Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

 Lance845 wrote:


1) The "rule" is useless because it has no bearing on the game play WHAT SO EVER if the terrain looks incongruous. Terrain being 3" tall isn't going to make a 14w 10" tall Tyranid Dimacheron any harder to hit by any stretch of logic. But the rule DOES allow it.

2) It's useless because the point of these tags is that we are supposed to be able to take our terrain which does not come in standard sizes and apply tags to them to give them rules.

3) it's useless because a piece of terrain that is 9" wide 1/16" tall and has a 4" light post in the middle of it is also dense terrain by this rule. Remember that massive monstrous creature, or a deamon prince, or a blob of 30 Ork Boyz? Yeah... you can hide 30 Ork Boyz behind a lamp post by these rules.

4) It's useless because it doesn't add anything to the game and now it needlessly restricts.

Putting "rule" doesn't make it less of a real rule

1) You are absolutely correct that in that one instance it will look incongruous, but we have to accept some degree of abstraction. 99% of the time this will make visual sense.

2) What on earth are you getting at? This rule does exactly what you've asked - it is a tag that you can apply universally. Soooo... well done GW?

3) Can you make absurd examples? Yes of course, this'll be fun!! I am going to build a crane 1mm wide and 5' high with a 5mm high fence around the base, which itself runs 1800mm from on side of the board to the other - that'll be cool!

In practice of course, most people aren't c****s and will agree a reasonable interpretation. (Que, whining about some made up meta that only tools play)

4) Of course it adds something, didn't you read it? It stops - most - low level terrain from being triggering the rule effects. Makes total sense.

 ewar wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


1) The "rule" is useless because it has no bearing on the game play WHAT SO EVER if the terrain looks incongruous. Terrain being 3" tall isn't going to make a 14w 10" tall Tyranid Dimacheron any harder to hit by any stretch of logic. But the rule DOES allow it.

2) It's useless because the point of these tags is that we are supposed to be able to take our terrain which does not come in standard sizes and apply tags to them to give them rules.

3) it's useless because a piece of terrain that is 9" wide 1/16" tall and has a 4" light post in the middle of it is also dense terrain by this rule. Remember that massive monstrous creature, or a deamon prince, or a blob of 30 Ork Boyz? Yeah... you can hide 30 Ork Boyz behind a lamp post by these rules.

4) It's useless because it doesn't add anything to the game and now it needlessly restricts.

Putting "rule" doesn't make it less of a real rule

1) You are absolutely correct that in that one instance it will look incongruous, but we have to accept some degree of abstraction. 99% of the time this will make visual sense.

2) What on earth are you getting at? This rule does exactly what you've asked - it is a tag that you can apply universally. Soooo... well done GW?

3) Can you make absurd examples? Yes of course, this'll be fun!! I am going to build a crane 1mm wide and 5' high with a 5mm high fence around the base, which itself runs 1800mm from on side of the board to the other - that'll be cool!

In practice of course, most people aren't c****s and will agree a reasonable interpretation. (Que, whining about some made up meta that only tools play)

4) Of course it adds something, didn't you read it? It stops - most - low level terrain from being triggering the rule effects. Makes total sense.

1) The point was "visual sense" doesn't matter from a rules perspective. We were meant to be the arbitrators of what makes sense to us.

2) Yup. And if the terrain is less than 3" tall then you can apply it a dozen times and it will do nothing.

3) Again, the point is the rule doesn't serve a purpose. You can call absurd all you want. The point stands. There is no reason to call out the 3" restriction.

4) You know what stops -most- low level terrain from triggering the effect? Not giving that terrain the Dense Cover feature. From what we have learned so far it's not like EVERY terrain feature has EVERY tag on it at all times and we need to parse out which ones are active and which ones are not based on heights and other limitations. Terrain only has the features we give them. It's pointless to say "This is too small to be dense so even though it IS dense it doesn't do anything". You just don't make it dense to begin with if you don't want it to confer the -1 to hit penalty. Thats true of a 4" tall lamp post and a 2.5" tall brick wall.

 Lance845 wrote:


1) The point was "visual sense" doesn't matter from a rules perspective. We were meant to be the arbitrators of what makes sense to us.

2) Yup. And if the terrain is less than 3" tall then you can apply it a dozen times and it will do nothing.

3) Again, the point is the rule doesn't serve a purpose. You can call absurd all you want. The point stands. There is no reason to call out the 3" restriction.

4) You know what stops -most- low level terrain from triggering the effect? Not giving that terrain the Dense Cover feature. From what we have learned so far it's not like EVERY terrain feature has EVERY tag on it at all times and we need to parse out which ones are active and which ones are not based on heights and other limitations. Terrain only has the features we give them. It's pointless to say "This is too small to be dense so even though it IS dense it doesn't do anything". You just don't make it dense to begin with if you don't want it to confer the -1 to hit penalty. Thats true of a 4" tall lamp post and a 2.5" tall brick wall.

Here's the thing. These rules are there to support the infinite array of homemade terrain that exists. GW isn't conferring Dense to things under 3". That's just their guideline for your terrain and a way to tell your opponent that, no, that small rock wall can't be considered Dense.

 ewar wrote:


2) What on earth are you getting at? This rule does exactly what you've asked - it is a tag that you can apply universally. Soooo... well done GW?
.
.
4) Of course it adds something, didn't you read it? It stops - most - low level terrain from being triggering the rule effects. Makes total sense.

2) You can apply the Dense Cover tag universally, but RAW it will only actually do something if the terrain feature is over 3" high. Seems a weird way of writing a rule.

4) But if the low level terrain is under 3" high, it wouldn't be classed as Dense Cover in the first place so there'd be no question of the effect triggering.

It would make far more sense for the 3" high thing to be a 'suggestion' (you know, like the rule of 3 ) outside of the rule, and for the rule to just say 'dense cover does this'

As-is, it feels akin to the Fleshmetal Guns rule starting out by saying "If you are an Obliterator..."

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


1) The point was "visual sense" doesn't matter from a rules perspective. We were meant to be the arbitrators of what makes sense to us.

2) Yup. And if the terrain is less than 3" tall then you can apply it a dozen times and it will do nothing.

3) Again, the point is the rule doesn't serve a purpose. You can call absurd all you want. The point stands. There is no reason to call out the 3" restriction.

4) You know what stops -most- low level terrain from triggering the effect? Not giving that terrain the Dense Cover feature. From what we have learned so far it's not like EVERY terrain feature has EVERY tag on it at all times and we need to parse out which ones are active and which ones are not based on heights and other limitations. Terrain only has the features we give them. It's pointless to say "This is too small to be dense so even though it IS dense it doesn't do anything". You just don't make it dense to begin with if you don't want it to confer the -1 to hit penalty. Thats true of a 4" tall lamp post and a 2.5" tall brick wall.

Here's the thing. These rules are there to support the infinite array of homemade terrain that exists. GW isn't conferring Dense to things under 3". That's just their guideline for your terrain and a way to tell your opponent that, no, that small rock wall can't be considered Dense.

And again, then give us that in a Guidelines and Examples section separate from the rule itself. If my group wants to make the low rock wall dense we will. It will now be a House Rule when we do it but we will. The 2.5" tall brick wall which is taller than most infantry is also going to be house ruled into being dense. Because we will have to even though it makes sense for it to be Dense even though the rule doesn't allow for that to do anything.

Again, the rule is poorly written. The 3" restriction is pointless.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
Bullet points don't excuse poorly written rules.

Seabass wrote:
I mean, this list goes on for a while.

And said list assumes that all criticism of GW is like that, starting with "this is bad" and ending with "GW ARE HORRIBLE PEOPLE!".

There is a big difference between criticism and gaking on them.

Saying that I, you, we or someone could do a better job isn't gaking on them.
Saying how you expect more for your money isn't gaking on them.
Saying that the game isn't worth the money is a judgement call for each person, and isn't necessarily gaking on them.
Saying that GW is evil is silly, because Hanlon's Razor exists.
Saying GW is incompetent isn't necessarily gaking on them, because most of us here have pattern recognition and expect a company that has been doing this one thing for so long to maybe have improved somewhat, yet they disappoint so many of us at every turn.

My biggest criticism of GW, outside of their ludicrous pricing structure (this includes the fething horrible international sale embargo and things like FW selling things in different countries for higher prices despite it all being shipped from the same factory), is that they never realise their potential. They are always full of good ideas and always execute those ideas in the most half-assed ways.

You can call this an example of "gaking on the company", but I call it criticism of a company that should be better at what it does because it's been doing it for 30 years and still writes terrible rules.

So, you can have your opinion about how gakky GW can be, which clearly there is no limit too, but I'm not allowed the opposing viewpoint? I mean, people engaged in a discussion about a game saying the pricing is bad and the game is bad certainly seems like gaking on them to me. Saying you expect more isn't gaking on them, but doing that in the absence of any of the information that has been given to us to help people understand the rules seems pretty gakky to me.
Mentioning Hanlon's razor in a thread, and on a discussion board that routinely assumes the absolute worst case possible in terms of GW's motivations to do specific things seems pretty gakky to me. The irony of bringing up Hanlon's Razor in this topic, specifically after 8+ pages of material, a good portion of which is just slamming GW because the rules aren't elegant enough in the absence of any other mitigating factors that have yet to be seen is just incredibly rich.
I would argue that context is important, so saying the action was performed without intelligence or efficacy could be construed as a valid critique, but in the context, as it is used here, feels a lot less like a critique and a lot more like an insult.

Again, context is everything. I don't know what you expect, but the 8th edition rule book was easy to read and made sense. The 7th, 6th, 5th, 4th, and 3rd were all fine. 2nd was a mess, but only really after Dark Millenium came out. I didn't get to play enough of RT to know one way or another. I don't know what "terrible" is, and even then, id be willing to bet it's based on like, your opinion man, the same as like, my opinion man, feels it necessary to stand up and say something about all of this.

I'm trying not to be offensive or an ass, and trying not to be offended in the same breath, but this feels patently disingenuous to me.

You saying 8ths rule book made sense or that 7th was fine is disingenuous. There are clear and blatant logical errors in the text of their rule books in every edition. 30+ years of RAW not working because they don't know how to publish good rules writing.

This isn't an extremist view. It's just the fact laid out.

 Lance845 wrote:
You saying 8ths rule book made sense or that 7th was fine is disingenuous. There are clear and blatant logical errors in the text of their rule books in every edition. 30+ years of RAW not working because they don't know how to publish good rules writing.

This isn't an extremist view. It's just the fact laid out.

Odd, we picked up the rules books and were playing in short order without too many problems, and what problems we did have, we were able to resolve pretty easily. They seemed to work for me and my group (speaking specifically to the 8th rule book, I don't remember 7th launch that well, but we all took a hiatus in early-mid 7th and came back to a well functioning set of rules that got us going and revitalized the group. YMMV)

I think the formatting of the Dense Cover rule is to allow universal application. All instances of rubble/brush/jungle/etc get XYZ traits, but Z will only apply if the terrain is over 3" tall.

To me that feels less cumbersome than saying 'a jungle has X and Y, but if it is over 3" then it also gets Z, and if it's at least 6" deep then it gets Q', even though the end result is the same.

Seabass wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:
You saying 8ths rule book made sense or that 7th was fine is disingenuous. There are clear and blatant logical errors in the text of their rule books in every edition. 30+ years of RAW not working because they don't know how to publish good rules writing.

This isn't an extremist view. It's just the fact laid out.

Odd, we picked up the rules books and were playing in short order without too many problems, and what problems we did have, we were able to resolve pretty easily. They seemed to work for me and my group (speaking specifically to the 8th rule book, I don't remember 7th launch that well, but we all took a hiatus in early-mid 7th and came back to a well functioning set of rules that got us going and revitalized the group. YMMV)

Despite RAI being obvious, the 8 pages of core rules has logic errors for pistols and assault weapons where they cannot actually be used after advancing or when within 1" of an enemy. Again, this is just a statement of fact. The rules writing is full of problems.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 catbarf wrote:
I think the formatting of the Dense Cover rule is to allow universal application. All instances of rubble/brush/jungle/etc get XYZ traits, but Z will only apply if the terrain is over 3" tall.

To me that feels less cumbersome than saying 'a jungle has X and Y, but if it is over 3" then it also gets Z, and if it's at least 6" deep then it gets Q', even though the end result is the same.

Dense Cover only has one feature. It's just Z. It ONLY the -1 to hit penalty and the rest of that text is stipulations on when and how you get Z, including rules for how to measure and determine LoS. Jungles, rubble, and brush are all receiving exactly the same features. I.E. the only feature.

The point is that if I build for example a jungle themed table and say "All jungle elements are dense cover and light cover" it is much easier to say element by element what each jungle element is.

I will know that a jungle element that is 2" tall will give me light cover but not dense cover.

That part of the rule is nice to have. Could have been worded better.

Spoletta wrote:
The point is that if I build for example a jungle themed table and say "All jungle elements are dense cover and light cover" it is much easier to say element by element what each jungle element is.

I will know that a jungle element that is 2" tall will give me light cover but not dense cover.

That part of the rule is nice to have. Could have been worded better.

It's the same thing. You're doing exactly the same check - is this bit of terrain the right height yes/no, if yes then dense cover applies. But it should apply at the point of 'if yes, then it has the dense cover rule'.

Giving something a rule that then cannot apply because the object in question does not qualify for the rule in the first place is nonsense.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Lance845 wrote:


1) The point was "visual sense" doesn't matter from a rules perspective. We were meant to be the arbitrators of what makes sense to us.

2) Yup. And if the terrain is less than 3" tall then you can apply it a dozen times and it will do nothing.

3) Again, the point is the rule doesn't serve a purpose. You can call absurd all you want. The point stands. There is no reason to call out the 3" restriction.

4) You know what stops -most- low level terrain from triggering the effect? Not giving that terrain the Dense Cover feature. From what we have learned so far it's not like EVERY terrain feature has EVERY tag on it at all times and we need to parse out which ones are active and which ones are not based on heights and other limitations. Terrain only has the features we give them. It's pointless to say "This is too small to be dense so even though it IS dense it doesn't do anything". You just don't make it dense to begin with if you don't want it to confer the -1 to hit penalty. Thats true of a 4" tall lamp post and a 2.5" tall brick wall.

Here's the thing. These rules are there to support the infinite array of homemade terrain that exists. GW isn't conferring Dense to things under 3". That's just their guideline for your terrain and a way to tell your opponent that, no, that small rock wall can't be considered Dense.

I'm willing to bet they probably are.

GW's already stated that in the book, you'll have 9 types of standard, pre-defined terrain with properties all ready fixed. Something like

"Ruins
Industrial Terrain
Forest
Craters
Barricades
Armored Containers
Pipes
Barriers
Zone Mortalis"

Etc. Just like we've always had these standard terrain types in every edition. And each type is going to have fixed properties. We already know Ruins:

Defensible, Scalable, Heavy Cover, Light Cover, Breachable, Obscuring

Every terrain piece you designate as a Ruin is going to have these properties. And most of these are going to mirror the kinds of rules Ruins had in the previous edition of "bespoke rules" - Scalable means you're allowed to use your movement to climb up it. Light Cover means it conveys a +1sv. Breachable probably means only Infantry Swarms and Beasts can move through it as if it isn't there.

The Obscuring rule will always be on there. But a small piece you designate as a Ruin will not get the Obscuring rule, because it isn't 6" tall.

I think people have this misconception where it will be normal to have to take your whole terrain board, and from scratch point at each piece and go "OK, hmmm...this one is gonna be Light Cover, Defensible, Obscuring, Breachable...." OR that these rules are automatically on EVERY terrain piece and EVERY terrain piece over 3" tall is Dense Cover and EVERY terrain piece over 6" tall is Obscuring...

...90% of the time, outside of home-built custom pieces that just won't work as one of the standard types, you're going to just point and say "Barricade, Ruin, Forest, Sector Mech" at each of your terrain pieces, and use the rules that correspond to those. The only purpose the "Keywords" will have is consistency, they're basically a USR system for terrain.