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So I was thinking this belonged in the strategy section rather then YMDA. I understand the rules. I just have a hard time making them click.

Hills: I can just move across these, right? I do not pay ekstra for it?

Obstacles: Only affect a small group of units. No Obdtacled has the obscure rule. Measures from base to base.

Area Terain: Can affect anything. Can have the Obscure rule. Uses true LOS.

Buildings: I have the gun tower from 6th edition. Does this have a datasheet? Inperial fortress or something?

Can anybody help me with including these rules in my listbuilding and deployment?


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Actually perhaps this should be in the YMDA. The more I read it the less understand.

Monsters and vehicles are never affected by terain unless itvis the obscure terain and they are completly hidden?

Hills. It costs movement up and down if height more than 1".

Obstacle, area terrain etc depends on traits you agree with opponent.

Dense bonus(-1 to hit) applies to vehicles as well if under　18w and not aircraft.

Terrain could definitely do with a CA or two of improved wording, but here's my breakdown of it.

There's really only TWO kinds of terrain, even though the book lists four.
There's Obstacles, and Area Terrain. The only difference between the two is that Area Terrain has a defined "footprint" that units can be "within"

Hills are not really terrain (in a rules sense), they're just part of the table. They block line of sight and require true movement to climp up/down just like ground does, but they can never confer any of the terrain keyword rules.
And Buildings (fortifications) are just units. They have no connection to the terrain mechanics at all.

Of the two kinds of actual terrain (Obstacles and Area Terrain) either can have any combination of the terrain keywords, it's just up to your and your opponent or TO. Obstacles can absolutely have the Obscured keyword.
Only Infantry, Beasts, and Swarms can take advantage of Light and Heavy cover keywords, which are probably the most common bonuses. Anything can get the Dense cover bonus though (except aircraft and high-wound models).
In one of the FAQs, if a piece of terrain has no cover keyword listed(Light, Heavy, or Dense), it is always assumed to have the Light cover keyword.

This is nice because it means even scatter terrain like crates or barrels can usually give Light cover. They are Obstacles. If you get a unit of Infantry, Swarms, or Beasts within 3" of it and between the enemy, you can take cover saves on models who are standing within 3" of those obstacles (which is a pretty big bubble).

 McGibs wrote:
Hills are not really terrain (in a rules sense), they're just part of the table.

This bothers me greatly.

This pic is out of date, obviously, but in a 9th context it means that the Baneblade receives absolutely no protection from enemy shooting despite the fact that you almost can't see it.

The whole 18w or aircraft thing in general is dumb.
A better way to rule it would be "if the model is physically taller"

That pic of course is exactly why its dumb.

 Niiai wrote:
Buildings: I have the gun tower from 6th edition. Does this have a datasheet? Inperial fortress or something?

It has a data sheet and maybe an errata if you want to use it as anything other than just a block of terrain.

What is the "gun tower" from 6th Ed?

I'm assuming it's the bastion right? Hmm, wonder if they'll get updated rules. Some of them were okay.

The terrain faq makes it almost impossible to play any of the fortification datasheets as they insta die

There are a number of things a fortress could be a bastion, aquila, strong point, fortress of redemption, plasma obliterator we would need a picture

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 McGibs wrote:
Hills are not really terrain (in a rules sense), they're just part of the table.

This bothers me greatly.

This pic is out of date, obviously, but in a 9th context it means that the Baneblade receives absolutely no protection from enemy shooting despite the fact that you almost can't see it.

As long as the rules are clear I am happy. It is an abstract interpetation. If you want realismn do war renactments.

Yes the building is the imperial bastion.

"It's an abstraction" is a cop-out argument.

Terrain should provide some level of protection, especially in situations where virtually none of the target can be seen.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
"It's an abstraction" is a cop-out argument.

Terrain should provide some level of protection, especially in situations where virtually none of the target can be seen.

Take it some where else. If you want to make rules, go to the rule sugestion subforum. If you want to do it within the framework of 9th edition declare it obstacle with dense terain. But complaining about your feelings about it does nobody in this thread any good.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
"It's an abstraction" is a cop-out argument.

Terrain should provide some level of protection, especially in situations where virtually none of the target can be seen.

If it can't be seen it's ok. The newest FAQ cleared it up. Basically anything with 18+ wounds plays by 8th edition TLOS rules, while everything else plays by 9th. If a piece of obscuring terrain has holes in it, a Repulsive Executioner hiding behind it can see a Baneblade and shoot at it, but the Baneblade can't see the Repulsive and shoot it back. It's stupid and I don't like it, but that's the rules.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
If it can't be seen it's ok. The newest FAQ cleared it up. Basically anything with 18+ wounds plays by 8th edition TLOS rules, while everything else plays by 9th. If a piece of obscuring terrain has holes in it, a Repulsive Executioner hiding behind it can see a Baneblade and shoot at it, but the Baneblade can't see the Repulsive and shoot it back. It's stupid and I don't like it, but that's the rules.

Yeah I'm not talking about Baneblades specifically. I'm talking about vehicles in general, and hills.

 Niiai wrote:
Take it some where else. If you want to make rules, go to the rule sugestion subforum. If you want to do it within the framework of 9th edition declare it obstacle with dense terain. But complaining about your feelings about it does nobody in this thread any good.

Wow, man, sorry! I didn't mean to give my opinion on this topic. I'll make sure not to do that in the future. Can you ever forgive me?

So, a couple of things you don't have here

1) Dense Cover CAN affect vehicles, and I believe in the core book it is only on Area terrain, but the categories in the book are not the only categories that exist. For example, in our gaming area, all the trees we have are on their own individual bases, so we put several of them down on the table near together, and we use the Obstacle rules for them while otherwise keeping them identical to "Forests" from the book.

2) I have tried running "Hills" from the book, but personally, our hills are actually an object you put down on the board, more like a big rock. So we made "Rock" a terrain category that simply is Area Terrain, Dense Cover, Exposed Position.

Really, there are 4 categories of new terrain rules, and I wish they had split them like this as it helped me think about it:

Category 1: Large Piece Rules. Dense Cover, and Obscuring. These two traits affect EVERYONE, and can only be put on pieces above a certain size, probably so that a little bit of rubble up to your carnifex's knee is not giving him -1 to hit.

Category 2: Traits that small units can benefit from. Typically Infantry, Swarms, Beasts. That's Light Cover, Heavy Cover, Defensible. These traits provide a built-in advantage to small units like Infantry when it comes to terrain, and you shouldn't ignore them.

Category 3: Rules that are based on how the terrain piece is physically shaped, that either help with gameplay or make the piece make more "sense". This is Unstable Position, Defense Line, Exposed Position

and Category 4: Rules that dictate how you can move through or across the terrain. Difficult Ground, Scaleable, Breachable.

Category 3 and category 4 rules, you pretty much use for situations where you could do something to a terrain piece and logically go "Wait, that's not right...it shouldn't work like that."

If you had a swamp, or a crater, it's probably so flat that it would not impede movement under the normal rules, but because of what it is, it should. Looks like it should have "Difficult Ground' then! It doesn't make sense for a tank to be able to climb up the wall of a building and sit on the second floor, so if you have a building with little upper floors, you probably want to give it "Scaleable" so only certain unit types can climb up it. Does it have a big solid wall, but there's a door modeled right in it, so obviously someone could just go through the door? Breachable!

None of these are the critical rules. The critical rules are in category 1 and category 2.

Category 1: Obscuring should basically applied to any big "building" type of terrain that has small holes in it you can see through. If you're going to have models taking potshots through windows or cracks, slap obscuring on that baby. Dense Cover, Obscuring's little brother, should be applied to anything you think "Ok, it makes sense that something should be able to shoot through that, but it's going to make it harder." I personally like to put dense cover instead of obscuring on buildings that are big solid blocks, because it means hiding partially behind it but poking out one side or over the top, you can get some protection. Honestly I like almost any piece of terrain over 3" tall that isn't VERY skinny to be Dense.

Category 2: you want to have a scattering of terrain on the map that gives these. Pretty much any small piece of terrain, like rubble or scatter walls, the way you make it have an impact is by putting it together, and slapping it with a couple of these rules. The nice thing about the Category 2 rules as opposed to how terrain worked in 8th is, terrain is now BY THE MODEL rather than BY THE UNIT.

What I mean is, if I have 10 guardsmen and a little piece of rubble, and the rubble has "Heavy Cover" but I only have 5/10 guardsmen within 3", then if I select one of those guardsmen to take the wound in close combat, he gets a 4+ save instead of a 5+ save. Same for Light Cover. So you can have just a small piece of sandbags, or barrels, or something, and you still can have some models in an infantry unit getting the defensive benefits from it.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
If it can't be seen it's ok. The newest FAQ cleared it up. Basically anything with 18+ wounds plays by 8th edition TLOS rules, while everything else plays by 9th. If a piece of obscuring terrain has holes in it, a Repulsive Executioner hiding behind it can see a Baneblade and shoot at it, but the Baneblade can't see the Repulsive and shoot it back. It's stupid and I don't like it, but that's the rules.

Yeah I'm not talking about Baneblades specifically. I'm talking about vehicles in general, and hills.

If the hill is big enough to hide the entire vehicle it can't be shot. You have to see it to shoot it. TLOS is still in effect.

Goonhammer did a pretty good terrain breakdown here: https://www.goonhammer.com/ruleshammmer-guide-to-terrain-in-9th/

Specifically, the one thing I hope everyone takes away is how they handle Area Terrain with Obscured to prevent it from being extradumb (I touch a wall and now I can see everything!)


That is, when defining what the footprint is for the Area Terrain, use the INSIDE edge of the walls. I've played it this way in most of my games and it really cuts down the abuse of flicking obscured on/off.

I get the whole argument of shooting a visible antennae or 1% of a tanktread, but at least in 9th it's consistent. Non Infantry/Swarm/Beasts units are binary. Either you can shoot them, or you cant. Figuring out if a tank was "50%" obscured was vague and a massive pain in the ass, and huge monsters getting cover from having their toenail in a ruin was bad and abusive as well.
Now vehicles and monsters "getting cover" is in the form of having more obscuring terrain. They are easier to hide and maneuver to block of enemy fire lines. If they aren't, you should play with more line of sight blocking terrain.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
If it can't be seen it's ok. The newest FAQ cleared it up. Basically anything with 18+ wounds plays by 8th edition TLOS rules, while everything else plays by 9th. If a piece of obscuring terrain has holes in it, a Repulsive Executioner hiding behind it can see a Baneblade and shoot at it, but the Baneblade can't see the Repulsive and shoot it back. It's stupid and I don't like it, but that's the rules.

Yeah I'm not talking about Baneblades specifically. I'm talking about vehicles in general, and hills.

If the hill is big enough to hide the entire vehicle it can't be shot. You have to see it to shoot it. TLOS is still in effect.

Also, in that picture, I wouldn't call that piece of terrain a Hill. It's an Obstacle (you could even give it Dense cover so that Baneblade could get -1 to hit!).
Just because it's made out of rock, isn't the qualifier.

These are Hills. They have a base, but it doesn't really make sense for them to confer any sort of bonuses. Were they tall enough, they would block line of sight, but that's it.


These sort of terrain could also be Hills, or they could be Area Terrain with Exposed Positions.

Edit: never mind.

Good diagram.

 Niiai wrote:
Good diagram.

The important part with all of it is that the rules are designed to be and definitely should be tweaked and changed for your particular terrain pieces. This isn't an edition where you should blindly just use the exact traits listed in the book for forests, and the ones for ruins, and the ones for etc etc.

 Gadzilla666 wrote:
If the hill is big enough to hide the entire vehicle it can't be shot. You have to see it to shoot it. TLOS is still in effect.

*sigh* Yes, I know that.

My point was that a hill provides no protection against incoming fire whether the tank is 99% visible or 1% visible. That's the problem.

That isnt a problem.your Hill blocks los to infantry and small vehicles. Sure it might not protect your tank but not every terrain piece has to be relevant to every model.

Plus you can always bolt more keywords on if you and your opponent want it to be more meaningful e.g. light cover on the top level from the moss

U02dah4 wrote:
That isnt a problem.

Really?

You think that this:


... and this:


... should be treated the same? You think that the vehicle (ignore that it's a Baneblade, pretend it is literally any vehicle in 40k) in the second picture should have zero additional protection from a hill compared to the vehicle in the first picture? That doesn't strike you as unusual?

If it can shoot without penalty, it should be getting shot at without protection.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

U02dah4 wrote:
That isnt a problem.

Really?

You think that this:


... and this:


... should be treated the same? You think that the vehicle (ignore that it's a Baneblade, pretend it is literally any vehicle in 40k) in the second picture should have zero additional protection from a hill compared to the vehicle in the first picture? That doesn't strike you as unusual?

Yes.

Those are the rules don't like it go play malifaux for better terrain rules

Or, alternatively, treat the damn terrain rules like what they actually are and realize you can just as easily call a "Rock" what could be called a "Hill" and you could just give it

"Obstacle: Dense Cover, Exposed Position, Light Cover, Scaleable" to make it a perfectly functional terrain piece.

People are looking at the names of the terrain pieces and deciding that that dictates what they must use their terrain as with no exceptions. read the god damned rules and figure out which of those rules works best with your terrain pieces to give you the best results.

A big, flat, wide piece of terrain you put down on your board in order to get some elevation onto the board does not make sense to have terrain traits, because it's probably like 20% of the whole battlefield all by itself and you can't really hide things behind it. A big huge protruding rock that you can nearly hide a whole baneblade behind but that it makes zero sense for the baneblade to be able to drive straight up and sit on top of NEEDS TRAITS.