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 Stormatious wrote:
Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.

IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.

IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.

Yeah you assume. Im looking to see how much tactics matter, and based on the discussion of this thread i have concluded i can fight any one, that doesn't mean im dismissing the fact they are saying tactics are minimal, not every is saying tactics are completely minimal, and infact if you look at some other posts here you can see that tactics can play a strong part depending on circumstances, like terrain for e.g.


Don't know why you think im trying to do what you say.

I never said i have concluded i can win against any one. Man talk about taking what i say out of context

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.

Silver144 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.

Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial. You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?

 Sherrypie wrote:
Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.

Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.

You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?

Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.

Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.

Now that's just both lazy and silly. Great many hobbyists have excellent tables without any GW kits besides occasional bits here and there. Other manufacturers also exist if one is in no position to make their own, like Deathray or Gamemat.eu. Even if one was to choose to only use GW kits for some bizarre reason, all those windows and holes can be arranged so you can't necessarily peer through entire buildings from every angle unless you are also very lazy or careless in the way you put them on the table.

You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?

Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.

What's normal is up to the players at the table, I can tell you for a fact that my local group uses those as the norm because they make the game so much better. I'm pointing them out here because too often people in these discussions seem to be somehow unaware of their existence or refuse to accept they are there while crying out for exactly those kinds of rules to be added into the game. If people think terrain doesn't matter in the game, start using rules that make it matter: these are sanctioned with the GW stamp if that matters and they work well, knock yourself out.

Tactics don't really come into play if both players are comfortable with their armies and know how to play them optimally. I could see there being some strategy involved in the meta gaming of trying to win an event but as far as the official ruleset is concerned, there isn't much room for tactics in a match between two experienced players. An experienced player can definitely destroy a newbie with a subpar list via skill alone, but that's only because the newbie doesn't really know how to play yet.

Treated purely as a sport, Warhammer 40k is actually pretty dull. Which is why I assume the average 40k player doesn't treat it that way.

 Sherrypie wrote:

Silver144 wrote:

 Melissia wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
It is a house rule because most terrain in 8th is purely aesthetic thanks to the poor LOS and cover rules.

Says who? Terrain can easily block line of sight entirely.

Not in the current edition and not with official gw terrain.
Only super small msu units have hope to hind behind los, and only if you house rule all those windows and doors to not exist.

Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial. You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?

Because I play in game clubs, and club owners use official GW terrain to play GW games. Sounds reasonable, right? Assuming that official GW terrain is not suitable for GW games is ridiculous.

Silver144 wrote:


Because I play in game clubs, and club owners use official GW terrain to play GW games. Sounds reasonable, right? Assuming that official GW terrain is not suitable for GW games is ridiculous.

That's fair and reasonable, sure. That does not mean one couldn't use it better in the light of the current edition either by putting more on the table, aligning existing pieces in such a fashion they limit line of sight over longer distances better, building higher and more enclosed structures, using Citied of Death and other more indepth rules for said terrain and so forth. The rules are also written to encompass all sorts of tables quite freely, not just GW's pretty looking cheeseblocks filled with holes, it's the players who decide how much they wish terrain to influence their experience.

If you say terrain can't block line of sight in the current edition, you're simply wrong. If you say that's because of GW's current kits, you're less wrong, but still somewhat as using those alone (built in such a fashion that there are no solid walls anywhere / not going high enough) is a choice and not any forced standard in the rules. I get many people don't do terrain themselves, which is a shame as it's really fun, but I don't get why so many use that as any sort of argumentative leverage against the rules. The problem is not the physical terrain, it is in the way you lay it out on the table that clashes with how the rules are written.

You want the terrain to matter more? Use Cities of Death, where even that official GW rubble gives you penalties to hit and cover saves instead of complaining how those rules don't exist.
Don't want to use CoD? Build tighter ruins, position more ruins closer to each other so there really is no LoS through, use liberal heaps of scatter terrain to block streets and open windows.

Heck, just use different elevations on the field. People seem to have forgotten hills and slopes exist during the last decade, haven't seen those in pictures for years. Just putting some books under your game mat can drastically alter the mileage you get out of your GW ruins situated on top of them.

We have 2 and a half tables to play here. The half is a really nice infinity table. It really isn't suited for w40k, plus one would have to fight the infinity guys to use it. This leaves two other tables to play with. There are buildings and hills, a lot of terrain for WFB and warmachine and WWII games. They also have at least one of most terrain sets GW made this edition, plus some other plastic stuff, which maybe GW too, but am just guesing.
All the terrain has a ton of windows, doors, gaps, are is in that odd form which makes playing a realistic street pointless. We mostly deploy the buildings in arrow formations facing the opponents deployment zones and plop some LoS breakers in the middle. It is still not enough. There is too much stuff that ignores LoS or just flies over it.

we have no tried CoD here, I don't think anyone owns it, as the box was general considered not worth the huge cost here. I don't think our store even had more then one box of it.

Now that's just both lazy and silly. Great many hobbyists have excellent tables without any GW kits besides occasional bits here and there. Other manufacturers also exist if one is in no position to make their own, like Deathray or Gamemat.eu. Even if one was to choose to only use GW kits for some bizarre reason, all those windows and holes can be arranged so you can't necessarily peer through entire buildings from every angle unless you are also very lazy or careless in the way you put them on the table.

Buying terrain for a store, when your army suck seems like a bad idea to me. I wouldn't do it even if I had the money. Am not sure which GW terrain you think about as the windows and doors go, but the ruins block LoS to maybe a grot or a model that is kneeling or crawling.

I can play this game too:

Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.

See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.

It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:

Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.

See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.

It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.

how about solid 9-11" tall labyrinth of styrofoam? You could even model them in a such a way that a knight could only fit in to some "streets" Whole armies could run around it, if they were fast enough.

Karol wrote:

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:

Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.

See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.

It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.

how about solid 9-11" tall labyrinth of styrofoam? You could even model them in a such a way that a knight could only fit in to some "streets" Whole armies could run around it, if they were fast enough.

Try it in your club and make a review.

I play at the store, can only use terrain which is there or stuff which is part of the army. Even If I got the materials somehow, and created the terrain, I would have no way to transport it to the store. Plus they would have to store the normal store terrain somewhere, as they don't have enough space to fit all under the tables.

You get the idea) Same in my case.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Yeah, i have decided after reading this thread it would be fine to have my "look" based army fight anyone. This might require more tactics and dice rolling luck, but at the end of the day, if i can beat a army with a so called "Good List" then i can be extremely proud that i was able to take what i have and win.

IOW, the post earlier about your attitude nailed it: you aren't looking for discussion, you're just looking for people to agree with you so you can "prove" that you're right. in a thread full of people saying that tactics are minimized and list building is the most important factor you somehow manage to single out the minority view agreeing with you and conclude that your poorly-optimized army can fight anyone.

Well they can fight anyone, they're just not going to win much. I don't think anyone's advocating for a world where poorly optimized armies are not allowed to be fielded against superior ones. What a merry world that would be.

The inescapable fact is, 40k is generally broken on most levels. The great 8th edition overhaul just shuffled around which bits of it are garbage, it didn't actually improve the the game's quality as a whole in any appreciable way. The yokels at GW are totally incapable or unwilling to design a ruleset that actually works, which, for people with, presumably, "Game designer" printed on their business cards, is truly pathetic.

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:

Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.

See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.

It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.

I know you're trying to be snarky, but what you're saying is also partly true. It IS a shame players don't want to change their way of playing for making a better experience on both sides, because that is the proper road to good games of 40k: talking with your opponent about what sort of game you want to play first. I know I wouldn't bring superheavies on the table without asking my opponent first, outside tournaments where powerplay is the name of the game. Nor would many others, even if it is legal and cool to do so. Reasonable adults and stuff, you know?

I know some people don't like using stuff like CoD, but that does not mean it isn't better as it directly somewhat counters the constant complaining about shooting a toenail sticking out over a corner. "Fine, shoot away, but take -1." Current GW tends towards giving players a buffet of parts they can use or not, so even if I'd like CoD rules to just be the standard, it's not likely while tournament folks like to have the core rules reasonably streamlined. Personally I just find it odd that someone wouldn't use them if they have some beef with the simplistic ones, especially if their opponents are more easily swayed towards official GW products.

I also know it might not be the expected baseline for pick-up games, but If you'd like to have such culture fostered in your area, how about approaching it like Beta Rules? Take your CA18 in hand, show CoD to your opponents and ask nicely if they'd be interested in trying them out. "As a test..." Nothing lost if they just say no, eventually someone might be intrigued enough and the show gets rolling. The expectation of using just the baseline usually already includes the latest faqs and beta rules, why not try one more layer to make it more interesting?

Karol, the Cities of Death rules are not the same thing as Urban Conquest. You can find one version of them in the main rulebook or the updated one in Chapter Approved 18.

While some of what you say has merit, GW should be making rules for the customers it has, not the ones it wishes it had. 40k gamers have historically mostly rejected optional rules such as Cities of Death, and have preferred competitive games to narrative ones. For the past 20 years, anyway.

Karol wrote:

we have no tried CoD here, I don't think anyone owns it, as the box was general considered not worth the huge cost here. I don't think our store even had more then one box of it.

The latest version of the Cities of Death rules can be found in chapter approved 2018. You don't need anything else to play CoD.

Technically GW has no such compulsion and their designers work with the competitive crowd from the framework they have, which sometimes leads to baffling decisions like cutting granularity from terrain rules to the optional rules. They are however toying around with them and as we have seen, the current process they use often finds to 40k through other games like AoS or Kill Team. Especially in Kill Team, they've been pushing very similar ideas as they have in CoD (-1 to hit from obscuration, close confines...) while trying the competitive waters with tourney packs and now Arena. If they feel confident enough or get good feedback from players, they might eventually try to nudge that into the main 40k rules. That would ease some complaining about nonexisting terrain rules.

Also, remember that whereas previously many folk have rejected optional rules, they've been some singular designers "for fun" thoughts more than serious attempts and nowadays we have the whole beta rule system which competitive people too seem to embrace wholeheartedly. Things like detachment limits, smite nerf, astartes bolters and such are similarily optional as CoD are but many use them as they were immediately carved into stone. If GW were at some point come out and more confidently say "yup, we'd like to make these the base rules for terrain" with the exactly same setup they currently have in CoD, I bet quite a lot of people would be happy even if they wouldn't previously have touched the "optional" rules.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
While some of what you say has merit, GW should be making rules for the customers it has, not the ones it wishes it had. 40k gamers have historically mostly rejected optional rules such as Cities of Death, and have preferred competitive games to narrative ones. For the past 20 years, anyway.

And yet 8th edition seems to be very popular judging by GW's sales figures and the feedback online (possibly an echo chamber effect). 8th has some of the most bare bones rules ever and is far more of an exercise in optimal list building winning games over a focus on tactical depth. People want "competitive" but it also seems that mind numbingly basic rules are fine if balance is decent.

Optional rule sets seem to get limited adoption but if it's labeled as beta rules or some formation (basically not sold as an optional rule) then it gets generally picked up no matter the quality of the rule. It takes a horribly bad core rule change to be ignored such as the idiotic "drop pod doors count as the vehicle hull" ruling from the 7th edition big FAQ.

For me personally, the lack of meaningful cover rules is the straw that broke the camel's back. I was almost fine with them taking away my Medusa and Colossus, and wept bitter tears when they excised my Penal Legionnaires and Rough Riders, but this isn't fun anymore.

Fifth edition wasn't perfect, but it was what I played the best of my games with. Nearly everything they've added to 40k since then, for the Guard especially, has been something I didn't want, and almost every single thing they've cut out of the codex has been something I did. I'm just sad and disappointed because I know I can't compete in this brave new world of gods and monsters. So I'll probably not want to play the game, and I say that as someone who just spent god knows now much money on three codices and CA18 so that I could.

 Vankraken wrote:

And yet 8th edition seems to be very popular judging by GW's sales figures and the feedback online (possibly an echo chamber effect). 8th has some of the most bare bones rules ever and is far more of an exercise in optimal list building winning games over a focus on tactical depth. People want "competitive" but it also seems that mind numbingly basic rules are fine if balance is decent.

What's curious to me is that they pared the core rules down to the bone, and then introduced the complicated stratagem rules to compensate, so now there's entire tournament list-building strategies devoted to maximizing your CP, and metagame builds revolve around stacking relics and strats on units until your Blood Angels captain can thunderhammer titans to death. I don't really see how this is an improvement over past editions.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:
For me personally, the lack of meaningful cover rules is the straw that broke the camel's back. I was almost fine with them taking away my Medusa and Colossus, and wept bitter tears when they excised my Penal Legionnaires and Rough Riders, but this isn't fun anymore.

Fifth edition wasn't perfect, but it was what I played the best of my games with. Nearly everything they've added to 40k since then, for the Guard especially, has been something I didn't want, and almost every single thing they've cut out of the codex has been something I did. I don't think there's anything they could do at this point to make me want to try 8th edition, and I say that as someone who just spent god knows now much money on three codices and CA18 so that I could.

Out of curiosity, did you try CoD and other "optionals" in the rules before coming to that conclusion?

I've not played 8th. Between my unimpressed reading of the rules, the games I've seen played, and the bizarre metagame (and the accompanying complaints), I'm just not feeling motivated enough.

At any rate, my army is very fragile, and taking them out to a game is not something I do lightly, as damage to them is annoying and discouraging to have to constantly repair.

Since the reality where people play tends to differ from this weird world of the internet where everything is soup-Castellans all day erryday and you have smashcaptains launched out of Whirlwinds flying all over the place, one might find it very different to their expectations through play. 8th edition has a wonderful core system for those games where people don't aim for the maximum alpha death and instead are willing to talk with their opponents about what they'd like to see on the field and then expand the core towards that. It's not hard to bolt on stuff like better terrain rules in a group of likeminded people. If you're from around Helsinki area, hit me a PM and let's try a game out someday

To not be so nefative all the time, it does warm my heart that Ogryns are apparently worth taking in the current edition. Seeing as how I own approximately fifteen of them.

Peregrine wrote:
Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.

'People being lazy' isn't an excuse. The options are out there, and are within the abilities of most people.
Finding examples of good quality home made terrain, and how to guides is trivially easy. Finding examples of good quality third party terrain options is likewise trivially easy.

Peregrine wrote:
Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.

Its an option. Players can use it. It's on them. 'Normal' is a relative term. What you choose to use becomes the new 'normal' Choosing to straightjacket yourself with a hypercritical view of RAW officialdom, or an extremely particular view of 'normal' does no one any favours.

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:
Castellan knight is totally fine. It's just the players fault. Should they play monofaction, solo knights will not have screen and limitless CP for all those strategems. It is a shame that players do not change their way to play for better experience.

I do think it's a shame that players don't change their ways to play for the better experience.

[

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:
See? Not every player will accept the game with monofactions only. Not every player will accept houserules or CoD in regular games, as well as 4x times amount of terrain just to make solid losblocks, and even then there are too many doors, slits and windows. Should just a tiny piece of my marine's purity seal be vidible and all this buildings magically disappeared for this shooting phase. This was never a thing in previous editions.

That's their choice. It's also my choice whether I choose to play them or not. If there are issues with the game, and yet options exist that make the game 'interesting', and/or solve, or offer potential solutions to said problems, but players refuse to use them, then I know where at least some of the blame needs to go.

Silver144 wrote:
I can play this game too:
It's ok to play in your local groups with houserules and certain addons, but it is not expected in average tournament and pick-up games.

Fair. But by extension, could one then also argue, that the issue then (at least partially) exists within the 'average tournament and pick up game ' culture? Sounds to me like if those expressions of the game didn't give me the game I wanted, I wouldn't play them? If it can work with local groups with houserules and certain addons, it sounds to me like that's the community I need to put my time and energy into building and maintaining, rather than doubling down a road that doesn't actually work for me. Let's be clear, I am not having a go and pick up games or tournaments. I used to be heavily involved in both. Both have a viable niche within this hobby. But I have found that a lot of things get sacrificed on the altar to make those kind of games happen, and Frankly, I don't think it's worth it all of the time.

Sherrypie wrote:
I know you're trying to be snarky, but what you're saying is also partly true. It IS a shame players don't want to change their way of playing for making a better experience on both sides, because that is the proper road to good games of 40k: talking with your opponent about what sort of game you want to play first. I know I wouldn't bring superheavies on the table without asking my opponent first, outside tournaments where powerplay is the name of the game. Nor would many others, even if it is legal and cool to do so. Reasonable adults and stuff, you know?

Agreed.

Sherrypie wrote:
I know some people don't like using stuff like CoD, but that does not mean it isn't better as it directly somewhat counters the constant complaining about shooting a toenail sticking out over a corner. "Fine, shoot away, but take -1." Current GW tends towards giving players a buffet of parts they can use or not, so even if I'd like CoD rules to just be the standard, it's not likely while tournament folks like to have the core rules reasonably streamlined. Personally I just find it odd that someone wouldn't use them if they have some beef with the simplistic ones, especially if their opponents are more easily swayed towards official GW products.

Agreed. As I get older, i tend to see more and more value in the DIY approach, and seeing the game as a modular construct. Is up to us to put the bits and pieces together to give us the game we want.

Sherrypie wrote:
I also know it might not be the expected baseline for pick-up games, but If you'd like to have such culture fostered in your area, how about approaching it like Beta Rules? Take your CA18 in hand, show CoD to your opponents and ask nicely if they'd be interested in trying them out. "As a test..." Nothing lost if they just say no, eventually someone might be intrigued enough and the show gets rolling. The expectation of using just the baseline usually already includes the latest faqs and beta rules, why not try one more layer to make it more interesting?

Agreed, but I'd personally take it one further. If a game isn't necessarily working for the playerbase because of the playing culture, I personally put a lot of value on the players willingness to change their culture.

Sherrypie wrote:Since the reality where people play tends to differ from this weird world of the internet where everything is soup-Castellans all day erryday and you have smashcaptains launched out of Whirlwinds flying all over the place, one might find it very different to their expectations through play. 8th edition has a wonderful core system for those games where people don't aim for the maximum alpha death and instead are willing to talk with their opponents about what they'd like to see on the field and then expand the core towards that. It's not hard to bolt on stuff like better terrain rules in a group of likeminded people. If you're from around Helsinki area, hit me a PM and let's try a game out someday

Hmm, I wouldn't describe 8th as a 'wonderful core system'. It's a problematic, yet more-or-less functional set of rules. But that's about it. I think it's necessary for people to talk about what they'd like to see on the board, and the game they'd like to play. But I'd say that for every game anyway. The rules for 40k don't necessarily help or hinder this. In this'll, it's almost entirely on player attitudes to said game, and if they need to change, then they're need to change.

And while I'm not from the Helsinki area, it's my wife's favourite place in the world, so I might take you up on that (I even found the gw there the last time!) meanwhile, if you're ever in Scotland and fancy a beer, let me know.

Eh, Helsinki is all right, but Espoo, man, that's where all the cool people live.

First, a handy quotes from 8th ed BRB:

"In truth there is no right or wrong way to go about engaging with the Warhammer 40,000 hobby – it’s best to just find what you most enjoy and go for it. From gaming tournaments and campaign events to world-class painting competitions, from dining- table warfare to exciting battles at local clubs, there’s a world of fun to be had with Warhammer 40,000 [...]"

"The kind of game people look for varies immensely, however, from friendly mutual storytelling to highly competitive tournament play. Luckily, whether you are seeking to forge a thrilling narrative, play in a blistering head-to-head deathmatch, or even weave game after game into an ongoing campaign of conquest, the Warhammer 40,000 hobby offers ample opportunity to engage with any or all of these ways to play."

Something along the lines existed in every edition's BRB, and GW sales are not going through the roof currently because a handfull of meta chasing tournament sworn competetive players, which amount to few thousands around the world and most certainly not because of a few permanent dakka whiners, but because of all that anonymous garagehammer players who never set foot in competetively focussed FLGSs - GW even admit it openly from time to time in various interviews on various conventions, that majority of their playerbase never attended a tournament.

As to terrain discussion - GW sells not only swiss cheese ruins, but also stackable Munitorum Containers, Sector Mechanicus terrain with Ferratonic Furnaces and Haemotrope Reactors, and Wall of Martyrs pieces - all those are official terrain without windows to draw LOS or with explicit official rules for cover and if you have watched any GW GT you'll see they use plenty of solid container walls and rows of Ferratonic Furnaces to completely block LOS between entire table areas.

And to adress the absurd notion, that homemade terrain looks like gak - go and google or pinterest "warhammer 40k terrain" and repeat with straight face, that all non-official terrain looks like gak and is unsuitable for serious play... The amount of easy to build LOS blocking foam rock tables, Necron scenery without a single window or fully blown diorama tables will last you for weeks of just scrolling through all this eye candy.

The only true part of this terrain discussion here is that for some bizarre reasons, a large part of 40K crowd neglects terrain as an important part of wargaming experience for the last 20+ years. Most 40K centric FLGSs I've been to have miserable terrain selection and as soon as you step outside and look at historicals this changes drastically and you can see in person and play on fully blown thematic tables, no problem. It is the same in case of Necromunda - people invest many times more money and time into their Necro tables than they do invest in their gangs and nobody there argues, that only officially supplied terrain kits are allowed, INQ28 is another GW inspired game with no terrain problems. Even here on dakka there are plenty of painting and modeling blogs with stunning homemade terrain.

As to the OP question - as seen in discussion above, YMMV. If you play on "standard tournament table" with "four pieces of terrain in the corners and one humble partial LOS block in the middle" then tactics are limited or non existent - the very existence of static gunlines is enough argument in favor of "listbuilding is all that matters". But as soon as you step out of those ruts, tactics begin to matter a lot, no matter if you houserule or if you stick only to official GW supplied material available in Narrative sections of BRB. Many people in this thread would get a fit if they saw how terrain dense my typical 40K table is and I bet that even some of tournament veterans would suddenly lose their prowess faced with multilevel labirynths of LOS blocking, impassable and difficult terrain to manouver around.

Trully, you get out only what you put in.

@Greatbigtree

Your vertical ascent limitations are very similar to those I use, they indeed change both figurative and literal landscape of the game a lot.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:
Why would you be limited to official terrain anyway? This is THE hobby for people who like to build things, creating terrain that provides cover and eye-candy should be trivial.

Because most player-made terrain looks like . Getting to the quality of GW's terrain kits requires way more effort than most people are willing to spend on terrain, so you either buy the GW kits or have a table that looks like . And obviously many/most people choose the GW kits.

You people do also realize there are official GW sanctioned rules for terrain both in the main rulebook and Chapter Approved and it's only your own fault if you aren't using hit minuses, harder cover saves, hindered movement and all the other things terrain has going for it before we even need to start houseruling things?

Those additional rules only apply to the Cities of Death expansion, not to normal games.

Between third party terrain and 3d printers not having a board that has the kind of terrain to ensure the type of game you want is a cop out. Additionally rules being optional is the point. 40k doesn't work with out both players having a conversation about what kind of game they are looking for.