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The random terrain generation rules do not usually result in a "cover heavy" table.

Martel732 wrote:
The random terrain generation rules do not usually result in a "cover heavy" table.

Even the 5th edition 25% cover rule doesn't fix this on any level.

Martel732 wrote:
The random terrain generation rules do not usually result in a "cover heavy" table.

Most terrain pieces are enough to give the majority of vehicles at least a 5+ where I play. The only ones that don't would be rivers and pools. A low wall or wood should be dense enough and still tall enough to cover enough of a vehicle, before you even start placing LOS covering ruins.

The rulebook rules has D3 terrain pieces in each 6th of the board. Each terrain piece must be 'substantial' single piece (that is an entire ruin, wood or building) or a cluster of 3 smaller pieces, so each board has minimum 6 large pieces of terrain. If smaller pieces are used, then 3 of these fits one of the quota, so a 3 on the D3 would have up to nine pieces of battlefield debris, which if you have craters and similar sized small terrain pieces could be more than you can fit on your 2'x2' segment.

On average you'll have 2 per segment, but there will be variation following the book, but following RAW there should be plenty of terrain on the board and 3 large LOS blocking buildings or ruins in the centre of the board should not only be not unheard of but actually the norm according to the rules.

I've played on tables that were legal by RAW, but had not a single piece of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain should change the game, but lists should be equally valid on parking lots as urban landscapes.

I shouldn't have to cower and hide from the Tau and Eldar to make a game of it. They should be paying more for their outrageous firepower, not me praying for a favorable table.

Martel732 wrote:
I've played on tables that were legal by RAW, but had not a single piece of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain should change the game, but lists should be equally valid on parking lots as urban landscapes.

I shouldn't have to cower and hide from the Tau and Eldar to make a game of it. They should be paying more for their outrageous firepower, not me praying for a favorable table.

Fundamentally the game works differently depending on the terrain, CC armies would dominate if the rules mandated 75% terrain and 50% of it LoS blocking, you'd never seen an IG army ever. It's not practical to have all armies play just as well with all terrain layouts unfortunately. There's a reason you don't drive tank armies into cities and you don't try bayonet charges across open desert, and there's nothing wrong with that being reflected in the game with the baseline at the "25% with 1/3rd LoS blocking" standard so often used, the problem is that the LoS blocking part is missed way too often

Terrain will always completely change the game though. If it were all LOS blocking corridors that don't stop jump packs, that would favour the short range firepower and assault lists, at one end of the extreme.

If it were an open field, it would favour heavy firepower ranged armies.

The rules say use substantial terrain pieces, and the 'small' pieces should be large enough that if you roll any 3 on the D3 you couldn't legally place 9 due to the other terrain placing restrictions (must be at least 3" from each other).

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I've played on tables that were legal by RAW, but had not a single piece of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain should change the game, but lists should be equally valid on parking lots as urban landscapes.

I shouldn't have to cower and hide from the Tau and Eldar to make a game of it. They should be paying more for their outrageous firepower, not me praying for a favorable table.

Fundamentally the game works differently depending on the terrain, CC armies would dominate if the rules mandated 75% terrain and 50% of it LoS blocking, you'd never seen an IG army ever. It's not practical to have all armies play just as well with all terrain layouts unfortunately. There's a reason you don't drive tank armies into cities and you don't try bayonet charges across open desert, and there's nothing wrong with that being reflected in the game with the baseline at the "25% with 1/3rd LoS blocking" standard so often used, the problem is that the LoS blocking part is missed way too often

Is that in the rulebook? Or a home rule convention? It's fine if it's a home rule convention if it works for you, but it's not going to be universally applicable.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Daba wrote:
Terrain will always completely change the game though. If it were all LOS blocking corridors that don't stop jump packs, that would favour the short range firepower and assault lists, at one end of the extreme.

If it were an open field, it would favour heavy firepower ranged armies.

The rules say use substantial terrain pieces, and the 'small' pieces should be large enough that if you roll any 3 on the D3 you couldn't legally place 9 due to the other terrain placing restrictions (must be at least 3" from each other).

Maybe the game needs standardized maps then or something. "Substantial" is not descriptive enough to create a fair map in my experience.

Martel732 wrote:

 Vaktathi wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I've played on tables that were legal by RAW, but had not a single piece of LOS blocking terrain. Terrain should change the game, but lists should be equally valid on parking lots as urban landscapes.

I shouldn't have to cower and hide from the Tau and Eldar to make a game of it. They should be paying more for their outrageous firepower, not me praying for a favorable table.

Fundamentally the game works differently depending on the terrain, CC armies would dominate if the rules mandated 75% terrain and 50% of it LoS blocking, you'd never seen an IG army ever. It's not practical to have all armies play just as well with all terrain layouts unfortunately. There's a reason you don't drive tank armies into cities and you don't try bayonet charges across open desert, and there's nothing wrong with that being reflected in the game with the baseline at the "25% with 1/3rd LoS blocking" standard so often used, the problem is that the LoS blocking part is missed way too often

Is that in the rulebook? Or a home rule convention? It's fine if it's a home rule convention if it works for you, but it's not going to be universally applicable.

I don't know if it's in the 6E rulebook, IIRC it was in earlier rulebooks. TBH 6E terrain and board setup rules are...awful

Martel732 wrote:

Maybe the game needs standardized maps then or something. "Substantial" is not descriptive enough to create a fair map in my experience.

That would probably help. In fact, for tournaments I would advocate standardised army lists (it would be tough to make a consensus for all the armies though) with 2-4 builds; maybe not for all tournaments but I think it would be an interesting format.

I would probably have an average 6-12" x 4-8" (3"-10" tall) mostly LOS blocking ruin as the base, because that's the modular ruin that GW sells, and IIRC it blocks LOS decently too.

There is absolutely no reason not to have LOS blocking terrain available.

Pool all available Terrain. Your store should have LOS blocking terrain, if not bring your own. LOS blocking terrain should be available.
Generate Terrain Density, d3 per 2x2Square. Should be 12 "Pieces" of terrain per table. Each Piece is supposed to be "a single substantial element(such as a building forest or ruin) or a cluster of up to three smaller pieces of terrain(such as battlefield debris).
Alternate placing terrain until the terrain density is met, or you run out of terrain to place.


Given a substantial selection of terrain, you could feasibly place half of the terrain on the board being LOS blocking with your selections. Granted, with preselected terrain this is much less possible, but LOS blocking terrain should be available and many tournaments seem to be doing better with LOS blocking terrain. If you are playing on tables where you can see every point from every other point you are doing something wrong. You will get bad tables, but there should also be some pretty good ones with preselected terrain.

If playing in your LGS, ask to generate terrain according to the BRB and make your selections LOS blocking pieces. Its very possible to create a table that is almost wide open or extremely closed off depending on you and your opponent's selections.

I guess if we need to know what "Substantial" terrain is, this is our best guess.
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/armySubUnitCats.jsp?catId=cat440312a&rootCatGameStyle=wh40k
Looks like an argument with legs to stand on.

 Daba wrote:
Terrain will always completely change the game though. If it were all LOS blocking corridors that don't stop jump packs, that would favour the short range firepower and assault lists, at one end of the extreme.

If it were an open field, it would favour heavy firepower ranged armies.

The rules say use substantial terrain pieces, and the 'small' pieces should be large enough that if you roll any 3 on the D3 you couldn't legally place 9 due to the other terrain placing restrictions (must be at least 3" from each other).

I know it's different for proper RAW competitive play, but me and my friends usually build up a scenario, place terrain accordingly (so it's fair for every player) and then make up some fluffy army lists and have a game :3 If I'm not against my friends it's Azrael in a Guard blob(s) and a Divination Libby supported by a mix of Eradicators and LRBTs ;P

I don't want to argue coulda shoulda woulda here. I've played this since 1994, and most tables I've seen don't have that much LOS blocking terrain. Regardless of what SHOULD be, I don't think the average 40K player can count on help from LOS blocking terrain. People are going to have to suck up the firepower in my experience.

Martel732 wrote:
I don't want to argue coulda shoulda woulda here. I've played this since 1994, and most tables I've seen don't have that much LOS blocking terrain. Regardless of what SHOULD be, I don't think the average 40K player can count on help from LOS blocking terrain. People are going to have to suck up the firepower in my experience.

And with the advent of True Line of Sight things have changed quite a bit including what assumptions GW is making about what you have available. The BRB assumes you have your choice of terrain and GW is assuming you are buying your terrain from them. Placing six of the 12 average pieces of terrain from GWs website collection will yield a much different board.

I'm not attacking you, but complaining about how boards don't offer you LOS blocking terrain breaths apart from getting on your veteran high horse and admitting you aren't playing with the kinds and amounts of terrain GW wants you to play with should throw up some red flags. Take an objective look at what you've just said.

I know that many of the boards I've been playing on have adequate LOS blocking terrain, some tables are bad, some are really good, some are in the middle.

It's not even a complaint. I don't want my list to rely on having to hide and cower. Marines should be able to take on Tau and Eldar on a parking lot if necessary. That's the whole point of being ELITE.

It was more a point that I don't think any random 40K player can ever count on a certain terrain set up.

Martel732 wrote:
It's not even a complaint. I don't want my list to rely on having to hide and cower. Marines should be able to take on Tau and Eldar on a parking lot if necessary. That's the whole point of being ELITE.

It was more a point that I don't think any random 40K player can ever count on a certain terrain set up.

I disagree with this comment and sentiment on so many levels. I really truly don't even know what to say to this that isn't going to come out as an insulting or demeaning attack.

You disagree that the codices should be balanced independently of terrain?

And by "take on" I mean win 50% of the games with two experienced players, not win all the time, or get WS rofl stomped like the current meta.

Let's look at Starcraft. If there is big open map that is favorable to Zerg, the Terrans still have tools in their arsenal that are appropriately costed to help even the odds on a spread out map. Just as Zerg have units to help them on maps with lots of choke points. But Starcraft has no equivalent of the Riptide, the Vendetta, or the WS.

Martel732 wrote:
You disagree that the codices should be balanced independently of terrain?

And by "take on" I mean win 50% of the games with two experienced players, not win all the time, or get WS rofl stomped like the current meta.

Let's look at Starcraft. If there is big open map that is favorable to Zerg, the Terrans still have tools in their arsenal that are appropriately costed to help even the odds on a spread out map. Just as Zerg have units to help them on maps with lots of choke points. But Starcraft has no equivalent of the Riptide, the Vendetta, or the WS.

No, codices need to be balanced with a base assumption about terrain. We've been given this in the BRB. The BRB assumes you have the ability to place a LOS blocking piece of terrain or smaller non LOS blocking pieces if you so desire. They even supply us a range of terrain to show this.

We know that Gunline Shooting armies prefer for there to be minimal terrain, this gives them an advantage.
We know that Melee armies or mid ranged fire armies prefer for there to be ample LOS blocking terrain.

Terrain and the player's selection of terrain is a balancing factor. If I am playing a Gunline, and you are playing a fast moving but lightly defended Assault army the BRB assumes the we alternate placing terrain. Obviously I'm going to be placing non LOS blocking Difficult terrain to slow your army down and not impede my ability to shoot and draw LOS to your approaching units while you choose heavier LOS blocking terrain to shield your army as it approaches and greatly minimize casualties. With the BRB's method we both will have half of the table covered in the terrain we want to see. This is a balancing factor.

I have never argued that GW has created perfectly balanced codices in 6th edtion. Tau to some extent and Eldar to a much greater extent with the Wave Serpent are very powerful. But, not playing with GW's assumed terrain density and deployment strategy compounds this error many times over.

To put it in perspective, is a valid terrain selection for you to deploy. And you gunline opponent could choose this .

If there is not LOS blocking terrain on the table and non gunline army is playing at a large disadvantage whereas an army such as Serpent Spam is playing at an advantage.

You cannot balance armies in a vacuum on an open field, because to do so would give any fast moving assault army a huge advantage the other direction.

If you aren't playing with the terrain assumptions that the BRB makes, the books will be imbalanced even further than they currently are.

What does it say if in most of the games I play, LOS blocking terrain is quite rare? This never seemed like that big of a deal in 5th, even for Orks or Tyranids.

I mean there was the 5th ed BA guy who brought a huge mountain to put in the middle of every map, but no one would play him.

I just think this core assumption for terrain is a poor one. LOS blocking terrain has always been far more rare than some trees or craters or what have you in this game from my experience.

Also, it would be nice if they would spell out exactly how much LOS blocking terrain they expect to see on the board.

The reality is that this wouldn't have saved me in most of my recent losses. Eldar only need two good volleys to cripple most BA/SM allied lists. Given that they will get a massive volley off the turn before assault, they only need one other volley turn. I don't think I can pack the table with enough LoS terrain with the alternating method to make this happen.

Tau seem to need three volleys to cripple me, so this might up my win % against them. But they can buy another turn by throwing Kroot or what you in the way to guarantee another turn of shooting for them.

Martel732 wrote:
What does it say if in most of the games I play, LOS blocking terrain is quite rare? This never seemed like that big of a deal in 5th, even for Orks or Tyranids.

I mean there was the 5th ed BA guy who brought a huge mountain to put in the middle of every map, but no one would play him.

I just think this core assumption for terrain is a poor one. LOS blocking terrain has always been far more rare than some trees or craters or what have you in this game from my experience.

Also, it would be nice if they would spell out exactly how much LOS blocking terrain they expect to see on the board.

The reality is that this wouldn't have saved me in most of my recent losses. Eldar only need two good volleys to cripple most BA/SM allied lists. Given that they will get a massive volley off the turn before assault, they only need one other volley turn. I don't think I can pack the table with enough LoS terrain with the alternating method to make this happen.

Tau seem to need three volleys to cripple me, so this might up my win % against them. But they can buy another turn by throwing Kroot or what you in the way to guarantee another turn of shooting for them.

Honestly, I think much of what we have disagreed upon and gotten heated over in the past comes down to the issue of terrain and how it has compounded a problem we fundamentally agree upon causing it to be a matter of degree.

What it says to me is that you are playing in a local Meta that caters to Gunlines and shooting armies in an edition which already gives them an advantage. How terrain is viewed and played locally for you is compounding the Eldar and Tau problem. Remember, its a common complaint among the very good tournament guys that there is rarely enough LOS blocking terrain at the big tournaments. This skews the Eldau dominance even more and is a core reason we have varying reports about how some players are managing the problems so much better than others. Take a look at Feast of Blades battle reports, there was rather poor LOS blocking terrain on most of their tables and this led to a huge Eldau dominance. More so than other tournaments.

5th Edition was the advent of True LOS and vastly changed how cover was treated. 4+ almost across the board? Go back and read the 5th edition terrain guidelines. 25% of the board was supposed to be covered in Terrain with a roughly equal split between LOS interferring cover granting terrain(woods and ruins), area terrain, and LOS Blocking Terrain. That was 2-3 LOS blocking pieces per table. If the 5th edition book they even come out and tell us that not using enough terrain grants too large of an advantage to the guy that gets to shoot first. It says there should be enough terrain for CC troops to be able to cross the board.

The same principles apply to 6th edition, and more so. Cover has been lowered and the ability to remove cover has been increased. Without the ability to place LOS blocking terrain any army that isn't reliant on shooting has a massive advantage. They honestly spelled it out much better in 5thEd BRB than they have in the 6thEd BRB. What they tell us is that we get to decide how much LOS blocking terrain we use by selecting form a pool that has many different kinds of terrain available.

You said it yourself, it could have won you some games. If you get to select some more LOS blocking terrain you could effectively negate the Tau Players shooting for at least one turn. That drastically changes the game and is more in line with the assumptions that were made at codex design. If they assume you will be shot twice on an assumed board, but you are playing on a flat surface you are now being shot three times. This is a massive advantage to the Tau. This use of LOS blocking terrain is a critical aspect of deployment which allows you to even if you are going second mitigate the damage the Eldar player is going to inflict.



Here is a good example, you are playing your BA vs an Eldar player.

You select LOS blocking terrain pieces while he selects area terrain and misc pieces. We end up with a balance board with some tactical decisions made. You are at less of a disadvantage than if you are playing with very little LOS blocking terrain.

Now you play against a Daemons opponent.

He selects the LOS bloking terrain pieces to hide his FMCs and fast but fragile assault elements as he closes the gap.

You select the the area terrain to force him to strike at I1 when assaulting and to open fire lanes to his approaching units. Again, we have a more balanced board.

This free choice of available terrain is a core assumption in codex design. They cannot and should not assume an open playing surface, because any LOS blocking terrain would then be an advantage for the non shooting armies. I would strongly suggest you talk to your local group, go through the terrain rules and select from a larger pool where both players can choose from the terrain that benefits them the most. Alternating keeps thing equal and the terrain density roll avoids stagnation and uniformity. You will see some, but not all of the disparity between codices begin to disappear.

Now in tournaments we often deal with preselected terrain, but in good ones they will provide some adequate LOS blocking terrain. In the tournaments that don't, we'll see it turn into a shooting gallery.


I have to apologize for some of the conflict between us in the past, we were operating under different assumptions and could not understand each other's position.

I'll discuss it with my next opponent. I usually have made Tau players sweat a little, so I definitely see how that could swing. But the mathematics behind the Eldar still seems hard to deal with no matter what the board looks like.

Ignores cover doesnt ignore line of sight. Proper terrain setup will still mess with them.

Basically you shouldnt be able to fire 2/3 or more of your army at the same unit. You just shouldnt be able to do that unless he dives down your throat with something. If you can, you need more walls n junk in the way.

At my FLGS, with the exception of my last orks vs orks lol, i usually try to put a lot of walls and crap in the way. Its kinda hard to do it and not make the board totally covered though so it does take some practice

Hmmm. They really need to spell this out in the CRB.

As it stands, I'm never going to convince the local Taudar collective to put more LOS blocking stuff out. They want their whole army having LOS to their opponents. They claim that this is what tournaments look like.

This makes me kind of mad, because back in 3rd I played with streams and rocks and all kinds of stuff my Rhino rushing BA could stuck in at least. I really feel that insisting on this board set up is pretty lame.

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Ignores cover doesnt ignore line of sight. Proper terrain setup will still mess with them.

Basically you shouldnt be able to fire 2/3 or more of your army at the same unit. You just shouldnt be able to do that unless he dives down your throat with something. If you can, you need more walls n junk in the way.

At my FLGS, with the exception of my last orks vs orks lol, i usually try to put a lot of walls and crap in the way. Its kinda hard to do it and not make the board totally covered though so it does take some practice

So your suggestion is basically to try and litter the board with more LoS blocking terrain and hope they don't put plenty of difficult terrain with no blocking?

That's less proper terrain setup, and more 'I gotta do as much as I can to cheese him on terrain." and even then it can still pretty much fail if you don't get enough, as then he'll just use that fast movement and beat you down anyways.

If people can spend thousands of dollars and hundreds of hours building and painting armies, what are the true reasons stopping people from building BLoS terrain?

I've been playing competitive 40k for 3 years which is a drop in the ocean compared to many posters and I've built 8 full sets of terrain. I bring them to the shop for monthly events and they appreciate it. I even donated a brand new set to the shop for Xmas. The cost of foam board and a hot wire is less than a single land raider.

I've never heard a local player complain of too much terrain, even the tau/eldar/IG players. Everyone appreciates the added cinematic effect. I play eldar as well as nids, CSM, De, And GK and I would chose heavy terrain with BloS over a shooting alley any day with any of my armies.

MVB has said on many occasions that there's not a single event in America that brings enough terrain to the table. We'd be in a lot better shape if people took 2 weeks away from their current army to build terrain for their own collection, their stores, and whatever GT they support.

On the topic of wave serpents, riptides, 2++ rerollables, or whatever people are peeved a out this month: I'd be willing to bet that tyranids and orks are going to counter those well. This has been the cycle since I started in 2010 and its definitely repeating itself.

If you're fed up with other armies or deathstars, sit down and take some time to build terrain and just wait. I guarantee other players will appreciate the new terrain and balance it brings more than the incessant complaining about whatever is broken this month.

Most of the complaints about terrain are from tournaments, where you have to use the provided terrain and can't use your own.

Surprised people don't just take Bastions or something, though sometimes those are banned too.

our club doesnt generally have much LOS blocking terrain soo.... yeah
you reckon the giant eagle building ruin or something else?

 ZebioLizard2 wrote:

 Vineheart01 wrote:
Ignores cover doesnt ignore line of sight. Proper terrain setup will still mess with them.

Basically you shouldnt be able to fire 2/3 or more of your army at the same unit. You just shouldnt be able to do that unless he dives down your throat with something. If you can, you need more walls n junk in the way.

At my FLGS, with the exception of my last orks vs orks lol, i usually try to put a lot of walls and crap in the way. Its kinda hard to do it and not make the board totally covered though so it does take some practice

So your suggestion is basically to try and litter the board with more LoS blocking terrain and hope they don't put plenty of difficult terrain with no blocking?

That's less proper terrain setup, and more 'I gotta do as much as I can to cheese him on terrain." and even then it can still pretty much fail if you don't get enough, as then he'll just use that fast movement and beat you down anyways.

How is it cheesing your opponent to use legal terrain? Cheesing him is putting a giant wall in front of his ADL, not having things to hide behind as you move up the board so he cant hit the same unit with his entire army of table-range guns.
They didnt expect entire gun lines to be able to fire at long range. Under 20" sure thats to be expected unless you got a divided battlefield (actually that isnt a bad idea.... big wall down the middle with a few access points to jump across basically making it 2 armies against 2 armies) but not at 48" or more lol. Theres a reason all of the GW terrain are either area terrain, or big tall things. As orks i bring 2 groups of lootas more because theres always a large chunk of the board at my FLGS that one group cant reach than i just want more dakka lol. As tau, well i havent fielded them here yet since im in the process of fixing some second hand crapsuits lol.

Personally im against the whole "players take turns" setting up a board style - i prefer we just place things till the board looks cool and fair and we both agree its fine. I end up with a lot of nice battlefields this way instead of hobbled together junk that doesnt make sense that these two pieces are near each other.

They didnt expect entire gun lines to be able to fire at long range. Under 20" sure thats to be expected unless you got a divided battlefield (actually that isnt a bad idea.... big wall down the middle with a few access points to jump across basically making it 2 armies against 2 armies) but not at 48" or more lol. Theres a reason all of the GW terrain are either area terrain, or big tall things.

You havn't seen the WD battle reports have you then? Alotta things still get 48" shooting in there and there's not that much terrain.

dont read much WD because of many reasons, one of those being that
and the occasional rule fault(or is that MWG )
though it would certainly give those poor poor orks a chance with swarming accross the field

 Tyberos the Red Wake wrote:
Most of the complaints about terrain are from tournaments, where you have to use the provided terrain and can't use your own.

Surprised people don't just take Bastions or something, though sometimes those are banned too.

Are you actually suggesting that I spend points to buy a LOS blocker for my army?