7th ed Terrain... What Happened?

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**Swastakowey**

Peregrine wrote:
Swastakowey wrote:
I can see your point, but I personally would rather forces have to meet in the middle over what we have now. I will admit I play 500-1000 point games so my battlefields arent full of men like many we see, having forced mobility is something I long for like when I play other games.

It's probably better with smaller games since you don't have to pack everything into a tiny space, but the clear trend right now is that 1500 point is a small game and 1750-2000+ is the standard. So the rules have to reflect that.

Forcing people to find good shooting locations rather than simply selecting one of many targets in the distance. Forcing people to choose zones to cover rather than simply seeing most of the enemy.

But the problem here is that 40k's melee units/armies are balanced around the current terrain rules. Blocked LOS and "meet in the middle" gameplay means that assault armies dominate because shooting armies can't get any effective shots before the melee units get into charge range and start wiping whole units off the table. Unless you've got barrage weapons the game is reduced to spending a turn or two doing nothing, and then removing models while a bunch of melee fighting happens in a 6" strip of deployment zone. The ability to camp in your own deployment zone and have good shots across the table is the only thing that allows a shooting army to be a viable strategy.

I am also used to games like FoW where too much cover simply prevents you from shooting or a mix of factors that work against your shooting ability. I find restricting shooting from a "choose your target" down to a situation where you have to try maximize your shooting potential through movement and position which makes it much less forgiving.

Two problems with that comparison:

1) The scale is very different. Those restricted shots in FoW are the equivalent of cross-table shots in 40k. Restricting 40k's shooting distances with blocked LOS only emphasizes the ridiculous scale problems with weapon ranges.

2) 40k doesn't have the rule depth to support this kind of gameplay. There aren't any rules for suppressing fire, movement speeds, reaction shots, etc. Imagine a heavy bolter team camped at the end of an alley between two buildings: they won't be able to see a very large area, but the area they do cover is going to be pretty well secured and attacking them will be incredibly dangerous. And in a good game that's how it would work, they'd be able to react immediately to anyone foolish enough to enter their field of fire, and anyone trying to move up that alley would have to dive for cover and slowly advance from cover to cover with their own suppressing fire giving them occasional brief moments of safety. But in 40k it doesn't work like that. A nasty assault unit can move out from behind the LOS-blocking building, move up the alley, declare a charge, and slaughter the heavy bolter team before they can do more than throw a few ineffective snap shots at their target. So effectively by restricting LOS you've just turned that unit into a useless paperweight until they die.

Most of your problems with assaulty units would be because you did not plan your shooting lanes well enough with what the enemy is doing. That heavy bolter only covering one lane should have another lane or area of fire coming from a different angle to ensure some fire can be put on the enemy. Your goal as a shooty army should be to maximize shooting opportunities by trying to ensure that the enemy will have to take hits coming at you. If you are relying on one heavy bolter team in one good shooting lane to hold up a horde then you have failed in your planning.

If you adequately plan your movement phase to counter the melee force, then you are using your skill (ish) to win. Rather than gunning them down across 99% of the map. Things like tanks can be used to cut of certain zones if you are lucky, or artillery all of a sudden becomes a great asset. Deep striking becomes risky but also becomes more rewarding as you can deep strike opposite a piece of terrain that would normally do nothing to protect you and maybe your deep strikers can be useful and the list goes on.

Shooty vs shooty would be a battle of planning too. Instead of fire superiority.

I personally think a focus on moving and positioning is a good thing. Rather than the modern warfare weapons with Napoleonic (crappy at that) tactics we have going on in many games I see now. It also limits the effect of long range guns considerably. They still have an advantage (they can cover more ground) but they cant cover whole maps. Which again brings down the game to planning and movement.

It may not be perfect (as you pointed out) but I think the benefits outweigh the negatives and overall its a better style than what many end up playing today.

**Wargamer24**

Azreal13 wrote:
My last game, my opponent seriously tried to argue I didn't get a cover save because the wood wasn't a Citadel wood, and therefore to qualify I needed 25% obscured.

Wow! You're definitely playing with him again

**pepe5454**

All I know is after having faced someone who used the new rules to his advantage the whole game I realised half or 3/4's of our local games stores terrain is pretty much useless. He played a mobile eldar army with lots of shooting and despite placing my models in terrain all game he was able to move in such ways that I was not allowed a cover save the entire match because the 25% obscured rule. Having reread all the cover stuff I am going to be specifying allot of terrain as rubble as it has the same rules as ruins. They just seemed to eliminate anything giving 5+ no matter how obscured you are it's 4+ or you have to be obscured. I always thought it made sense that your guy by the tree would be smart enough to move when getting shot at so the tree would be between him and where the bullets are coming from.

**Crablezworth**

Swastakowey wrote:

I personally think a focus on moving and positioning is a good thing.

Preach it brotha!

I couldn't agree more with that statement.

Can anyone imagine how lost you would be when it comes to terrain if you started playing in 7th?

**AegisGrimm**

I don't understand why people think that "forests" should block LOS. Think about how big they are, the typical "forest" terrain represents maybe 10-20' of trees growing in the middle of an open field (the rest of the table). That's one of those decorative trees in a parking lot, not a giant forest that obscures everything behind it. A human-size model might be able to get some cover from those trees, but a tank is going to be completely visible behind them.

It's called an element of abstraction. Most of the buildings on an average 40K gaming table should cover half the table, too, to be realistic. Or why a Rhino is too small to carry 10 marines+ driver.

I mean, going by the range measurements, most weapons in the year 40,000 would have an effective range less than those during the American Civil War, and most battles are for some reason fought in subjective spaces that Napoleon would find cramped. To have anything close to a realistic scale at 28mm, you would have to have the subjective scale of Epic 40K, but on 8x15 foot tables.

**AllSeeingSkink**

AegisGrimm wrote:
I don't understand why people think that "forests" should block LOS. Think about how big they are, the typical "forest" terrain represents maybe 10-20' of trees growing in the middle of an open field (the rest of the table). That's one of those decorative trees in a parking lot, not a giant forest that obscures everything behind it. A human-size model might be able to get some cover from those trees, but a tank is going to be completely visible behind them.

It's called an element of abstraction. Most of the buildings on an average 40K gaming table should cover half the table, too, to be realistic. Or why a Rhino is too small to carry 10 marines+ driver.

I mean, going by the range measurements, most weapons in the year 40,000 would have an effective range less than those during the American Civil War, and most battles are for some reason fought in subjective spaces that Napoleon would find cramped. To have anything close to a realistic scale at 28mm, you would have to have the subjective scale of Epic 40K, but on 8x15 foot tables.

To me, "forest" terrain in 40k represents a small but dense growth. It's not practical to actually have a small but dense growth on the table because then you wouldn't be able to move your models through it.

I feel that way primarily because I think terrain should be more than something that just gets in the way of playing the game

**Peregrine**

Swastakowey wrote:
I personally think a focus on moving and positioning is a good thing.

I agree with this entirely. The problem is that 40k's rules don't support it. The only movement that matters is moving directly towards or away from the enemy to get into ideal weapon range, and you can always do it without any (significant) interference due to suppressing fire/terrain/etc. So adding lots of LOS blockers doesn't really improve movement-based gameplay, it just makes it easier for melee armies to win by running directly at the enemy and then declaring an army-destroying charge. And that's not really any more interesting than the current gunline-heavy edition.

**Ventiscogreen**

Less cover saves? So we want guard to suck now do we?

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, I've specifically had to reposition units for better fire lanes. Last night I had to take pathfinders from my deployment zone to a ruin to get los on a enemy devastator squad. The ruins and terrain we had greatly block line of sight to good portions of the board, keeping my hammerheads from supporting more than one side at once.

**AegisGrimm**

I agree with this entirely. The problem is that 40k's rules don't support it. The only movement that matters is moving directly towards or away from the enemy to get into ideal weapon range, and you can always do it without any (significant) interference due to suppressing fire/terrain/etc. So adding lots of LOS blockers doesn't really improve movement-based gameplay, it just makes it easier for melee armies to win by running directly at the enemy and then declaring an army-destroying charge. And that's not really any more interesting than the current gunline-heavy edition.

Maybe for my footslogging units, but my Space marine bikes, Eldar Jetbikes, cavalry and Land Speeders would argue, if they weren't busy using cover to flank things.