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This is an objectively bad terrain layout for a game of 9th edition 40k. It directly contradicts the instructions in the game manual regarding how a board is to be laid out.

I am all for playing out interesting narrative scenarios and so on. And in fact I think clever mission design using a variety of different board layouts/scenarios may be the best way to "balance" 40k as a competitive game.

But no matter how you slice it, there is no obscuring terrain that crosses any of the main firing lines.

People just love to do the Emperor's New Clothes routine when ever GW does something that is simply bad or poorly thought out. Very amusing.

Let's make a bet that GW will release an official 40k Emperor's Tarot deck based on the internationally popular Hammer and Bolter series. It will be filled with beautiful art and proprietary card names to confuse experienced Tarot readers and to make sure nobody copies it without getting sued. It will retail for $65 and come with an exclusive wafer.

Here's a more appropriate real world equivalent of the Mudanjiang City Mega Farm in China and it's still nowhere near as large as what an Agri-World would be

I also don't think it's controversial to say that that board is not really evocative of an agri-world, even if you imagine the board painted the right way. Where are the grain elevators, the silos, all the gizmos and contraptions? Yeah, I know GW doesn't make kits of those things so of course we're not going to see them. But the Sector Mechanicus stuff (that big scaffolding piece, the crane, etc.) seems like it would evoke the mechanical part of an agri-world reasonably well.

Eh, this all feels like a moot point. I don't think anybody has high expectations for the Battle Report component of WH+, it's almost not worth talking about.

It's brilliant if it works. They're literally getting people to pay a monthly subscription to view advertisements.

For curiosity's sake, I went to Lexicanum to see what it had to say about the planet Iax.

Iax was an Agri World whose climate and fertility has made it one of the most productive worlds in the Imperium. There were no large cities on Iax, its land given over to producing quality food. The oldest and most urbanised area is the ancient fortress city of First Landing, its tall citadel withstanding the barrages of invaders over the centuries.

During the Plague Wars, Iax became the site of major fighting. A group of Imperial Guard refugees brought to Iax were revealed to be unwitting Daemonic vessels, transforming them into Plaguebearers who managed to summon a cohort of Great Unclean Ones under Ku'gath. The Daemons summoned vast armies which ravaged the planet.Later, Roboute Guilliman and Mortarion engaged in a fateful duel on the planet as Imperial forces enacted Exterminatus. It is now a Death World which according to Guilliman will take centuries to be freed of corruption, if ever.

Warhammer Community wrote:One of the first Battle Reports sees the Ultramarines face off against the Death Guard at the climactic Battle of Iax. The team created a specially designed scenario in which two Primarchs face off for the fate of the Imperium itself.

Apparently the book "Godblight" details the events that they're playing out here?

BrianDavion wrote:
your entire point is the same as it always is "GW BAD!"

His point is quite obviously that it's meant to be an Agri-World but the board, even unpainted, is very obviously urban/Sector Imperialis(tm) terrain. You don't exactly have to squint to see it's not in fields or a processing plant.

Of course there's Agri-Worlds with cities and factories and the like, but it's an odd callout to say "It's an Agri-World!" and then put it on every other GW-approved board.

 Arbitrator wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:
your entire point is the same as it always is "GW BAD!"

His point is quite obviously that it's meant to be an Agri-World but the board, even unpainted, is very obviously urban/Sector Imperialis(tm) terrain. You don't exactly have to squint to see it's not in fields or a processing plant.

So how does an Agri-World get their produce off planet? Even an Agri-World is going to need a starport and since it's been confirmed this is the Battle of Iax, the choice of game board is appropriate.

They don't have agri-world terrain to sell you. They do have their usual terrain to sell you. The whole thing is an advertisement you pay to watch. They're not going to advertise things you can't buy.

It’s…..it’s almost as if they’re a company, in the business of making as much money as possible, looking to show off all their goods in the best possible light.

Those children born outside of wedlock!! We certainly don’t see such behaviour anywhere else….

I'm not so sure battle reports really show GW products off very well to be honest. GW's strategy used to be setting up shop in malls trying to lure suckers into exchanging their just received paycheque for some space marines and paints, only for the consumer to go home and sort of put some of them together and realize what a hassle it all is and then give up.

When the non-converted to wargaming actually watch an Official Shiny GW battle report with all the BS strategems and obscure rule gibberish and tedious listing of weapons profiles, I think your average fence-sitter about whether to invest in GW models will say "this game looks boring and stupid". You can sell the models easily, but the game system....is rather ugly.

People who aren't yet in the hobby obviously aren't going to be paying 6 bucks a month to be advertised to. The advertisements are going to be aimed at existing GW customers. Terrain is something GW has consistently struggled to sell to anywhere near the same volume as their miniatures. A big part - probably the main part - of these battle report shows is to get you to buy GW-branded terrain to go with your GW-branded miniatures.

Yeah……gonna need a citation for your claim their terrain kits struggle compared to their other offerings.

I mean, they don’t break it down on their own annual results, or even 6 month results. So gonna have to be a really well cited citation for your claim their fella.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Gregor Samsa wrote:
I'm not so sure battle reports really show GW products off very well to be honest. GW's strategy used to be setting up shop in malls trying to lure suckers into exchanging their just received paycheque for some space marines and paints, only for the consumer to go home and sort of put some of them together and realize what a hassle it all is and then give up.

When the non-converted to wargaming actually watch an Official Shiny GW battle report with all the BS strategems and obscure rule gibberish and tedious listing of weapons profiles, I think your average fence-sitter about whether to invest in GW models will say "this game looks boring and stupid". You can sell the models easily, but the game system....is rather ugly.

Aaaaaaaaaand a citation for this.

Grasp this in your cerebral tentacle, if you will.

GW = Biggest fish in the pond. GW are also the only fish in the pond with a substantial chain of their own shops, which offer intros and support to all levels of participants.

All you need to do is look at their offerings. It's not just some big coincidence that the have dozens of miniature ranges each consisting of dozens of kits, but only very limited terrain offerings, with typically a handful of pieces in each one.

Or look at anybody around you in the hobby. How many more people have GW miniatures than have GW terrain? It's probably 10:1 at least, if not more. For every guy with a complete set of sector mechanicus terrain there's probably 15 or 20 guys with genuine GW miniatures who don't own any GW terrain at all.

GW has a virutal monopoly on the miniatures used in its games (recasting and third party miniatures probably account for about 20% of the market, if that). But it's got nowhere near that grip on terrain used in its games. And youtube channels don't typically use GW terrain either, and they certainly don't use it exclusively. The biggest advantage of GW running its own battle reports is it gets you advertise its terrain to you. Tabletop Titans does a great job of selling GW miniatures for GW, but it does very little to sell GW terrain.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s…..it’s almost as if they’re a company, in the business of making as much money as possible, looking to show off all their goods in the best possible light.

Sure. But they control every aspect of this product (Battle Report) They did NOT have to set it on an agri-world. Yes, agri-worlds have cities, but the thing that makes them interesting is that they're essentially massive farms. Which we don't get to see, we get to see a city/ruined industrial facility. Why even draw attention to the fact it's an agri-world if you know you can't show us anything remotely...agri?

That's just a conflict between the lore and the reality of GW's business. The lore says its an agriworld, so it's an agriworld. But GW doesn't produce any agriworld terrain, so they can't make it actually look like an agriworld, because then they can't sell you what they're advertising to you.

It is what it is. It's also why GW-produced battle reports are not going to be very interesting aesthetically. They're limited to just using what GW can sell you. Youtube channels can do all sorts of more interesting stuff because their purpose is to attract viewers, not to push GW's terrain line.

Yeah... I don't see their terrain doing that well in the grand scheme of things. I feel like most people know more about/of things like model train railways than wargaming, wherein their tables are largely flock and bits of rock.

GW terrain isn't cheap, even by the most expensive standards of the hobby. The only places I've seen full blown boards made exclusively of GW stuff - even if it's just the buildings and not the boards/mats - are GW stores and the very occasional 40k-only Youtuber who tend to be mouthpieces for the company and desperate to be noticed however they can.

When even Lil Timmy probably recognises he can spray paint some used soda bottles and boxes for crates, rip apart some cardboard or hard foam for rubble and buildings, etc and spend his money on some more models he's probably going to do that. Most people also play at LFGS' where they usually provide the terrain in place of paying for a table (if that) which is even less incentive.

Terrain obviously sells well enough for GW to keep pumping it out semi-regularly, but compared to everything else it's probably way, way down there in terms of what's selling. I don't think it's an unreasonable assumption most people would rather buy new models/rules/paints over terrain and if you're hardcore enough to be into terrain/board building, you're probably looking to build from third parties anyway when GW's offerings are so limited.

They tried to push their own branded terrain with special rules in that book at the start of 9th edition that flopped so unbelievably hard that nobody even remembers it ever existed. It's clearly both something they're interested in doing - you don't put out a special book like that if you aren't - and something they're struggling with executing on.

No. That’s just another assertion without evidence.

Cronch wrote:

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
It’s…..it’s almost as if they’re a company, in the business of making as much money as possible, looking to show off all their goods in the best possible light.

Sure. But they control every aspect of this product (Battle Report) They did NOT have to set it on an agri-world. Yes, agri-worlds have cities, but the thing that makes them interesting is that they're essentially massive farms. Which we don't get to see, we get to see a city/ruined industrial facility. Why even draw attention to the fact it's an agri-world if you know you can't show us anything remotely...agri?

Because Ro-Billybob Guilliman doesn't sit on a porch in a rocking chair with his heavy bolter across his lap telling them nasty nuglings to keep out his crops.

He lands armies, armies need infrastructure, supplies, shockingly, yes, roads and buildings. Would you believe the people need to live somewhere, have communal congregations as well.

Mortarion doesn't subdue a populace by hiding in a grain silo away from major population centres. He needs to overthrow the local military and government.

Army > lands in built up area with infrastructure > majority of population in area with built up infrastructure > mortarion needs to overthrow local populace > mortarion goes to built up area.

Yes it would be fun to see a huge agricultural machine and have the entire board be obscuring and max range of 3" weapons due to the 30' tall super crops while troops take pot shots at each other off barn roofs and silos, because ofc that's entirely normal. But instead they opted to have a historical battle between 2 characters in a sensible location.

/rant over

So when are you guys buying your high quality, plastic, modular gaming surface for Warhammer 40,000? It is made from the same plastic as your Citadel miniatures, and each of the six 2’ x 2’ tile sections can be painted in exactly the same way as the rest of your miniature collection.

There are two tile designs in the set, three of each, which are inspired by the war torn streets of an Imperial city. They can be arranged in any number of different ways to produce an almost endless variety of combinations, with streets large enough to accommodate a Baneblade!

BrianDavion wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

BrianDavion wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

 Wha-Mu-077 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
So there's an article on "Battle Report", which is a tremendously original title for their W+ battle report videos.

Here's their WIP table for the first one (DG vs Ultramarines):


First of all: I hope that's not it. Planet bowling ball is a bad start.

Secondly, it suddenly reminded me that every "Battle Report" is going to take place on a Realm of Battle board. Great...

Also that's apparently supposed to take place on a "Rural Agri-World". Because when i think of a Rural planet filled with farms, what i picture is an empty industrial street with metal tiling, with generators, pipes, Churches and also random trenches. Look at it, there's not a single speck of dirt on that board!

Uuh...you weather your models before painting? Seeing paint covers it and you need weather again...whajt's the point?

You DO realize it's wip shot right? Nobody can miss that surely?


Again typical to you everything gw does is bad no matter what.

yeah it's kinda absurd to complaina bout the board's colours given it's obvious it hasn't been painted yet.

And i find it kinda absurd how everyone completly misses my entire point.

your entire point is the same as it always is "GW BAD!"

Point is GW decided to make their paid Battle Report said on an Agri-World and then decided to not make their board look like an Agri-World. Pretty straightforward.

Dudeface wrote:


Yes it would be fun to see a huge agricultural machine and have the entire board be obscuring and max range of 3" weapons due to the 30' tall super crops while troops take pot shots at each other off barn roofs and silos, because ofc that's entirely normal.

That would actually be interesting and something different than what you can already get on youtube for free. I'd love to see GW actually take W+ seriously that way and really push out the boundaries of the game both visually and in terms of gameplay, not just use it as a glorified advertising platform for their plastic. But it'll never happen.

Dudeface wrote:
Yes it would be fun to see a huge agricultural machine and have the entire board be obscuring and max range of 3" weapons due to the 30' tall super crops while troops take pot shots at each other off barn roofs and silos, because ofc that's entirely normal. But instead they opted to have a historical battle between 2 characters in a sensible location.

I mean... I get you're trying to be mocking and all, but... I'd rather watch that?

Dudeface wrote:
Yes it would be fun to see a huge agricultural machine and have the entire board be obscuring and max range of 3" weapons due to the 30' tall super crops while troops take pot shots at each other off barn roofs and silos, because ofc that's entirely normal. But instead they opted to have a historical battle between 2 characters in a sensible location.

It would be a diffrent, possibly more enjoyable experience than what you can get on YouTube for free so...

yukishiro1 wrote:
That's just a conflict between the lore and the reality of GW's business. The lore says its an agriworld, so it's an agriworld. But GW doesn't produce any agriworld terrain, so they can't make it actually look like an agriworld, because then they can't sell you what they're advertising to you.

This right here. WH+ is sort of funny if you compare it to Hasbro cartoons in the 1980s which were essentially a vehicle to create hype and demand for a toy line. White dwarf is already 75% advertising, this is just the next evolution of that idea.

It really makes me miss when GW was more about the hobby at large and not just the Games Workshop Hobby of buying their products and assembling them with their supporting products.

 Oguhmek wrote:
Yea this seems more like a "let's put these models down on a the board and see what happens" thing.

Well, except the article specifically states it isn't.

WarCom wrote:James: Our gaming presenter, Patrick, who you’ll get to know very well in the coming months, chose this particular battle. He spent a lot of time preparing everything – researching the setting, writing the army lists, and coming up with a suitable mission to play.

He then drew a sketch of how he saw the armies interacting with the scenery to recreate the clash as closely as possible. This gave the team a strong start from which we could use our modelling experience and knowledge of the Warhammer 40,000 terrain range to bring the battlefield to life.

This is the standard 'built historical encounter' type battlereport that used to feature in WD, where they prep heavily and spend time replaying until they get a suitably 'cinematic' result.
Its very much the opposite of 'put models down and see what happens'

I gotta say, GW making people angry at them results in so much earned advertising that it's hard to argue with.

That they as a company are so straightjacketed by their own corporate fear they can't have some pros break out the foam, balsa wood, and bits box to make an awesome bespoke board that looks like an agri-world, really speaks to how they are just waiting for their iceberg to appear in front of them and end it all, but until then, they're cranking out products and raking in cash. Mediocre cartoons, painting videos, and battle reports, included.

Here is the part of the app that I can’t wait to become reality for GW. No matter how hard certain people white Knight for GW, they can only buy the sub once. There is no pile of shame FOMO driven wife aggro producing stack of boxes.

There are no whales for this. When this fact sinks in, prepare for the insanity of massive in app purchases for all the things.

If they stick to narrative open play style bat reps I think it would work for them..

I don't see them doing any matched play "semi competitive" bat reps though... They seem to pretend nobody plays Warhammer like that and I see no reason why they'd change now