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Everyone at my shop's been playing with the recommended GT terrain layouts recently, and I haven't really been enjoying it. I feel like the excessive line of sight blocking terrain promotes a "trading" meta where you throw out a few units and bait out other units. It's been pretty obnoxious with units like Riptides and Eldar that move out of obscuring, shoot, then move back behind obscuring. The winner basically becomes who can play the trading game better.

I've always been a fan of the ITC layouts of 8th edition (hills in 2 corners, ruins in 2 corners, dense on the sides, and two line of sight blocking center pieces).

I'm a fan of not having standard terrain and having each table be different so you can't prep and game the game in that manner.

I "feel" that it shows that gw knows that their fancy new terrain rules don't work very well to curb the excessive lethality that they've built into most of the 9th edition codexes outside of big Obscurring area pieces, and that's why they spam them all over their tournament boards.

It's interesting to hear people descibe them as "terrain everywhere".
They look quite light to me.
There's a large amount of the board just not covered, with lots of sightlines.

I don't mind a trading game, as that's both an abstraction of real war and interesting from a gameplay point of view. Better than the free-swinging haymaker game we'd get on less restrictive terrain.

That said, I do stand firmly in the same camp as auticus above: the game is better when there is no terrain template and every scenario is uniquely built. Variety between table setups keeps the game fun and harder to calculate through beforehand.

I don't like the death of immersion have the same odd big corners everywhere. Just doesn't look fun to play on.

Plus the battlefields look quite open.

And ultimately look artificial, not engaging.

As someone with very little interaction with the competitive 40K world I'm curious about this issue.

When these layouts were released people freaked out (because they look like extremely boring, unaesthetic, and unrealistic planned neighbourhoods).

But at LVO (the most competitive 40K event?) they used player-placed terrain (which looked like extremely erratic, unaesthetic, and unrealistic earthquake epicentres).

So are the layouts even being adopted by the competitive scene, or are many of them aping the LVO conditions?

So by the recommended terrain layouts I assume your speaking of these:
https://www.warhammer-community.com/2021/06/29/metawatch-warhammer-40000-building-beautiful-balanced-battlefields-for-grand-tournament-play/

I don't like nor use them and I also won't play in any event that uses them because of several reasons.

These layouts only use Ruins and 4 pieces of Dense cover that are in almost useless locations on both templates. These setups leave out things like barricades, objects like crates, difficult terrain forests, etc..... The ruins locations also don't work well on certain missions and the firing lanes on Table B are all sorts of screwed up. Tables A and B are also murder to non-flying vehicle movement. Vehicles can move over barricades, but not through the walls of ruins.

I like setting up a table to the mission which I think is better as you can place terrain and setup your firing lanes that make sense to where the objectives are. I usually setup the entire table for my opponent and always ask him if he would like anything moved, removed, or added and not once has someone even changed my table setup.

Because of the lethality power creep and literally everything getting AP -1 and AP -2 the table does need to be setup with enough LOS blocking to make sure your not losing too much per turn, but having some Dense cover in the middle of the board to hand out more -1 to Hit helps protect all unit types including vehicles or using (barricades / difficult area terrain) to slow down fast CC units running across the table.

The recommended terrain layouts are just boring, uninspired, and only use Ruins to attempt to balance the game. There are other terrain types and ways to setup the table with good firing lanes that don't feel like just moving another unit into the open to get destroyed......Well until the next codex comes out with all AP -4 weapons with re-roll everything for 1cp.

I am currently working on Necron terrain for my own table and will absolutely post some pics of what I think makes a good terrain setup for some criticism when I get the chance.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Altruizine wrote:

But at LVO (the most competitive 40K event?) they used player-placed terrain (which looked like extremely erratic, unaesthetic, and unrealistic earthquake epicentres).

This is definitely way worse than 2 boring templates. I would rather have good tournament organizers that know how to make a fair and balanced terrain setup using more than 2 different terrain types. I don't think people are really asking for miracles here. We know there is only so much that can be done about the power creep.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It's interesting to hear people descibe them as "terrain everywhere".
They look quite light to me.
There's a large amount of the board just not covered, with lots of sightlines.

It isn't "terrain everywhere". It's an over-reliance on one type of terrain over all of the others: big OBSCURRING area terrain pieces, in a symmetrical layout. Noir Eternal explained it very well.

Oh I see what you mean, then I agree.

Awful awful homogenisation that the usual crowd are going to toss themselves off over, just like with the "standard" board sizes for 40k.

I'll continue to ignore both.

 Grimtuff wrote:
Awful awful homogenisation that the usual crowd are going to toss themselves off over, just like with the "standard" board sizes for 40k.

What 'usual crowd' do you mean? So far the opinions in this thread are (rightly, imo) very negative.

Horrific.
Blasphemous.
Anti-fun.
Anti-creativity.
Rage-inducing.

I could go on.

I think if you played every game using such layouts things would get real boring.

Fortunately I don't play in tournies & i don't play with people who'd insist on setting terrain up like that.

I think you should be able to game terrain, games should be decided on the table, not by lottery of who goes to what table. It's unfair for Monoliths to be terrible in a tournament, but you can test out ahead of time whether they'll be terrible (if they cannot move then the answer is probably that they'll be terrible). I have tried using Monoliths on dense tables just to see what it was like, but it was something I sought out and not something I want to have sprung on me by surprise.

There is no balanced terrain setup, for that to be possible GW would have needed to set down rules for their competitive playtesters about what terrain to use and then balance the points costs based on their feedback. All long-ranged weapons would have to be in the same ballpark of efficiency to mobility/durability ratio, all ignore LOS weapons would have to be in the same ballpark, all melee, slow, tanky, etc, etc. Instead we see a few long-ranged units that are good, a few aircraft, a few vehicles, lots of infantry, a few transports. There is no rhyme or reason to which units are OP. So if you make a table that is good for aircraft it is fair to the overcosted aircraft and unfair for the undercosted aircraft and vice versa.

The game isn't being properly playtested, which led to AdMech being released and this terrain pack was meant to mitigate how OP AdMech were, unfortunately it also nerfs a bunch of units that do not need nerfs and buffs units that do not need buffs.

I think the silliest thing is that you have objectives inside terrain, which goes against the rules.

 kirotheavenger wrote:
It's interesting to hear people descibe them as "terrain everywhere".
They look quite light to me.
There's a large amount of the board just not covered, with lots of sightlines.

We talked about this before - here's the article link - https://www.goonhammer.com/hammer-of-math-deploying-fortifications-in-40k-9th-edition/

One thing you may be doing differently is not playing them as Area Terrain.
This looks pretty open - but if you look close you can see the plexiglass footprint which would cause issues trying to cut those corners in a vehicle etc.


Until you turn it into a 2D squares and rectangles because of the Area Terrain



The Gray areas are the terrain footprints, the blue is open, the Orange is a 3" buffer for the fortification placement rules they were talking about the green is a Hammerfall bunker.

When people build their version of the map the terrain might go to the edge of the plexiglass or even be slightly larger or maybe a piece of terrain gets bumped, that's when you prevent models like a Monolith from moving.

Definitely not a fan.

We have a terrain system which technically allows a lot of different possibilities and we are restricting the boards to only 2 terrain types.

In a word: zzzzz

What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Spoletta wrote:
We have a terrain system which technically allows a lot of different possibilities and we are restricting the boards to only 2 terrain types.

Because this is Tournament Edition 40k, so even terrain has to be part of the meta, specifically is has to never get in the way of the meta, and thus must be the same bland layouts each time to match the bland mission design.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Knights?

Spoletta wrote:
We have a terrain system which technically allows a lot of different possibilities and we are restricting the boards to only 2 terrain types.

Because this is Tournament Edition 40k, so even terrain has to be part of the meta, specifically is has to never get in the way of the meta, and thus must be the same bland layouts each time to match the bland mission design.

Don't forget it also looks like GW is leaning into it as well. Vehicles were frequently bad even before these terrain templates. Aeldari and Tau both got some Shoot And Scoot ability. A resurgence of Indirect Fire.

Breton wrote:
Knights?

That strikes me as a Knights problem, not a problem with objective placement.

Breton wrote:
Don't forget it also looks like GW is leaning into it as well. Vehicles were frequently bad even before these terrain templates. Aeldari and Tau both got some Shoot And Scoot ability. A resurgence of Indirect Fire.

Is there a resurgence of Indirect Fire weaponry?

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Warzone Nachmund wrote:Terrain features cannot be set up on top of objective markers.

It's just silly that GW couldn't make a terrain pack without breaking their own rules.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

Breton wrote:
Knights?

That strikes me as a Knights problem, not a problem with objective placement.

It strikes me as a game design problem - if the faction has to play pure, and can't play the game that way - that's a game design issue.

Breton wrote:
Don't forget it also looks like GW is leaning into it as well. Vehicles were frequently bad even before these terrain templates. Aeldari and Tau both got some Shoot And Scoot ability. A resurgence of Indirect Fire.

Is there a resurgence of Indirect Fire weaponry?

According to the articles -
Tau List loaded up on Airbursting Fragmentation Projectors, Smart Missile Systems - and Some analysis about Indirect Fire replacing Aircraft in the meta

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Probably an overreaction to 8th edition ITC terrain with "magic boxes".

I've not played on the GW terrain yet, I play on a couple of different UK "fixed" terrain set ups regularly instead, which I, in a very unbiased fashion, believe are far superior to the US led GW setup.

UKTC - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RBPEP26UJyRmNRJ5XyZ-yoLzQGHO07Vg9XReeVl1DqA/edit

Glasshammer - https://www.glasshammergaming.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nachmund-Terrain-Layouts.pdf

Glasshammer have altered their terrain positioning since Nachmund came out to allow more maneuverability for Knights. As they note, 5" of space is enough for a 130mm base to fit through which I assume lets a Knight fit through.

Terrain like this is the only way to have a sensible game of 40k in my opinion. If you are building your own one off terrain board, you should probably be trying to replicate the basic concepts shown in these layouts.

Even with these terrain set ups, you still have occasional problems with armies with large "footprints" being unable to hide turn one. And in a tournament game, if your unit isn't hidden turn one it is probably dead turn one.

I'm not buying the "it would be boring playing lots of games on this terrain" argument from the usual suspects, because lets face it as we know from the goonhammer survey, 55% of 40k players play less than 1 game a month and only 21% more than 2 games a month. You can play 9 "unique" games on the Glasshammer terrain. That is 9 months of gaming for 55% of people and probably 900 months for some of the posters on here.

I'm also not buying the "oh my gosh, you can game the terrain" argument from the same motley collection of posters. If you go to a tournament, you will meet plenty of players that barely know the GW missions they are about to play, are these the same players that are supposed to be studying the terrain for hours on end to extract every advantage? No, the people who do game the terrain are the ones who are already "gaming" the missions, "gaming" the meta, "gaming" the game basically. At that point it just adds a new interesting layer to preparation for the small number of players who actually have a chance of winning the tournament.

The usual suspects?

 vict0988 wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Warzone Nachmund wrote:Terrain features cannot be set up on top of objective markers.

It's just silly that GW couldn't make a terrain pack without breaking their own rules.

Wasn't this done because GW let people replace a terrain pice with a faction terrain?

Not you HBMC, you are a good lad with many sensible posts that I hit the exalt button on.

Some of the I-don't-play-40k-but-have-lots-of-opinions-on-it-crowd are already here, but I expect the other 'game designers' will migrate over from "what now?", "what 40k should be", "railgun vs knights" and the "do they completely just make it up" threads.

Just a general frustration comment given how gummed up threads get with posts from people who clearly haven't played much 9th edition.

All the worst play experience tournaments I've been to have been where each table was different with a bunch of terrain taken from the venue's available selection. These tournaments are just as easy to game as the fixed terrain ones, you just take the best shooting army in the meta because you can almost always guarantee huge fire lanes onto something important in a couple of your matches.

EightFoldPath wrote:


Some of the I-don't-play-40k-but-have-lots-of-opinions-on-it-crowd are already here, but I expect the other 'game designers' will migrate over from "what now?", "what 40k should be", "railgun vs knights" and the "do they completely just make it up" threads.

Just a general frustration comment given how gummed up threads get with posts from people who clearly haven't played much 9th edition.

One does not need to eat dog gak to know it will taste bad...

EightFoldPath wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
What's wrong with objectives in buildings anyway? The idea that objectives should only be in the open doesn't make any sense, unless I'm missing somethin.

Probably an overreaction to 8th edition ITC terrain with "magic boxes".

I've not played on the GW terrain yet, I play on a couple of different UK "fixed" terrain set ups regularly instead, which I, in a very unbiased fashion, believe are far superior to the US led GW setup.

UKTC - https://docs.google.com/document/d/1RBPEP26UJyRmNRJ5XyZ-yoLzQGHO07Vg9XReeVl1DqA/edit

Glasshammer - https://www.glasshammergaming.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Nachmund-Terrain-Layouts.pdf

Glasshammer have altered their terrain positioning since Nachmund came out to allow more maneuverability for Knights. As they note, 5" of space is enough for a 130mm base to fit through which I assume lets a Knight fit through.

Terrain like this is the only way to have a sensible game of 40k in my opinion. If you are building your own one off terrain board, you should probably be trying to replicate the basic concepts shown in these layouts.

Even with these terrain set ups, you still have occasional problems with armies with large "footprints" being unable to hide turn one. And in a tournament game, if your unit isn't hidden turn one it is probably dead turn one.

I'm not buying the "it would be boring playing lots of games on this terrain" argument from the usual suspects, because lets face it as we know from the goonhammer survey, 55% of 40k players play less than 1 game a month and only 21% more than 2 games a month. You can play 9 "unique" games on the Glasshammer terrain. That is 9 months of gaming for 55% of people and probably 900 months for some of the posters on here.

I'm also not buying the "oh my gosh, you can game the terrain" argument from the same motley collection of posters. If you go to a tournament, you will meet plenty of players that barely know the GW missions they are about to play, are these the same players that are supposed to be studying the terrain for hours on end to extract every advantage? No, the people who do game the terrain are the ones who are already "gaming" the missions, "gaming" the meta, "gaming" the game basically. At that point it just adds a new interesting layer to preparation for the small number of players who actually have a chance of winning the tournament.

We play mostly on UKTC and i must say it killed almost all melee armies. Only custodes are fine on it, because they dont`t really need terrain.
It`s to open with to little place to hide big footprint models and armies.
Vehicles with 10 or less move are hard stuck on this terrain, since in most missions there is nothing in the middle except ruins that give -1 to hit and are hard ground.
60% of the games are just decided by the who go first roll, so i`m not a fan on this setup. Would personally would prefer terrain that decrease the value of the fist turn.