I love building terrain. I own tables of the stuff.

And this expansion is a hard pass.

Ruins thematic tables, limited only to Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™, and then it's a bunch of boxy buildings with different rules.

Cities of Death did this with counters. We didn't need "terrain points" and data cards for each building.

I think the efforts put into this 'mission pack' (if you can even call it that) should have been put towards revising Cities of Death, Planetstrike and Stronghold Assault or better yet...

A new version of the greatest book ever made for W40K... Planetary Onslaught.

Pushing this as being "Competitive-ready" and not including any obvious references to proper sizes and dimensions on the datasheets for the pieces feels, uhhhhhhhh, a little silly. Even using the official models, there's plenty of opportunities for abuse.

And really, it's fine that GW wants to push their terrain, but this whole thing just feels like a giant wasted opportunity.

 Bosskelot wrote:
And really, it's fine that GW wants to push their terrain, but this whole thing just feels like a giant wasted opportunity.

I've said it dozens of times, but GW never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Terrain is my fav thing in the hobby. I no longer like building miniatures, but I love building terrain. I own tables of the stuff.

And this expansion is a hard pass.

Ruins thematic tables, limited only to Official™ Citadel™ Terrain™, and then it's a bunch of boxy buildings with different rules.

Cities of Death did this with counters. We didn't need "terrain points" and data cards for each building.

Agreed. Terrain should be set dressing and nothing more. The only rules it should grant are whatever is printed in the relevant rulebook, not some convoluted rubbish where it is essentially part of your army.

Looks pretty lackluster, IMO. The terrain piece looks pretty non descript to me, what about it screams "ammunition storage"?

Hard pass from me. It brings nothing to the game that is needed IMHO. Time could have been better spent elsewhere.

Good for narrative and fun games for a twist. Its more of a way to help locals with borrowed terrain and a way to sell more terrain basically.

I'm not against various terrain pieces having specific rules.....
I mean, we've been doing this for decades already. Sometimes a game system will define something (either generically or specific), sometimes we'll specify something while setting the table.

I don't mind GW wanting to push their terrain. Personally though I buy/build terrain based upon looks or theme. So it doesn't matter what rules they attach.

I don't mind bringing some terrain with me. Depending upon where/what we play my group already does this (for ex; when we do WWI I'm the guy who supplies the trenches. And in AoS some of our armies have terrain pieces).

More missions? Sure.

So I'll give this thing a look when it comes out.
I'm not expecting it to be a work of genius though.... Afterall, what's the point of highlighting that ammo dump having an access hatch - when two sides of the thing are open/broken walls??

And you know what? If it includes the rules for the terrain? I can build my own versions & skip GWs overpriced stuff it it doesn't meet my standards.

 Amishprn86 wrote:
Good for narrative and fun games for a twist. Its more of a way to help locals with borrowed terrain and a way to sell more terrain basically.

I think its great for TOs who lack terrain, but I'm not sure I like the rules dynamics.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
And really, it's fine that GW wants to push their terrain, but this whole thing just feels like a giant wasted opportunity.

I've said it dozens of times, but GW never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity.

You silver tongued devil you...

Sums it up well.

If it was just something that could be a thing in your games like cities of death and put in a WD or something? sure I would support it. I still wouldn't buy it or use it personally but I appreciate the effort of adding an extra layer of stuff (however shallow it actually is in reality) for those that want it.

My issue? They make core units a thing because they get rerolls are oppressive on some units.... then highlight a new terrain feature that gives rerolls to anyone able to fit inside. :p lame.

And while i am all down for new missions the one they showcased isn't all that new...

Azuza001 wrote:
And while i am all down for new missions the one they showcased isn't all that new...

Dynamically not much different, but it does have an interesting layout and features we don't see elsewhere. That mission secondary is quite workable it seems.

 Bosskelot wrote:
Pushing this as being "Competitive-ready" and not including any obvious references to proper sizes and dimensions on the datasheets for the pieces feels, uhhhhhhhh, a little silly. Even using the official models, there's plenty of opportunities for abuse.

And really, it's fine that GW wants to push their terrain, but this whole thing just feels like a giant wasted opportunity.

There's footprint for each piece in the datasheet. Albeit height is still issue but since it's for official kits you can get it from those.

 Grimtuff wrote:


Agreed. Terrain should be set dressing and nothing more. The only rules it should grant are whatever is printed in the relevant rulebook, not some convoluted rubbish where it is essentially part of your army.

Some of the stuff has been kind of fun in the past, like that plasma conduit thing. Things that make terrain worth fighting over, potentially making them objectives could be a decent thing.

tneva82 wrote:

 Bosskelot wrote:
Pushing this as being "Competitive-ready" and not including any obvious references to proper sizes and dimensions on the datasheets for the pieces feels, uhhhhhhhh, a little silly. Even using the official models, there's plenty of opportunities for abuse.

And really, it's fine that GW wants to push their terrain, but this whole thing just feels like a giant wasted opportunity.

There's footprint for each piece in the datasheet. Albeit height is still issue but since it's for official kits you can get it from those.

Those are just pictures printed on a tiny card. They give no actual dimensions in inches.

It's a little worrying that GW are pushing this kind of thing before they've even managed to get a single Codex out for 9th. It's already ringing alarm bells that the bloat in this edition is likely to come from an increasing number of tournament packs, all with rules nobody asked for.

These rules seem really uninspired in general, provide yet another way for players to attempt to game the system, potentially fragment the player base and don't seem practical given the problems with transporting terrain to and from events.

I say "meh", because I really don't care. No one is likely to use it. I've only ever seen two players pay points and bring terrain to a table- and it did nothing for them. I guess that could change, but bringing your own terrain has always been frowned on in 40K.

Missions don't matter. If you can make an army list, you can make a mission/scenario. The rule book already had over a dozen different missions in it, and most people don't even play all those. Adding more... is just more missions few, if anyone, will play.

The real sticking point to me- ITC didn't publish a missions pack this year. Or, I should say they did, and they provided a nice, handy link to the GW Grand Tournament 2020 Mission Pack. If the requirement to play in an ITC tournament is now to have another over costed book that you will be forced to buy every year... yeah, that will suck.

It's a terrible cash grab attempt that undermines the whole history of the hobby. Who wants to play on half-and-half tables gamed for advantage by both players at the explicit invitation of GW? Half ice world planet bowling ball and half jungle world necromunda? Ad mech healing a vehicle 3D3 a turn thanks to a conveniently placed ruin? Terrain that gives you rerolls? Seriously?

This is one of the worst things GW has put out in a long time. It's even worse than the IH debacle IMO because that was just terrible execution, not a deliberate attempt to undermine one of the core aspects of the hobby in order to sell more plastic junk.

The good thing is that the community seems to be 95% treating it with the scorn it deserves. This needs to flop hard because GW needs to get the message that undermining the hobby to sell its expensive branded terrain is not an acceptable thing to do.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

What are people making of the new CA mission pack?

The only correct answer is 'we're making fun of the new CA mission pack'.