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How much do you use in your games? How much is optimal, and how much is too much? I think theres a specified amount, but I don't know what it is ~ care to enlighten me?

I ask because today I faced my arch nemesis the Manticore again. I killed the gak out of it and it did little damage (killed 2 Lootas I think), but during deployment, I panicked and reserved half of my army because frankly there was nowhere to hide them. No matter where a unit was placed, unless placed somewhere slowed like right behind a tree, approximately 90% of the board was either totally visible or visible with a cover save.

Personally, I think thats 40% too much.

What do you think?

You can't have enough.

Complete 100% LOS blocking should be limited, and always centrally located (no protecting your Manticore/objective campers behind a hill in the corner of your deployment zone). A gunline camped entirely in your own deployment zone should have some limits on where it can shoot, but you should not be able to advance all the way up the table and into charge/melta/etc range without ever being in LOS of anything that can threaten you. And of course there should never be any places that are out of LOS from most/all directions, you should always be able to counter LOS blocking by moving into a better position.

Cover should be ~50% of the table (counting areas behind a piece of cover where a model can get a cover save, not just the actual footprint of the terrain) with a mix of terrain types (hills, ruins, area terrain, etc) widely distributed with spaces between the terrain. Every "region" of the table should have some cover available for units that want a defensive position, but there should be enough open space to force choices between keeping a cover save and moving into an ideal offensive position. An all-out offense should not be able to have a cover save for the entire advance up the table, while an army that ensures it always has a cover save for everything should be slowed down and often out of position.

A table with 50% completely LOS blocking, on top of even more space with LOS but a cover save, is way too much terrain. 40k is supposed to be a game of brutal killing and entire units being wiped off the table, not a game of "camp the objective with 100% immunity to enemy fire" or "move into assault range without ever taking a wound".

And of course a Manticore doesn't really care that much about LOS anyway, so even adding more LOS blocking won't save you.

I have run a table with too much before. A big rundown city, without even a single area of clear space more than perhaps 6" square ~ It is possible, but I'd much prefer to lean towards too much than not enough.

 Crablezworth wrote:
You can't have enough.

Completely disagree. A table with too much LOS blocking easily produces a game full of either camping on objectives with neither player willing to leave their complete immunity and attack, or a game in which shooting (especially long-range shooting) is crippled and assault units can go straight into combat without ever facing any real threats.

 Crablezworth wrote:
You can't have enough.

What army do you play ?

I dislike LoS blocking terrain . I would rather have my manticore have only cover , then the opposing army advancing the whole table without being shot.
Cover is more tricky , technicly it is nice to have , but in the end it helps marines more then IG , so it aint so good either. At least the helldrake balances use of cover a lot and most armies are no longer build to depand on high cover .

My main issue with cover vs LoS blocking is that something like say, a Manticore, ignores cover alot of the time due to 'hit from the centre of the blast' shenanigans and being able to see a speck of terrain through a tiny hole in the wall of a building that just so happens to be in the centre of your squad...

I think having absolutely nowhere to deploy my army thats safe from bombardment isn't exactly great gameplay. If theres nothing I can do to stop myself losing 300pts per turn to pie plates, I might as well just sell my Orks, buy manticores, and play "who can roll first turn" with people.

You need to go review the rules before you start making requests for more terrain: since a Manticore is a barrage weapon it can fire without LOS. The only thing 100% LOS blocking does is prevent the Manticore from subtracting its BS from the scatter distance (if any).

Damn, I thought that something had to spot for them, but I don't see a rule to that effect. At least then this melon-fething vehicle has some limitations ~ now it can simply kill a pie-plate sized chunk of your army every turn with impunity...

I personally like 50% terrain, with about 30% LOS blocking, 20% area.

HOW MUCH TERRAIN?

As a general rule in Warhammer 40,000, the more terrain, the better the better the gaming experience. If you use too little terrain, games will be short and not very satisfactory, with too much advantage going to the player who gets to shoot first. For a balanced game, where close combat troops have a chance to get into contact with the enemy without being completely blown away in a couple of turns, we expect that about a quarter of the total player surface should have terrain on it. The assumption here is that if terrain pieces are roughly 12 " by 12 " , then six or seven pieces are need to fulfill the 25% recommendation on a standard 6x4 table (of course these dimensions are approximate and terrain features like woods should not be square, as irregular features look much better!

In your terrain collection there should be a good mixture of types. An equal division between terrain which interferes with line of sight and provides cover (such as woods or ruins) , terrain which provides cover, but does not block line of sight (such as barricades, craters, scrubland and low rubble) and terrain which blocks line of sight completely (such as hills, rocky outcrops, buildings, ect.) makes for good tactical play. It is best to build your terrain collection with this in mind, otherwise the game balance could be seriously affected. Terrain that completely blocks line of sight is particularly important. Too much of it and your ranged firepower will be seriously impaired favoring assault troops; too little and the game will turn into a shooting match, with very little movement or tactical choices.

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Those are the two greatest paragraphs GW has ever written. (sadly from the 5th ed rulebook)

To clarify my earlier statement, the reason I say you can never have enough los blockers is generally speaking from the perspective of playing at gw, an flgs or a tournament, in my experience you literally can never have (get) enough, or much at all. I agree the board shouldn’t comprise entirely of los blocking terrain but there should be a fair share of it, center weighted of course. 40k has evolved quite a bit but a lot of terrain collections haven't really evolved with it. I still see way too little terrain on tables in general. Even when there is an adequate amount (25% or more) it's often out dated terrain (felt circles with a single tree in the center, 1 inch tall hills ect.)

If you go to a GW, quite a few now only have GW terrain, and generally not enough to fill 25% of the tables available to play on. Not to mention as pretty as GW terrain can be, it’s lacking in the los blocking department. Our local GW had a mandate come down that only GW terrain would be allowed so they had to sell off the rest of their terrain collection, I managed to pick most of it up so my own terrain collection is doing well but the store has suffered.

Flgs’s can be a crapshoot, their collection will usually comprise of much more home made terrain as well some gw and other manufacturers pieces. Locally there’s generally not enough terrain to adequately cover all tables available, so there is definitely a get there early to ensure enough terrain mentality.


My own collection comprises all sorts of terrain, I still find myself reaching for the los blockers first. I want a game where the movment phase matters. My experience with 6th edition is that it's doing far too much to incentivize you to sit on your ass and shoot which gets boring real fast.