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So i have been watching quite a bit of bat-reps and games at my local FLGS in order to get my mind around the game. I notice a lack of terrain in all of them. there are some pieces out to the side to make it look like an actual game board. But nearly all of them have just a patch of no terrain in which armies just run down to smash one another. To me that seems so....boring. Is WM/H a game that encourages lack of terrain? is it just something I see?

I think its more of people being afraid of putting too much terrain on the table.

On one hand, dense terrain can mean melee centered armies have a huge advantage as they can advance unhindered and then beat face with no opposition.

On the other hand, too little terrain can mean it might as well be an empty board.

It also could be that because there is a lot of game play even with a lack of terrain people get used to having very little terrain and it becomes a bad habit. They don't know what they are missing.


Tournaments also can encourage a very symmetrical and stale amount of terrain, or types of terrain. In all the tournaments I've been to only 1 had any sort of water feature on any of the tables. Its usually a couple forests, a couple hills, and a couple linear obstacles. No buildings, no rivers, no ponds, no lakes, etc...

This could be because those are the easiest terrain pieces to make, and they do have a big effect on the game.

I think people are often playing with 1-2 too few pieces on the board.

How can melee be hindered with it? things like buildings grants you LOS blocking while your army advances

I said unhindered.

And no one likes playing on a forest heavy board against legion. It can get pretty lame.

I always like to put a fair bit of terrain on the board - several walls, a few forrests, a few small huts and rocks for blocking terrain(I find them better than large buildings which can segment the battle field a bit) and often a small swamp or two (and I'm a warmachine player) or lookout tower.

The thing is, you have to make terrain sparse enough that Colossals and Battle Engines can move through and that shooting armies have some fire lanes, but I think a lot of people are still far too timid with terrain in this game. Also, many Tournaments probably have trouble finding enough terrain I would suggest as well, and have to be sparse with it to make it stretch.

Water terrain is usually looked at as a disadvantage to warmachine players since if you have a jack knocked down in water there are problems. Beasts don't care about water except for the normal movement problems.
In tournements you have to leave at least 3" between terrain pieces but there are no other guidelines.

Too many forest and shooting takes a massive hit, legion gets a massive buff

Too many cover walls and shooting takes a massive hit, any melee without pathfinding takes a big hit

Too many buildings and shooting takes a massive hit

Overall the Terrain screws Shooting and Shooting is already weak in this game

Terrain should be sparse

5-7 pieces of terrain and none in your deployment zone. Also, each piece needs to be at least three inches from another piece. That is how Steamroller handles it.

We have been lop siding the terrain to give more advantage to the player that goes second. Otherwise, what the point of choosing your table side?

Also, unlike most other games, terrain can play a huge role on the outcome of the game. While Legion ignores forests, Retribution can ignore almost everything. Some armies have more terrain mitigation than others. It's built into their cost. So, you need to have a balance of terrain.

I play shooty, melee, etc and no matter what I play I say bring on the terrain!

I also notice a lot of people around here at non-tourneys tend to just play caster kill. Also super boring, though my lists and playstyle tends to excel at it.

You also have to look at it from a board size perspective. WM/H generally plays on a 4'x4', so having approximately 5-8 terrain pieces seems MORE than enough. I generally like 1-2 hills, 2 forests, a couple of small buildings, and some walls. That's really all that is needed. A random water feature thrown in every so often is good too, just not on every board.

Some armies handle terrain better than others, Circle/Legion/Cryx being good at it, while ranger armies like Cygnar/Retribution/Menoth don't do as well with it. As a result people often leaves huge swaths of open area so that the table is "balanced". You will also rarely see tournaments use water because it effects Warmachine far more than Hordes. I personal believe all that is hooey and want to see more terrain. I always try to put something just off center of the table to prevent that big open field in the middle that you see a lot and other such things that try to at least divide the fighting into two areas or better allow flanking.

Yeah, I want to see more water on the board. Even as a warmachine player myself, I wait eagerly for the day I can headbutt an opponent's jack and deactivate it because it was standing in water.

Deep Water also provides an area that is truly impassable, even for a colossal.

It just seems as though many models have abilities to work with terrain (look at pirate warjack's amphibious ability). When you dont use it, those models lose value. We always play with SOME terrain - usually 2+ forests, 2+ walls, and a third type, building, hills, or a river.

Thats more of a fluffy ability for the pirate jacks. If water was used more we might have complaints of them being undercosted, especially deep water.

They aren't paying much for amphibious. Its not like people feel they are overcosted and saying "gee, if only I got more use out of amphibious my jacks would be better!"

 Grey Templar wrote:
Thats more of a fluffy ability for the pirate jacks. If water was used more we might have complaints of them being undercosted, especially deep water.

They aren't paying much for amphibious. Its not like people feel they are overcosted and saying "gee, if only I got more use out of amphibious my jacks would be better!"

To be honest that reminds me a lot of the Chimera in Imperial Guard. Yeah it has amphibious, but they don't pay for it and it never gets used.

My last game was lost due to terrain . My friend placed 2 woods in front of my whole army and my army didn't make it in to the scoring zone with enough models alive at the end of his turn . He scored easy points and I conceded on turn 2 . Terrain maybe fun for some armies , but I think cygnar is not one of them . I could be wrong about it , but at least from the models I own and seen used woods etc hurt us a lot.

Makumba wrote:
My last game was lost due to terrain . My friend placed 2 woods in front of my whole army and my army didn't make it in to the scoring zone with enough models alive at the end of his turn . He scored easy points and I conceded on turn 2 . Terrain maybe fun for some armies , but I think cygnar is not one of them . I could be wrong about it , but at least from the models I own and seen used woods etc hurt us a lot.

SR2013 doesn't start scoring until the 2nd Player's 2nd turn. So using that you still could have won.

 ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

Makumba wrote:
My last game was lost due to terrain . My friend placed 2 woods in front of my whole army and my army didn't make it in to the scoring zone with enough models alive at the end of his turn . He scored easy points and I conceded on turn 2 . Terrain maybe fun for some armies , but I think cygnar is not one of them . I could be wrong about it , but at least from the models I own and seen used woods etc hurt us a lot.

SR2013 doesn't start scoring until the 2nd Player's 2nd turn. So using that you still could have won.

And that sounds odd, did you choose to place your whole army behind the woods, full knowing how they'd slow you down, or did he place the woods after you had deployed?

i see it as people just dont know how to deploy a terrain heavy board without going too far. City boards i dont think could be that bad unless youre a gunline and theres no open area ~8" or so deep for you to shoot before getting charged. However, natural terrain such as forests, swamps, etc can be iffy. Can you imagine being a melee army, say Trollbloods, in a heavy forest board facing Circle? Or worse, Everblight? I think i would just forfeit right there as circle/everblight would have an INSANE advantage since they completely ignore the terrain for either movement or shooting (or both) while im hurt in both ways for the most part.

One thing i dont like though is people tend to put up the Die 5 setup. 5 pieces of medium size terrain in a 5 position (1 each corner, one in middle). I dont like that, it makes it very stale and redundant regardless of what the terrain is and offers no flank possibilities since its WIDE OPEN on the flanks and a small block in the front.

 motyak wrote:

 ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

Makumba wrote:
My last game was lost due to terrain . My friend placed 2 woods in front of my whole army and my army didn't make it in to the scoring zone with enough models alive at the end of his turn . He scored easy points and I conceded on turn 2 . Terrain maybe fun for some armies , but I think cygnar is not one of them . I could be wrong about it , but at least from the models I own and seen used woods etc hurt us a lot.

SR2013 doesn't start scoring until the 2nd Player's 2nd turn. So using that you still could have won.

And that sounds odd, did you choose to place your whole army behind the woods, full knowing how they'd slow you down, or did he place the woods after you had deployed?

Nope the store owner set up the terrain and told me to take that side , because am smaller and he wouldn't fit there being three times my size .
And the woods were WFB woods so it was impossible to get through them in 1 turn . I lost going first . So he overrun the scoring zone . I got stuck in the woods. He started scoring I got out of the woods , but was still out of the scoring zone and he won.

That's not a problem of More terrain though, that's a problem is Stupid terrain.

Makumba wrote:

 motyak wrote:

 ObliviousBlueCaboose wrote:

Makumba wrote:
My last game was lost due to terrain . My friend placed 2 woods in front of my whole army and my army didn't make it in to the scoring zone with enough models alive at the end of his turn . He scored easy points and I conceded on turn 2 . Terrain maybe fun for some armies , but I think cygnar is not one of them . I could be wrong about it , but at least from the models I own and seen used woods etc hurt us a lot.

SR2013 doesn't start scoring until the 2nd Player's 2nd turn. So using that you still could have won.

And that sounds odd, did you choose to place your whole army behind the woods, full knowing how they'd slow you down, or did he place the woods after you had deployed?

Nope the store owner set up the terrain and told me to take that side , because am smaller and he wouldn't fit there being three times my size .
And the woods were WFB woods so it was impossible to get through them in 1 turn . I lost going first . So he overrun the scoring zone . I got stuck in the woods. He started scoring I got out of the woods , but was still out of the scoring zone and he won.

Yeah, that sucks. I like a fair bit of terrain on the board, but you can't block off the scoring zones with forests, especially if it is set up in a one sided manner. Definitely a "How not to" moment.

well technicly my opponent had two woods in front of him too. only he plays legion. The orgs comment to the woods was , that I shouldn't play an imbalanced faction like cygnar .

Makumba wrote:
well technicly my opponent had two woods in front of him too. only he plays legion. The orgs comment to the woods was , that I shouldn't play an imbalanced faction like cygnar .

Oh dear.


But yeah, big forests blocking off large swathes of the board isn't a great idea. The forests I use are generally no more than 4" across and 4-8" long.

Also it sounds a little suspicious that he set up the board and then assigned you to one side. That's hardly a proper approach to the game. A neutral party should set up the terrain and then a dice off for who goes first/picks the table side should ensue. If the gentleman can 't fit in a play space then consideration should be made for him to play at another board or he should consider making himself uncomfortable for the length of the game.

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
Also it sounds a little suspicious that he set up the board and then assigned you to one side. That's hardly a proper approach to the game. A neutral party should set up the terrain and then a dice off for who goes first/picks the table side should ensue. If the gentleman can 't fit in a play space then consideration should be made for him to play at another board or he should consider making himself uncomfortable for the length of the game.

He said both sides had a ton of woods, except the opponent 100% ignores woods and he got bogged down so hard that the opponent won before he managed to get past it

It doesn't matter if the board was a mirror or not in this situation. In the first place one player should not set up the board knowing which side of the table he is on. Secondly that player should not choose terrain that he knows that he will ignore regardless of his opponent. It's just bad form in both cases.

Makumba wrote:
well technicly my opponent had two woods in front of him too. only he plays legion. The orgs comment to the woods was , that I shouldn't play an imbalanced faction like cygnar .

I don't mean to sound mean or anything, at least not toward you, but from what I've read of your recent posts involving Warmachine, it sounds like your local group of players and TOs are a bunch of a**holes.

Regarding terrain, it is supposed to be set up so as not to give one side an unfair advantage. Clearly, your opponent benefited immensely from having forest in front of your area and in front of his, as they have little to no effect on him and block movement and line of sight for you. You were screwed over, at least from the way it is described.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Leo_the_Rat wrote:
It doesn't matter if the board was a mirror or not in this situation. In the first place one player should not set up the board knowing which side of the table he is on. Secondly that player should not choose terrain that he knows that he will ignore regardless of his opponent. It's just bad form in both cases.

ARRGH! Ninja'd me on the second point.

Yeah, that whole situation is sounding more and more stupid.