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nou wrote:
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.

Ok, yes, GW sells some terrain that blocks LOS. They also sell lots of terrain that doesn't. And maybe having a wall of a bunch of furnaces for the sole purpose of blocking LOS is acceptable in a purely competitive game, but it's appalling from a narrative point of view to have such repetitive and boring terrain. The majority of terrain that real players are using is going to be GW ruins and similar things that do have holes and therefore don't block LOS very well.

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.

Those tables are the rare exception to the rule. Homemade terrain can be awesome, but most of the time it's made by lazy s whose only motivation is trying to get something vaguely terrain shaped on the table with a minimum of effort and cost. The majority of people who care about having decent terrain are buying GW's kits and similar kits from non-GW companies trying to duplicate the GW style.

Again it's called third party terrain, creativity and 3d printing. Even GWs newer buildings, with windows, are big enough it's not that hard to hid a small squad. Even with windows, enough terrain on a table and you will create plenty of LOS blocking and fire lanes.

IDK what your board looks like, but the one I have at my house has a mix of all of the above and requires a good amount of movement during a game if you want to keep shooting/assaulting things.

Falls outside of their experience therefore does not / can not exist.

The argument against there being tactical movement, at least, is that it is inconvenient to have that terrain. Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?

Short answer to thread title:

Against an unskilled opponent, yes.

If not, I should have lost all games I did against IG.

 greatbigtree wrote:
Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?

I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

 Peregrine wrote:
in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

Which is flatly and absolutely absurd in the context of a tabletop wargame.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

Which is flatly and absolutely absurd in the context of a tabletop wargame.

"Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.

Note: Before we again devolve in the old argument "Vehicles and monsters cannot realistically claim cover", please read the FAQs, thank you. We have been over that in at last half a dozen threads.

Spoletta wrote:
"Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.

Thus "approximately nothing", not "absolutely nothing". So what if you can get a small bonus for a small infantry unit (as long as that unit is in the exact perfect spot and doesn't move, god help you if you need to be somewhere useful like capturing an objective), most of the time those trees barely matter. Put them in the middle of the table and they're doing nothing against the first turn alpha strike and even when everything goes right and a unit gets a bonus at all it's rarely significant enough to change anything about either player's tactics. 95% of the value of those trees is aesthetic.

 Agamemnon2 wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

Which is flatly and absolutely absurd in the context of a tabletop wargame.

And houseruled away in approximately three seconds ("woods block LoS through them or grant cover in them, cool?") or using the officially sanctified GW's optional rules like CoD at least provide obscuring to give -1 to hit. Also -2 to charge through difficult terrain, if one likes.

The funny thing is, I feel many haven't yet woken to the possibility of letting GW know about their beef with the lack of terrain. They do listen to a lot of politely and eloquently written feedback nowadays. Most is of course directed to singular units and how they are over- or underpowered, but writing about possible changes to terrain as a whole en masse could potentially bring about better terrain rules, be that as a beta or something else.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
"Does not block LOS" is not equal to "Does approximately nothing that matters". The element you described provides cover to small infantry units, or small/mid vehicles/monsters and decreases charge range by 2". This isn't exactly anything.

Thus "approximately nothing", not "absolutely nothing". So what if you can get a small bonus for a small infantry unit (as long as that unit is in the exact perfect spot and doesn't move, god help you if you need to be somewhere useful like capturing an objective), most of the time those trees barely matter. Put them in the middle of the table and they're doing nothing against the first turn alpha strike and even when everything goes right and a unit gets a bonus at all it's rarely significant enough to change anything about either player's tactics. 95% of the value of those trees is aesthetic.

If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.

Spoletta wrote:
If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.

It's not significant compared to not being able to shoot a unit at all because LOS is properly blocked. It's absurd that being completely obscured except for one fingertip of a model is the same +1 cover as having one toe inside the boundary of the "forest", and being behind the trees instead of standing on top of the piece of foam they're glued to gives no bonus whatsoever.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Sherrypie wrote:
And houseruled away in approximately three seconds ("woods block LoS through them or grant cover in them, cool?") or using the officially sanctified GW's optional rules like CoD at least provide obscuring to give -1 to hit. Also -2 to charge through difficult terrain, if one likes.

"It works fine if you change the rules" is hardly a compelling response to the claim that the rules are broken. In fact, it's a concession that I'm right.

 Peregrine wrote:

Spoletta wrote:
If you think that a +1 save in not a significant bonus then we are done talking.

It's not significant compared to not being able to shoot a unit at all because LOS is properly blocked. It's absurd that being completely obscured except for one fingertip of a model is the same +1 cover as having one toe inside the boundary of the "forest", and being behind the trees instead of standing on top of the piece of foam they're glued to gives no bonus whatsoever.

.

Ok, if you put it like this, then it is more legit.
That said, it's the same as old editions. Toe in cover = 4++, all in cover except a toe=4++.

Sure if an interposed element could provide cover like we had in previous editions, it would be a welcome addition to the game.
That small suggestion of "Do not count tentacles, wings, antennas and stuff like that for LoS" would also be welcomed.

You don't need to change the rules. The only factions that don't make use of cover are Harlequins and Daemons. For everything else Cover is helpful, Space Marines in cover become more durable than Cultists, for example. -2 to charge range is always important and not a City of Death rule. If you decide to not use Cover because there's no objektive chose by then you had to make a tactical decision and Cover fulfilled its purpose.

And your notion about selfmade terrain is the most ridiculous and unfounded nonsense I have ever read from you, Peregrine.

Being right depends on your view of the game, Peregrine. As has been said before, current GW likes to give players a bunch of things to choose from. The fact that many people choose to play with the barebones part instead of the CoD-system that would give meaning to all that terrain does not mean the system is broken. I'd like GW to put those in their core rules, but people have already always had the choice.

People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.

 Sherrypie wrote:


People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.

yeah, and in order to have a car or a bike or TV you should buy it and then fix it yourself so it actually works. This could maybe be the truth if someone likes building terrain, and a lot. Problem with this is that to me this makes as much sense as those that, if an army sucks you just start painting stuff, because playing the game isnt The Hobby.

Karol wrote:

 Sherrypie wrote:


People are in charge of making their own hobby fun for them, their loss if they don't own it.

yeah, and in order to have a car or a bike or TV you should buy it and then fix it yourself so it actually works. This could maybe be the truth if someone likes building terrain, and a lot. Problem with this is that to me this makes as much sense as those that, if an army sucks you just start painting stuff, because playing the game isnt The Hobby.

Wrong, and Bad example. If we are talking about 'build it yourself', then there are such a thing as kit cars, and there is a community of car enthusiasts that buy, build, repair and restore old, and broken cars. If we are taking about everyone should fix the cars they bought, well, Fixing cars (big jobs) requires technical expertise and tools not everyone has. Regarding bikes or other 'small things'- everyone should have some understanding of their workings do you can do basic maintenance and repairs like change a light or flat tire. I've been fixing my bike since I was ten.There just common sense. Making terrain requires a lot less technical skill than doing an mot on a car and is far less physically demanding than changing a tire.It's trivially easy to find good guides and good examples of terrain making online. It's also easier than you think to get into a mindset and find joy in building terrain. Because in the long run, you are the one benefitting. We get the group together for painting evenings and hobby evenings for example. Not wanting to bother is just laziness.

You get out what you're willing to put in. That's as true for training for a marathon as it is tourney practice as it is for anything else. If you wan a zero-investment hobby, get prepared for a bare-minimum minimum return on that investment. And then don't bother complaining because you'll get no sympathy from me.

You might not like making terrain. It may not be as 'fun' as having your dudes on the board, and rolling dice for them. That's fair. There's plenty things I don't necessarily like doing either. But I do them nonetheless for the bigger picture. Like those twenty mile runs I did for marathon training were hardly 'fun'. And they certainly sucked out a lot of time when I could be doing other 'fun' things. Sometimes we have to do things we don't necessarily like for a greater return down the road. And frankly, if putting in some effort to make some terrain over the course of some weekends and weeks results in a far better hobby and gaming experience for me In the long term, it's a very small price to pay.

 Peregrine wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?

I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

Regardless of your experiences, there is a fourth type of terrain: homemade terrain that looks perfectly fine (sometimes even better than that!) This line of argument seems especially odd to me when you look around the average gaming store/club and see a huge range of armies from brilliantly painted to bare grey plastic. Terrain is the same: you get out what you put in, but the fact crappy looking homemade terrain exists doesn't alter the fact it's not necessarily the norm. I'm also not sure what's so problematic about a simple house rule to say, for example, the ground floor of ruins block LoS. There's enough abstraction in the game already that an additional rule like that is pretty widely accepted and often improves the game significantly. Yes, it's a house rule, but the reality is that doesn't actually matter for the vast majority of people because they only ever play in the places where that rule is in effect.

Slipspace wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:

 greatbigtree wrote:
Some people spend 40 hours on a single miniature, but can’t spend a rainy afternoon making terrain?

I don't know. But I'm not trying to understand their reasons, I'm just pointing out that the trend exists. Across multiple stores/groups I've encountered three types of terrain: GW kits (including third-party kits in the GW style), homemade terrain heavily using GW (and GW-style) components and GW-like features, and . The true homemade terrain has almost universally been a bunch of ugly , lazy attempts to put something vaguely terrain-like on the table to keep the 40k players coming in to buy stuff. And a lot of the lazy didn't even block LOS very well, because in 8th edition gluing some model railroad trees to a piece of foam does approximately nothing that matters.

Regardless of your experiences, there is a fourth type of terrain: homemade terrain that looks perfectly fine (sometimes even better than that!) This line of argument seems especially odd to me when you look around the average gaming store/club and see a huge range of armies from brilliantly painted to bare grey plastic. Terrain is the same: you get out what you put in, but the fact crappy looking homemade terrain exists doesn't alter the fact it's not necessarily the norm. I'm also not sure what's so problematic about a simple house rule to say, for example, the ground floor of ruins block LoS. There's enough abstraction in the game already that an additional rule like that is pretty widely accepted and often improves the game significantly. Yes, it's a house rule, but the reality is that doesn't actually matter for the vast majority of people because they only ever play in the places where that rule is in effect.

It should be called The cool house rule where los is always implemented, then fully integrated eventaully in all aspects in GW.

@Peregrine: You seriously build your argument against Sector Mechanicus terrain on boring repetition and narrative limitations and counter it by boring repetition and narrative limitations of ruins? C'mon...

You made hilariously exaggerated claim and tried to shove your opinion as undeniable fact and you were countered from numerous angles, by multiple people, with whole google search and multiple lifetimes worth of counterexamples. But we all perfectly know that you will now go at absurd lengths to defend it, because well, that's what you do. But maybe, just maybe you could try another path this time - you made a mistake, you are clearly, fundamentally, hilariously wrong on this one. Man up, own it, learn from the experience, it will only do you good.

@Karol & thread: Back in 2nd ed, when I used to have "my regular FLGS" I have brought my terrain to the shop because I liked having options and actual landscape to play on. And when I quit 40K after 3rd I have donated all this terrain to the shop for people to enjoy it for the years to come. And I wasn't the only one, shop owner did not own/made a single piece of terrain, it was all made and brought by players. Fast forward to modern times, my local FLGS had a huge terrain collection and it was a mix ranging from unpainted lasercut MDF ruins or infinity dwellings, through GW ruins, bastions and wall of martyr pieces, to entire based and painted hillside bunkers/military bases that spanned across a third of the table, really huge pieces. And guess what 40K players typically used (I witnessed it in person and then went through FLGSs photo album to confirm this observation) - 4-6 ruins and a bastion or two, rarely more than 8 pieces of medium medium sized terrain and no barricades, low walls, rarely any hills... The terrain was there, Bolt Action or Flames of War players used those, infinity players had access to appropriately dense tables, 40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm". Heck - I saw the exact same discrepancy between 40K and historicals on various wargame conventions, where everything must be brought with you, there is no supply of terrain on the spot. Historicals had mostly beatuifull, adequately dense terrains, 40K had typical minimal effort mess. Battletech crowd even came with a special wooden gaming table with hex based 3D eye-candy diorama, specifically made for this system, no excuses made.

I do think if terrain had proper rules like virtually every non-Warhammer wargame, you would see more tactics. But GW went for highly abstracted rules that encourage listbuilding as the major skill instead of what you do on the battlefield, and the players see to want and even encourage listbuilding and stacking combos as though this was Magic as the major skill you need in the game.

40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm".

I agree completely with this.

check out my Gallery to see how we play both 8th and 2nd ed games weekly.

One of my friends came to play and said there was too much stuff on the table. ???????

How can a more thematic game be less fun.
I hear people say you need progressive scoring and missions to have fun. Just killing stuff is to plain.

IT IS THE EXACT line of thought that more terrain will make more fun. A boring INTRO game is just about killing....and a boring INTRO game is about having 4 to 8 pieces of terrain.

An advanced gamer will have fleshed out missions, interesting scoring and as many terrain pieces as models on the table.

40k is best with lots of terrain, lots of it LOS blocking, and lots of it impassible.

 admironheart wrote:

40K players played standard scarce setups... The problem is not with adequate rules availability (even 8th ed has CoD) or terrain availability (at least not universally in all cases), but with tournament standard mindset spilling out on every 40K pick-up game and treated as a "norm".

I agree completely with this.

check out my Gallery to see how we play both 8th and 2nd ed games weekly.

One of my friends came to play and said there was too much stuff on the table.

Agreed, I too heard that my board is overcrowded and unfair to gunlines (sic!). Especially this industrial setup of yours is dense enough and landing pad big enough for my taste. You can check out my old WIPs of lava board to see a different approach to LOS blocking via mixed vertical elevation of the base ground - even flyers have at least a quarter of the table in their blind zones at any moment on that specific setup, ground troops rarely see their full shooting range without LOS block or obscurity cover and that is even before I put any forifications/bunkers/buildings/sector mechanicus stuff on top of that, and a third of the table is usually contiuous crater equivalent (those negative elevation labirynths). On such board gaining height advantage matter a lot even without any specially pronounced rules, pure true LOS is enough. For our Necromunda games we actually use special made, large, felted cotton pliers to manipulate models in the center of the board, as well as laser pointers and periscopes to check LOS through what we consider "dense enough".

if you need to move several turns before you can shoot your opponent you get a more interactive and expansive experience in 40K

Yeah, tournament standard tends to be lax on terrain so as a result, all games are lax on terrain because of the push to use tournament standard as the norm for games. The same problem you find with not using interesting missions that can change up the tactics you find with the lack of good terrain. It all goes back to "tournament standard" being A) bland and boring and B) infecting non-tournament games as the "right" way to do things.

 admironheart wrote:

Spoiler:

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/997420-Imperials%20must%20Reinforce%20the%20Hive.html
and

https://www.dakkadakka.com/gallery/997400-Orks%20vs%20PDF.html[/url]

if you need to move several turns before you can shoot your opponent you get a more interactive and expansive experience in 40K

Oh, I missed those large cliffs of yours earlier (I went straight to your Battlefields gallery, which has only a few tables in it). My biggest 40K regret is that I have limited space available, so 7'x'5 table footprint is my upper limit and and going vertical more than 15" is problematic due to height of one of my regular opponents (a rather short gal). But still, I have as many terrain projects on my to-do list as I have plastic/resin to acquire, convert and paint.

And agreed, starting more than standard 24" apart or having no initial LOS to deployment zones helps with immersion and need for tactics greatly, but for many players I have met it comes with an unacceptable cost of lenghtening the game - you don't roll dice and remove enemy models right away you waste time...

While I like more terrain, lots more terrain, there has been one downside in 8th; table space.

With a pair of 2k armies, and 2k buying a lot more than it did in previous editions, there's only so much realestate. So, with lots of terrain, there are no dead zones, no gaps in overlapping fields of fire. Just more doods everywhere.

Tons of terrain, lots of it impassible and/or LOS-blocking (preferably some of one, some of the other, and some both), and lower points games add a lot more to the game.

 Stormatious wrote:
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?

Absolutely. 30 Custodes should handily be able to deal with 120 Guardsmen.

If you mean equivalent troops, then no. Not without absurd luck. There is simply not enough room for skill and tactics in this game to let you beat 120 Custodes with 30 Custodes simply by outplaying your opponent.

Maybe if your opponent is so new they forget they can order their units to fire in their shooting phase...

 Ashiraya wrote:

 Stormatious wrote:
Like for e.g could 30 troops face off against 120 troops and win?

Absolutely. 30 Custodes should handily be able to deal with 120 Guardsmen.

If you mean equivalent troops, then no. Not without absurd luck. There is simply not enough room for skill and tactics in this game to let you beat 120 Custodes with 30 Custodes simply by outplaying your opponent.

Maybe if your opponent is so new they forget they can order their units to fire in their shooting phase...

I think equivalent troops wouldn't be a good example anyways while the first example is closer to what is wanted. Guardsmen are cheap but weak, Custodes are very expensive but each is basically a hero. That should, in theory, balance each other out. If you want a small elite army you take custodes, if you want a lot of average/subpar guys you go Guard, and in a well-written wargame, these forces assuming an equal point game should have a roughly equal chance of winning (give or take, but not a gross imbalance). 40k doesn't have that at all and at the same points there is often way too large a spread of which army could win in a given scenario.