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They place the terrain so that gun-lines dominate.....and then they complain that gun-lines dominate.

Go figure....

For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

I think most people are advocating just having about 25% coverage with actual game-relevant terrain.

Looking at most tournaments that is most certainly not the case.

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.

If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.

How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.

Balance is a good thing

 Mr Morden wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.

If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.

How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.

Balance is a good thing

One of the players told me his dream was there to be no marines on the table at the end of turn 3. So yeah, he wants no terrain and fights very tenaciously to minimize terrain.

People can complain about anything. ANYTHING. See Dakkadakka.com for examples.

Martel732 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.

If the use of terrain is balanced they can only complain if they only play in terrain heavy tables - at present the opposite is true.

How can anyone possibily object if some tables have lots and some have a little?.

Balance is a good thing

One of the players told me his dream was there to be no marines on the table at the end of turn 3. So yeah, he wants no terrain and fights very tenaciously to minimize terrain.

Well then he is a best being a bad sport and at worst cheating by trying to play every game with no terrain - is there no way he will listen to reason?

We randomize terrain with a pool available in the FLGS. It's just that GW has made it so what once WAS LoS blocking is no longer. The tables look good, but Capt Eldar can still shoot me from anywhere. Cover is useless against scatterlasers and shields.

This site has a predilection for looking down on competitive players. Fielding legal models and wanting to win should not be considered a "bad sport". But GW tempts us into this line of thinking by publishing gak codices and expecting players to self-nerf.

Actively trying to minimise the terrain so he can wipe out the enemy by turn 3 is not being a "bad sport?"

Thats not what the rule book suggests - but then it also suggests that terrain placement should be agreed by both players rather than hvaing to rules lawyer the miminum possible.

Well the Wave Seprent is very OP and I agree that is GWs fault but thats no excuse for the behaviour you are describing..............

I like terrain ( i play DE) and although a good shooty army player can maximise on the firing lanes i normally have the speed to compartmentalise and dismantle the army at close range - but that is the USP of my army.

if there is limited terrain i may as well not bother because i would have more chance of surviving a firing squad with nothing but a mankini for armour.

Terrain is important and it brings an added tactical element to the game, makes possitions more crucial rather then line em up and shoot.. Terrain can also help shooty armys get closer up the opponent and use them to create kill zone ( but this requires thinking)

I think most people though the issue is that they dont have enough terrain, experiance fighting with lots of terrain and dont have anywhere to store extra terrain. Al clubs this becomes a bigger issues as there are multiple boards which need to have terrain and this mean that you cannot horde it all for one table but have to share it around.

If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.

GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.

Martel732 wrote:
If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.

GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.

You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?

I guess you have to play him on a regular basis?

NOVA terrain is definitely the fairest terrain I see, but we took a graphin calculator once and mapped out the different deployment zones and according to the deployment dones, the most fair deployment is wherein the terrain is at 45degrees heading toward the center from all directions. this advantages any one side the least in any one of the 3 Deployemnt zone types.

 Mr Morden wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.

GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.

You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?

I guess you have to play him on a regular basis?

Yes, the core 40K group like to do tournaments and so there's no escaping Tau/Eldar/Daemons. Add in the other people that still play Orks and Necrons, there is literally no way to do a marine TAC list.

The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.

Martel732 wrote:

 Mr Morden wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
If GW didn't publish OP codices, player behaviour would be irrelevant as long as they didn't cheat. GW enpowers guys like this with their absurd balance. RAW speaking wise, I don't have a leg to stand on.

GW refuses to acknowledge that competitive players and rules lawyers exist. That's their delusion.

You shouldn't have to worry about RAW and rules Lawyers in a freindly game environment - yeah thats an ideal world but seriously someone should tell the other player he is being a dick?

I guess you have to play him on a regular basis?

Yes, the core 40K group like to do tournaments and so there's no escaping Tau/Eldar/Daemons. Add in the other people that still play Orks and Necrons, there is literally no way to do a marine TAC list.

The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.

Sad face for you :(

We have a good mixture at our club - some like tourneys, some don't - lots of us want to just blow stuff up - pretty much everyone at the club hates one sided games..............

My group considers one-sided affairs against meqs in 6th necessary, or they are not up to tournament snuff. When the pressure is on the win multiple games, you need marines and their derivatives to be a slam dunk to maximize your record.

See why I hate GW's unbalanced codex-fu?

Does anyone actually have fun in your games? In know some people really dig ultra competative games.

Yes, this is what most of these people enjoy. It's like Starcraft where they get to paint, too. And, of course, optimize lists instead of build orders.

I like going against my opponent's best concepts. But 40K has always had problems with this. It's all just bad flashbacks to 2nd edition. I really though that GW wouldn't do this to meqs again. Being made into a joke is not fun. Being tabled as a metric for the worthy lists is not fun.

 Von Chogg wrote:
I just follow the rule book. d3 pieces per quarter. d3+1 if we only have small pieces of terrain

Von Chogg

While I agree that good terrain takes time and money - I think this is a big reason. D3 pieces per 2'x2' section isn't a lot of terrain when most people have smaller pieces of terrain due to WHFB and all of the older pieces of terrain that came in the boxes ever since 2nd and 3rd edition. The footprint of the old terrain pieces was maybe a 4" square which isn't enough for today's game.

In the far far future, there is only lightly populated planets that contain no cities or signs of true civilization.

I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

The true LOS rules have fethed everything in this discussion up. Thanks to GW, you now have to basically tailor terrain to get the effects you guys are looking for.

This. Tailor it or use homerules to beat the TLOS rules back into useable shape.

 Jimsolo wrote:

 Dakkamite wrote:
I ran an event with the following LoS homerules, and intend to use them for every other event I run in the future;

"Count all completely enclosed openings on the first floor of any typical ruin or building as solid. This includes windows and doors and not just bullet holes."

So if you're in a ruin, you can't shoot out of a window? Or am I misconstruing this?


Personally, I almost never see a game without quite a bit of terrain. If I'm not playing a Drop Pod list, I almost never see a shooting attack where the target doesn't get a cover save. That being said, we have a fairly large amount of sweet terrain, so that might help.

Yep, the bottom story windows were counted as solid. If you want windows to shoot out of head to the next floor up.

 Peregrine wrote:
I strongly disagree with both of these. I'm not a fan of TLOS letting you shoot a model through a tiny bullet hole in a wall and only giving it the same 4+ cover save as if half the body was visible, but windows/doors/etc are legitimate open spaces to shoot and charge through (don't forget that you need LOS to charge). Likewise for forests, there might be the occasional special terrain piece that is justified in blocking LOS through it, but most "forests" in 40k represent a few trees in an open field, and you should be able to see and shoot at a tank on the other side of them.

I felt that it was more important to provide some LoS blocking terrain than to adhere exactly to the physical dimensions of the ruins on the board.

If people wanted windows to shoot out of they can go to the next floor up. If they want LoSB they can stay on the ground floor. With the alternatives being to physically fill in the windows or to have swiss cheese terrain all over the place, this seems like a good compromise.

The forests thing is purely subjective. If its your preference to have wide open plains to fight over then you wouldn't be using those rules in the first place. But if you don't, its a very easy way to create strategically important terrain with no additional work required.

Martel732 wrote:
I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.

True but as many others have said gunline armies both expect and indeed seem to be in general pandered to - especially by tournaments

Likewise for forests, there might be the occasional special terrain piece that is justified in blocking LOS through it, but most "forests" in 40k represent a few trees in an open field, and you should be able to see and shoot at a tank on the other side of them.

That may be true for some. but all the forests I have ever played with on the table were used as area terrain, with a large base with the individual trees being moveable to allow the best model placement. If you have to draw LOS to a target through more than 2" of forest, the LOS is blocked (even when shooting out at a target!). The wood's boundary is delineated by the edges of the base of the terrain, which is usually about 6"x6" (averaged)/ I've used the same rule since back in 2nd edition 40K.

Thats another good way to rule forests. I only use my way because no need to measure that 2", but aside from that I don't see any advantage or disadvantage for either method

 Mr Morden wrote:
Does anyone actually have fun in your games? In know some people really dig ultra competative games.

Its funny you asked that. I have said to a couple people lately that "You just dont seem to have as much fun as I do. Do you even like playing?"


Since the thread is (was?) about terrain, I'll point out here that TOTALLY open terrain is kinda unfair to some armies and the "non-narrative" terrain placement rules somewhat help, but then someone can sick a mountain in front of your aegis line. So at some point you have to agree to what you both think is fair. One good thing about some tournies is they mandate the terrain. I like it (though when THEY do a bad job its not so awesome).

In casual games, though, I think its probably easier to set terrain up in a cool way and you can work it out easier than at tournies whewre money is on the line. For better or worse, you PAID to be there...

 Mr Morden wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.

True but as many others have said gunline armies both expect and indeed seem to be in general pandered to - especially by tournaments

Well Serpent spam is not that hampered by terrain.

Steelmage99 wrote:

Martel732 wrote:
For all those advocating creating new terrain, don't you think that players of shooty lists might objective to every table having the great wall of China on it?

I think most people are advocating just having about 25% coverage with actual game-relevant terrain.

Looking at most tournaments that is most certainly not the case.

Have you ever had to run a tournament with no LGS support? As in, you had to find the space, come up with the tables, and come up with the terrain? This was a HUGE issue for my play group in Alaska. We had no LGS with enough space for more than 3 tables. One of the players was a public elementary school teacher, and one thing a lot of people don't know is that public schools are, well, public and available for use by the public subject to the local Superintendent or Council. We turned it into a Fund Raiser for the school and got permission to run the tournament in the large multi-purpose room. The guy that actually ran it (the teacher) got the boards, felt, and we all chipped in for terrain.

The amount of terrain required for say, 12 tables is huge. If you go for the 25% rule, that means for 12 tables, you have to make/have enough terrain to completely cover 3 of those tables. Think about that- three 4'x6' tables completely covered in terrain. On just one board, you have 24 sq feet. 6 sq ft has to be covered by terrain. For 12 tables, you need 72 sq feet of terrain.

In other words, it's pretty easy to come up with enough terrain for say, 1-2 tables or your own home table. Tournaments? Wow. Not to mention all the storage space required for that terrain. Most LGS barely have enough room for product and a couple tables. Now you want to store a bunch of terrain as well? This is one of the many reasons LGS's fail- a good retail business model looks at sq footage and sales, bills, etc. and comes up with a number. The smaller the number, the less money the LGS makes. There is a formula out there and a threshold that basically says "if your Sq Footage/Sales number is below this, you will fail".

Just trying to point out from an LGS point of view that making and storing a lot of terrain for game nights and tournaments costs money, and most LGS's don't have a lot of money to spare.

Martel732 wrote:
Well Serpent spam is not that hampered by terrain.

No Eldar vehicle is affected by terrain much if fitted with a ghost matrix (or whatever it's called).
Without that though, the skimmers are pretty big, and would have trouble landing if the area terrain is bunched up enough.

 ansacs wrote:
Also keep in mind if it is a tournament then the stock of prepared terrain will be overstretched.

It takes money (and time which is money) to have terrain. It also takes significant storage space. All of these are things that most players will want to devote to model models rather than terrain. The best thing GW ever did for table terrain was adding fortification slots as player now buy terrain much more often than they ever did before.

See the price factor makes sense for people playing at home, but those who are in a store that has a well stocked terrain selection specifically for their gaming tables and people *still* aren't using it is *not* a money issue in the least. I have 5 bookcases full of all kinds of terrain in my gaming room that I have collected through the years. For sci-fi type gaming before I had the money to aquire "good" terrain pieces I collected all the styrofoam packaging pieces I could ever find and even had family save them from me. I broke them up in to building like bits and painted them with a cheap stone type finish paint from the local Home Depot store. Cost: Pennies for a table full of terrain and that was pretty much for the paint. Terrain doesn't have to be expensive at all, and can still look half way decent. I used to comb the aquarium aisles at the local Pet Smart looking for ruins and rock formations that were on clearance sale for very small amounts to add to my collection of terrain. I still use most of them because they all look great. Things running from large rock formations to even a decent scaled egyptian sphinx replica. A bag of model railroad trees cost almost nothing compared to GW "forests" and you get dozens of trees to make your own forest stands on using cardboard pieces cut out of the sides of the boxes of minis you are already buying. People think "terrain is expensive" because they look at GW's overpriced terrain pieces which certainly *are* expensive, but you don't actually need any of them and can do plenty of terrain work without buying a single GW terrain piece. Now that I have plenty of other types of terrain I have invested in some of GW's sets for additional things, but they are not even remotely necessary.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
The whole philosophy of "make sure the other guy has fun" is alien in my gaming experience. I have never seen a 40K group or league operate this way. It's more "how fast can I make the other guy pack up". In 6th edition, that's pretty damn fast.

And this is specifically why I built up my own 40k gaming group with like minded friends and stopped playing at local stores almost completely. Too many people showing up at the local places had that mentality and it gets old really quickly for me. Our goal is to get together and have some fun gaming. The "winning" aspect is cool for bragging rights, but is not the focus of the day for us as we just want to play and hang out. I still play a good bit of Flames of War at my FLGS, but it is a much better written game without the massive balance holes found in the 40k game so there are few arguments and the ability to spam undercosted and overpowered units is practically non-existent. Makes for a much more pleasant experience even when completely new players appear. There are no killer netlists for that game that make everyone swear when they appear on the table.

Skriker


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Martel732 wrote:
I still think that counting on a very specific terrain set up is a poor way to "balance" the game.

Well when the game *isn't* even remotely balanced on its own, you do what you have to do.

Skriker

Exactly
We did the same thing; we started to do things on our own. If we do run a “Mini-Tournament” it is over bragging right or the winner does not have to pitch in for the Pizza.