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Hello,

Probably is not a new question but I can't find the related topic.
I have just had my first game: 1000 pt. tau (me) vs nids. We played on a 4'x4' table as suggested by the rulebook and I think we flood too much the board. I do not have line of sight on almost nothing and get charged in few turns. I attach a pics of the table before deployment. The center piece is considered open (units can move accross)

So my question is: How many terrain we should use on a 4'x4' field?

P.S.: don't look at the mess around the table

I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

Looks reasonable.

I hold with the old recommendation that every 2' x 2’ section of table should have d3 items of terrain on them. Some large, some moderate, some LoS blockers, some to hamper movement/provide cover.

 Huron black heart wrote:
I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

Why is that a problem? That is literally the concept of cover- to deny or reduce LOS to you so you can advance up safely.

That looks fine to me.

Look at it from your opponents view too. It's not going to be much fun for him if he has to just advance his nids across an open battlefield while you blast them off the table...

Looks like an OK amount of terrain, but a bit on the low side for my taste.

Apparently when 9th edition drops there will be information of the recommended amount of terrain for playing on, and I think it will be in reference to the size of battle/size of table.

IIRC the general recommendation used to be that there should be a variety of types of terrain (tall, LOS blocking, movement blocking, provide cover saves etc.) and that if you gather all the terrain together it should fill one quarter of the table. I find that this is really the bare minimum to make for a good game and between one quarter and one third works well.

For my home table, I would house rule terrain and cover in ways that maximize their effects on, say, cutting down lines of fire, while also maximizing immersion and realism. Some of this comes down to narrative and mission.

So, assaulting a bunker in a desert? Less terrain, but prhaps chances for sandstorms that disrupt line of sight in different quadrants every turn.

Defending a forest bunker from attack? Staged lines of trees that force attackers into the open at least briefly as they try to move troops and equipment forward to breach the bunker...

As for your table, above, I like the small points values on bigger tables especially when these are limited - no superheavies, no named characters, ... something like that. So, more terrain on an 8x4 with 1000 -1500 points, ideally.

Mobility, positioning, all of this plays more of a role.

Unit selection also becomes more important because you can't have everything at 1000 points.

One way to "balance" such a game is to assume that both sides have intelligence about the other's planned army comp. So, armies are composed, and the "lists" shared. Both players are then able to change up to 3 units for others of the same unit type, or are able to change 25% of their points any way that they want, etc.

As for your table exactly as is, it looks like it will play quickly if both sides have lots of assault weapons with 3foot ranges. Looks like a very fast chargy army might love it, like custodes on jbikes... for myself, i ouls probably put a few of those wall sections togher, or use some plastic parts and styro and foamcore to build nice long big tall wall sections or even crashed shattered sections of a huge space-disk scatters and further dividing the table...

so i guess long story - i would try for more, personally, but i like that kind of game.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

Why is that a problem? That is literally the concept of cover- to deny or reduce LOS to you so you can advance up safely.

Yeah. Exactly this.

Right now, the table above doesn't seem to want to allow that, but maybe it does. It is difficult to say exactly from a pic, for me anyways...

actually, looking at the pic again, maybe it does divided diagonally. Yeah...
so, how did the game(s) go?

Given the way LOS works in 8th edition and based upon the terrain on that board, I am not sure how you could not have drawn LOS to your opponent's units. Even with the 'homebrew' rule that first-floor ruins block LoS, there appear to be lots of open areas for blasting nids off the table. The struggles you faced were perhaps related to deployment.

 Gregor Samsa wrote:
Given the way LOS works in 8th edition and based upon the terrain on that board, I am not sure how you could not have drawn LOS to your opponent's units. Even with the 'homebrew' rule that first-floor ruins block LoS, there appear to be lots of open areas for blasting nids off the table. The struggles you faced were perhaps related to deployment.

I just saw this from the OP: "I have just had my first game:"
Missed that the first time.

We don't know which nids... do we?
1000 points of termagants?

 Grimtuff wrote:

 Huron black heart wrote:
I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

Why is that a problem? That is literally the concept of cover- to deny or reduce LOS to you so you can advance up safely.

What I meant is you don't want too much los blocking terrain, I understand the concept of it. But a balanced table needs a combination of blocking terrain, cover and open fire lanes or it can skew too far one way or the other

 Huron black heart wrote:
I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

This is how tables should be built with one addition; there should be ways that a clever opponent can anticipate/ counter move in order to prevent the cover hoping. The more mobile units a player has, the easier this is.

Hmm, he's going to hop to this building on his turn, and I can't really stop that, but if I move here now, I'll be able to see him at the next building he's going to try to jump to.

It does take a while to get the strategy- you aren't going to master anticipation or bait and switch tactics on your first game, but it will come.

In the current rules, I only play cityfight, so that terrain is nowhere near dense enough for me. I don't like the idea that tables have to be full of rubble at the beginning of every battle, so I use a lot of intact buildings in my games. I also build my own, because GW isn't so great at supplying unruined buildings- it would take 4-5 gw kits at $50-120 each to create a single intact building. GW terrain looks beautiful, but its actual value as terrain is limited IMHO.

Aash wrote:
Looks like an OK amount of terrain, but a bit on the low side for my taste.

Apparently when 9th edition drops there will be information of the recommended amount of terrain for playing on, and I think it will be in reference to the size of battle/size of table.

IIRC the general recommendation used to be that there should be a variety of types of terrain (tall, LOS blocking, movement blocking, provide cover saves etc.) and that if you gather all the terrain together it should fill one quarter of the table. I find that this is really the bare minimum to make for a good game and between one quarter and one third works well.

started at my local club in 5th, at the time the typical terrain was one hill and two ruins on a 6'x4'.. I started with the "25% of the table, then spread it out" and the game changed totally

fo the better

Nid list was one unit of 24 hormagaunt, one unit of 19 genestealer, swarmlord, trygon and broodlord and a haruspex. My list is 1 riptide,1 broadise, 1 commander, 3 unit fo fire warriors 7/7/6, 3 stealth darkstrider and a cadre fireblade.
It is first game for both of us, so the lists are made that we have painted.
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more. We agreed to not forgive any mistake each other.

I decided not to consider visibile unit in which only the "hand" of 1 genestealer was visibile.

Howabout try something other kind of strategy than deploy in castle in corner and expect to gun down everything down?

Id say that terrain is abot on the light side

Bearblu wrote:
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more.

You've got a good amount of terrain on your table- the general guideline is 25-33%, which you can assess by piling up all the terrain in one corner and seeing how much it covers. If anything, you might not have enough terrain, especially with most of it being too small to hide a unit behind.

As a shooting army, your job is to use that terrain to funnel the enemy into predictable paths, giving you opportunities to fire before they can get close. But by deploying bunched up in a corner and then not moving, you allowed your (melee-focused) opponent to exploit the terrain against you.

This is pretty much Working As Intended. Next time, don't castle up. Force him through chokepoints where his numbers work against him, spread out so that he can't hide or engage multiple units at once, and stay mobile to avoid contact.

Table has plenty of big terrain, but needs more infantry-sized scatter terrain - fences, bushes, blown-out cars, etc.

tneva82 wrote:Howabout try something other kind of strategy than deploy in castle in corner and expect to gun down everything down?

Yeah, for sure next game i will not play like this. I thought it was the best way to play was to keep everything within "for the greater good range", but i was wrong.

catbarf wrote:

Bearblu wrote:
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more.

You've got a good amount of terrain on your table- the general guideline is 25-33%, which you can assess by piling up all the terrain in one corner and seeing how much it covers. If anything, you might not have enough terrain, especially with most of it being too small to hide a unit behind.

As a shooting army, your job is to use that terrain to funnel the enemy into predictable paths, giving you opportunities to fire before they can get close. But by deploying bunched up in a corner and then not moving, you allowed your (melee-focused) opponent to exploit the terrain against you.

This is pretty much Working As Intended. Next time, don't castle up. Force him through chokepoints where his numbers work against him, spread out so that he can't hide or engage multiple units at once, and stay mobile to avoid contact.

Thanks mate I will definitly try to channel him trough some path and definitly i will not play inn one corner.

Stormonu wrote:Table has plenty of big terrain, but needs more infantry-sized scatter terrain - fences, bushes, blown-out cars, etc.

Thanks for the suggestion, for sure we will replace some ruin with something smaller. At the moment i am still waiting the other terrin from TTCombat which I have ordered in May

 Huron black heart wrote:
I don't think the amount of terrain is as important as to whether or not it's line of sight blocking. If units can get across the board hopping from one piece of los blocking terrain to another this is a problem.
+1 to saves for terrain isn't as devastating as cannot even target a unit.

this. you could have a board that consists of 3/4 terrain, but if it is trees, you may as well be playing on an open board. Back when our store was still open we used 2 big hills, higher then a castellan, and between 4-6 big L shaped walls higher then a regular knight. On top of that a ton of smaller stuff. And it still felt, on a 4x4 table, that sometimes there was not enough terrain.

I've always found terrain and more importantly the placing of it to be a sore point. People generally like to try to maximize the terrain to their advantage, which one should do as it makes sense, but literally designing the terrain to suit your units is vastly different to choosing the best of what's available.

I'm *personally* of the opinion that more is better, with varying effects. You want a mix of stuff that provides shelter, provides movement, and provides fun.

I'd say that terrain was a little light, depending on how you described it. Yes it should be obvious but sometimes, like you said, certain items can get described as more or less effective than they look.

I'd have had issues with the declaration that the center was open, unless it means it can be shot through. I get that Nid's are super mobile but that seems almost like terraining for advantage. "Oh my CQC units can move through it unhindered but you can't shoot through it." Ah, no. IF it provides enough cover spots to prevent me simply hosing down your infantry they can't move over it fast.

It is a balance between open fire lanes and mazes I know, neither side should have an advantage without a narrative reason and in a pickup game that's not really a thing you should be worried about. But you can't design the terrain so one side has an obvious advantage.

I must say I'm liking the look of the laser cut wooden structures. I wasn't really on board with them, especially in the raw, but they seem pretty good looking honestly.

Kayback wrote:
I've always found terrain and more importantly the placing of it to be a sore point. People generally like to try to maximize the terrain to their advantage, which one should do as it makes sense, but literally designing the terrain to suit your units is vastly different to choosing the best of what's available.

I'm *personally* of the opinion that more is better, with varying effects. You want a mix of stuff that provides shelter, provides movement, and provides fun.

I also like to have lots of terrain, but after the match I was a bit puzzled if the ammount of terrain was ok or not.

Kayback wrote:
I'd say that terrain was a little light, depending on how you described it. Yes it should be obvious but sometimes, like you said, certain items can get described as more or less effective than they look.

I'd have had issues with the declaration that the center was open, unless it means it can be shot through. I get that Nid's are super mobile but that seems almost like terraining for advantage. "Oh my CQC units can move through it unhindered but you can't shoot through it." Ah, no. IF it provides enough cover spots to prevent me simply hosing down your infantry they can't move over it fast.

It is a balance between open fire lanes and mazes I know, neither side should have an advantage without a narrative reason and in a pickup game that's not really a thing you should be worried about. But you can't design the terrain so one side has an obvious advantage.

I got your point. We agreed that the center was LOS blocking but crossable, maybe was a choice too much in favour of Nids, but my in-game mistakes helped in my defeat.

Kayback wrote:
I must say I'm liking the look of the laser cut wooden structures. I wasn't really on board with them, especially in the raw, but they seem pretty good looking honestly.

The terrain are from Tabletop Combat they are pretty cheap. We paid 130,00 € for the things you see on the table plus 3 more kit which are not delivered yet. They are not so well detailed and misses a bit of texture. To be fair they are too much 2D style, with flat surfaces but they can be fixed.

Kayback wrote:
I've always found terrain and more importantly the placing of it to be a sore point. People generally like to try to maximize the terrain to their advantage, which one should do as it makes sense, but literally designing the terrain to suit your units is vastly different to choosing the best of what's available.

I'm *personally* of the opinion that more is better, with varying effects. You want a mix of stuff that provides shelter, provides movement, and provides fun.

I'd say that terrain was a little light, depending on how you described it. Yes it should be obvious but sometimes, like you said, certain items can get described as more or less effective than they look.

I'd have had issues with the declaration that the center was open, unless it means it can be shot through. I get that Nid's are super mobile but that seems almost like terraining for advantage. "Oh my CQC units can move through it unhindered but you can't shoot through it." Ah, no. IF it provides enough cover spots to prevent me simply hosing down your infantry they can't move over it fast.

It is a balance between open fire lanes and mazes I know, neither side should have an advantage without a narrative reason and in a pickup game that's not really a thing you should be worried about. But you can't design the terrain so one side has an obvious advantage.

I must say I'm liking the look of the laser cut wooden structures. I wasn't really on board with them, especially in the raw, but they seem pretty good looking honestly.

I was setting up to take on 'nids with my White Scars and I deliberately put a big LoS-blocking ruin in the middle of the board. I did it knowing full well that I was enabling Genestealer and Hormagaunt charges that I wouldn't get overwatch fire to counter. And we put the imporant two-victory point objective marker smack in the middle of it. And then I deliberately charged Genestealers and Hormagaunts, because White Scars. And I still won which was a tad galling. It was a close game though, which could have swung either way with different dice, and it was fun, and that's the point.

Bearblu wrote:
Nid list was one unit of 24 hormagaunt, one unit of 19 genestealer, swarmlord, trygon and broodlord and a haruspex. My list is 1 riptide,1 broadise, 1 commander, 3 unit fo fire warriors 7/7/6, 3 stealth darkstrider and a cadre fireblade.
It is first game for both of us, so the lists are made that we have painted.
I deployed all in the bottom right corner of the picture, my opponent deployd everything in opposite corner. He just walk trough the central building (we agreed to be crossable and LOS blocking) and charge me in the next turn, with a good charge rolls on both hormagaunt and genestealer. I've made some big mistake, like forgetting to activate the Nova reactor at the end of movement phase and many more. We agreed to not forgive any mistake each other.

I decided not to consider visibile unit in which only the "hand" of 1 genestealer was visibile.

Yes, I also play with LoS like that - basically I should see some of the base and body to shoot at a unit.

First game for both? Understandable.

In future, try focusing fire on key units as well as possible. If running multiple small units like your warriors, try to position so that they can support each other. So, if the nidz eat one unit one turn, have the other two units in a position to fire on those nidz next turn.