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Most of the folks at my FLGS play with mysterious objectives, but not mysterious forests. Several had/have no idea mysterious forests even existed when I mention it. And there are a few that hate playing with mysterious anything, even though objectives are supposed to be a core part of each mission. I was just curious how everyone else's groups use the mysterious terrain and objectives.

Well, in our local tournaments, we don't play anything that is mysterious.

We do mysterious objectives. It's really not that difficult and doesn't add any extra time.

My friends and I only use the Archeotech Artifact. We tried using the water one, but it generally was more of a hassle than it was worth. Also we only have one tiny water feature, so might use it more if we had more water on the board.

The Archeotech Artifact we usually co-locate with an objective. Also the modeling options for Archeotech Artifacts are a lot cooler.

My group never seems to do mysterious anything, and they always seem to ignore rolling for night fight. Also when I go to the LGS I don't see anybody doing any of that either.

We play pretty casual friday 40k out here in Idaho!

My gaming group hasn't tried Mysterious Objectives yet, but I've encouraged them to use Mysterious Forest rules. My best friend plays Tyranids and I'm pretty confident he made those Big Blue Shrooms terrain pieces to provide more Area Terrain for his Genestealers, so I felt that making the terrain potentially threatening would help balance the benefits only he would gain from those.

Nah, they are just more rules to remember that don't add much anything.

In my group, it's rare that we end up using all three at the same time, but the randomness of the mystery adds to the fun of the game.

I like Mysterious stuff; it adds a lot to the feel of the game. I've never really played with Mysterious Objectives, but I think they'd be fun.

No.

I find them rather silly. You send a squad of Space Marines to a river and suddenly the river is lava. Not sure how to "forge a narrative" around that.

Well, it's "lava" that doesn't do anything to any model except an immobilized vehicle. I would imagine that pretty much any world where Orks are fighting Space Marines, for example, is already one hell of a mess, environmentally. 10,000 years of galaxy spanning chaos and war (and even more chaos and war before that) would take its toll on a lot of world's ecosystems. Heck, there's technology floating around in the fluff and the regular rules that no one even understands anymore. It's not a matter of "I thought it was a river when I entered it, and now it's industrial waste" - it sort of makes sense that rivers are going to be a mess and that solders are used to just wading on through water that doesn't look like water... and sometimes it's even less water than expected. The idea that a world torn by battle with an ancient technological ruin nearby has a bubbling blue brook flowing by is a worse-forged narrative, in my book.

That said, all of my 40K battles have been with a small group of friends, so we're usually pretty relaxed about set-up. We've occasionally used Mysterious anything/everything, though we've often had nothing mysterious.

The whole problem I have with mysterious terrain is that you all of a sudden have to assume most forces are somehow blind. Super human dudes with insane perception somehow just don't notice the trees are made of poisonous tentacles. Same with the water, you'd think even your average guardsmen would be able to tell water from other substances.

As for mysterious objectives, they're just plain bad, terrible idea IMO.

I like this feedback. We've got about 25 players in our Thursday night league, and to me it always seems like the super anal rules lawyer guys are the ones who refuse to use mysterious anything, which is very ironic.

 deviantduck wrote:
I like this feedback. We've got about 25 players in our Thursday night league, and to me it always seems like the super anal rules lawyer guys are the ones who refuse to use mysterious anything, which is very ironic.

It's not ironic on the terrain side of the rules because they are between you and your opponent, they differ game to game depending on opponent and how you agree to play terrain, it's the same way us "rules lawyers" don't insist every statue is an imperial statuary and every technological looking terrain piece isn't archaotech.

As for mysterious objectives, sure they're part of the core rules, easily omitted without a feth given by most.

 da001 wrote:
No.

I find them rather silly. You send a squad of Space Marines to a river and suddenly the river is lava. Not sure how to "forge a narrative" around that.

I do not believe that is the intention. More like 'This wet substance that seemed slightly suspicious but that in the heat of battle we assumed was just water was apparently hypercorrosive acid that looks like water. Darn!'

Usually, we only do objectives. But in tourneys on tables with a large trench/river where what is in it can play a HUGE role in deciding who wins, we will often use mysterious river to make it more fair.

I am a huge fan of natural enviroments (i think ruined cities are really over done) so adding in randomness to a simple bush or set of trees kinda makes me go eh.... Its just another dice roll for no real reason.

 Crablezworth wrote:
The whole problem I have with mysterious terrain is that you all of a sudden have to assume most forces are somehow blind. Super human dudes with insane perception somehow just don't notice the trees are made of poisonous tentacles. Same with the water, you'd think even your average guardsmen would be able to tell water from other substances.

As for mysterious objectives, they're just plain bad, terrible idea IMO.

That was my point, though - most of the worlds where the battles are being fought are literally alien worlds. The trees aren't likely to look like oak trees in the first place. In a galaxy with Eldar, Orks, Humans, Tau, Old Ones, C'Tan, Necontyr, and Chaos Gods all roaming around for millennia, there would almost certainly be worlds where the trees look like they have tentacles, in the first place... and perhaps they're just branches, or perhaps they're active, poisonous tentacles. Same with water. Depending on what's in the air and what's upstream, and, again, the fact that it's an alien biosphere, the water is pretty much always going to look weird (relative to what you or I expect a river to look like, I mean). Maybe the river you're crossing gets its color and consistency from the alien silt that's been floating in it for miles, or maybe it gets its color and consistency from the fact that its Iceblood.

Nothing says you have to use mysterious anything, but we're all playing a game where Necron, with all their rules and fluff, fight Orks, with all their rules and fluff, on worlds hundreds of light years from Earth. Expecting the terrain to genuinely look like you're in Detroit or Colorado... that's what's silly.

I always play with the Mysterious Objectives, but not the Mysterious Terrain because we don't have any forests or water features.

Mysterious Objectives can make a pretty huge difference. Like a Devastator Squad in Big Guns Never Tire sitting on an Objective that also gives them Skyfire, or reroll 1s to Hit.

And thats just one example.

In friendly play I do what my opponent wants.

If it's my decision, I use Mysterious Terrain/Objectives only if I have a Divination psyker in the list.

In any competitive events I run, I DO use the rules, so as not to screw over Divination psykers who roll a 6.

We do objective but tend to almost always forget about mysterious terrain and I imagine we would use it if we ever remembered.

Never even knew mysterious terrain existed.

Yes, we use the mysterious stuff.

We can currently send a tiny robot thousands of miles into space to land on another planet. On this freezing cold planet with constant wind storms the robot can scan its environment. These simple scanners can reveal several kinds of facts. Even burning samples with lasers to analyze the fumes for more details. There are also several satalytes that detect planets hidden behind stars.

Thirty-eight thousand years in the future I expect the genetically modified super humans in robot battle armour can tell the difference between a boiling river of toxic waste and the local water parks "lazy river". Its not just that the soldiers on the board can't tell that its flesh melting poison but that it might actually be The Fountain of Youth. Conquistadors were wrong man. It wasn't Florida the state they shoulda been searching it was Florida the planet.

A tiny swing in difference might make sense. If before models were placed you knew that the river was dangerous but not how dangerous it might make sense. Let's say be for models were placed you rolled that 3 pies of terrain were "deadly". Your super science worked, and you just needed to determine HOW deadly it is. This can only be done upon closer inspection. This way you could prepare at least a little bit, and not be totally blind sided.

hate mysteryour terrain in terms of every possible terrain piece is somehting magical and mysterious.....

we don't use the mystery terrain but we do use the objectives.

personanly hate all the magical terrain in both systems, it just doesn't make any sense to me that in fantasy you could have an alter of khaine next to a shrine of sigmar......

I aim to do mysterious everything, but more often than not I forget... Mysterious objectives are a fun way to add another reason for holding them