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Not a huge fan of the terrain rules. I think GW are right that there were too many weird traits and combos in 9th, but reducing everything to +1 to save feels like the wrong direction to take. I like that they seem to have thought a bit more about how to get the benefits of cover in each case, but removing Dense, in particular, feels like a big step back. Having cover do more things than just improve your save made the battlefield more interactive, even if 9th didn't get it quite right.

It also seems as though they're sticking with model-by-model resolution of attacks, which is annoying. I had really hoped they would streamline the attack sequence so we didn't have to worry about individual models taking saves in a unit. I suspect this will lead to problems with FNP and multi-wound models as it does at the moment.

The plunging fire is nice. The hills are nice. It makes them more tactical, at least.

 Tyran wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Meh, we've rolled terrain, at best, to the first of its truly neutered incarnations of 5th edition, cover saves are handed out like candy but no matter how dense the board is it's a pure shooting gallery because nothing actually blocks LOS to a meaningful degree.

Ruins block LoS to anything not aircraft or towering.

Not if they have open doors and windows.

The article heavily implies ruins still BLOS

Ruins – These wrecked and damaged structures completely block visibility of all models*** through their footprint, regardless of how much you can see through their fancy gothic windows. Otherwise, models outside can shoot in, and models inside can shoot out.

It's not implied, it's outright stated in the "completely block visibility of all models*** through their footprint, regardless of how much you can see through their fancy gothic windows"

Into and out of ruins, but not through is pretty simple and intuitive. Wish they did more with the terrain, but maybe they can add more complex terrain rules later in an update or expansion.

Dudeface wrote:

 Tyran wrote:

 Platuan4th wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Meh, we've rolled terrain, at best, to the first of its truly neutered incarnations of 5th edition, cover saves are handed out like candy but no matter how dense the board is it's a pure shooting gallery because nothing actually blocks LOS to a meaningful degree.

Ruins block LoS to anything not aircraft or towering.

Not if they have open doors and windows.

The article heavily implies ruins still BLOS

Ruins – These wrecked and damaged structures completely block visibility of all models*** through their footprint, regardless of how much you can see through their fancy gothic windows. Otherwise, models outside can shoot in, and models inside can shoot out.

It's not implied, it's outright stated in the "completely block visibility of all models*** through their footprint, regardless of how much you can see through their fancy gothic windows"

Yeah, see that now. Why it's not in the actual rule picture for Ruins is baffling(I skipped the non-rule section text the first read through).

Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

So I am sticking with my statement that I need to see all of it together and play a few games with a few factions to really know if this is going to be good or bad...however.


When I first saw the terrain rule I was like, "oh no" they screwed this up. However after reading the full article I think this system can work. Yes there may be some issues with "not fully visible" with people saying "oh my one tip of my laser cannon is behind this obelisk so my whole baneblade is in cover" type crap, but I play mostly friendly games where this should be far less of a problem. But I do like the rule because now there is actually a point to use hills, small terrain pieces like obelisks, shipping crates etc. Before most of this stuff did not block line of sight in any meaningful way so basically was just cool looking but did not really affect the game. Now if my tank is partly behind a hill or crate it actually gets some benefit. I also am glad they kept what is essentially obscuring for ruins. I like removing of dense and just making trees ruins you can see through. The -1 really hurt some armies more than others, or was completely wasted. The no cover for 3+ v ap0 is interesting. But if what they say is true and ap is down across the board this is probably necessary as the new rules are throwing out a lot of cover saves. With all the changes to T, lower ap, liberal granting of benefits of cover, potentially less shots with twin-linked, the game is looking less lethal which is good.

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

Invulnerable saves are bad. Also you can get cover with a 3+ as long as the weapon has AP.

 xeen wrote:
Yes there may be some issues with "not fully visible" with people saying "oh my one tip of my laser cannon is behind this obelisk so my whole baneblade is in cover" type crap,

I don't think this will be a problem competitively, but I do wonder if a Baneblade will be TOWERING.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

Invulnerable saves are bad. Also you can get cover with a 3+ as long as the weapon has AP.

In practice does mean you aren't getting anything better than a 3+ with cover.

 Tyran wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

Invulnerable saves are bad. Also you can get cover with a 3+ as long as the weapon has AP.

In practice does mean you aren't getting anything better than a 3+ with cover.

Which I think is great. With AP dropping giving terminators easy cover would have made them central to the game. It might not be perfect, but they at least thought about the consequences.

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

Invulnerable saves are bad. Also you can get cover with a 3+ as long as the weapon has AP.

 xeen wrote:
Yes there may be some issues with "not fully visible" with people saying "oh my one tip of my laser cannon is behind this obelisk so my whole baneblade is in cover" type crap,

I don't think this will be a problem competitively, but I do wonder if a Baneblade will be TOWERING.

Invulns also flatly benefit some armies more than others, it's not dynamic with an AP system, it's a hard check against it. So daemons basically exist out in the open all the time, marines might as well not bother often and you'll find orks hunkering behind crates waiting to ambush waaaagh.

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

I would prefer a system that combines both.

The "invulnerable saves" would be for soft cover in which you are simulating making the target harder to hit (what right now is dense cover) while the +1 to saves would be hard cover in which you are simulating solid physical obstacles.

So firing through foliage, smoke and similar "hard to see through" obstacles would give a cover save while being inside a ruin or partially behind a wall would give +1 to saves.

So the assumption is that terrain has more rules than what is pictured?

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The plunging fire is nice. The hills are nice. It makes them more tactical, at least.

Eh...

Plunging fire is my big concern. Having a big tower to deploy your shooting units on has often been a balance concern. Giving them +1 AP against stuff on the ground in an edition which is trying to cut back on AP seems nuts.

I think limiting cover to a 3+ save is quite a good idea. It stops the "My Marines are in cover, I have a 2+ save and laugh at AP-"/"What do you mean GW gave AP-1 to everything in the game, and my Marines out of cover die to a stiff breeze?"

 Tyran wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:

 Gnarlly wrote:
Terrain/cover rules are the first miss for me with these new rules previews. While I don't expect them to get rid of TLOS and go back to 4th edition's terrain rules, I expected something better than just +1 to armor save, with 3+ being the maximum. I think I would have preferred invulnerable saves (4+, 5+, or 6+) depending on the type and density of the cover.

Invulnerable saves are bad. Also you can get cover with a 3+ as long as the weapon has AP.

In practice does mean you aren't getting anything better than a 3+ with cover.

Unless you got a 2+ and get shot with AP -1 weapons, if i read that correctly. It remains to be seen how relevant these are, as AP seems to have been reduced across the board. Overall the Benefits of cover seem to be a passable, if a bit crutchy, solution. They get a plus mark for keywording the conditional stuff away, which allows other abilities to play off of 'being in cover' without repeating boilerplate conditions every time.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So the assumption is that terrain has more rules than what is pictured?

Maybe a sentence or two that's referenced elsewhere in the book in other sections maybe? I.e. the ruins exemptions might be on the Towering or Aircraft keywords, so wouldn't make sense to be on the little snippet.

At best I'm lukewarm to these terrain rules. They do not strike me as being very comprehensive.

The woods... as written you can have one model in the open and high up on a Hill shooting another model in the open, high up on a Hill with absolutely nothing obscuring LoS, but if theirs Woods in the valley between the high Hills, the target receives the Benefit of Cover.

 Platuan4th wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
Meh, we've rolled terrain, at best, to the first of its truly neutered incarnations of 5th edition, cover saves are handed out like candy but no matter how dense the board is it's a pure shooting gallery because nothing actually blocks LOS to a meaningful degree.

Ruins block LoS to anything not aircraft or towering.

Not if they have open doors and windows.

Uhhuh did you read article? Blocks los same as obscuring did in 9e.




Automatically Appended Next Post:

Slipspace wrote:
Not a huge fan of the terrain rules. I think GW are right that there were too many weird traits and combos in 9th, but reducing everything to +1 to save feels like the wrong direction to take. I like that they seem to have thought a bit more about how to get the benefits of cover in each case, but removing Dense, in particular, feels like a big step back. Having cover do more things than just improve your save made the battlefield more interactive, even if 9th didn't get it quite right.

It also seems as though they're sticking with model-by-model resolution of attacks, which is annoying. I had really hoped they would streamline the attack sequence so we didn't have to worry about individual models taking saves in a unit. I suspect this will lead to problems with FNP and multi-wound models as it does at the moment.

Alternatives is supreme hard to benefit(aos style) or 1 guy sticks foot in cover and whole unit benefits.

 oni wrote:

The woods... as written you can have one model high up on a hill shooting another model high up on a hill with absolutely nothing obscuring LoS, but if theirs Woods in the valley between the high Hills, the target receives the Benefit of Cover.

I thought it was a generally accepted convention in wargames that 'woods' on the table do not actually represent the actual number of trees/plants nor their real height and size, and should be read as an abstraction. In that case, blocking LoS is fine enough for me.

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So the assumption is that terrain has more rules than what is pictured?

Maybe a sentence or two that's referenced elsewhere in the book in other sections maybe? I.e. the ruins exemptions might be on the Towering or Aircraft keywords, so wouldn't make sense to be on the little snippet.

Exemptions to what? If ruins are supposed to block LOS it needs to say so in the ruins rules, not a WarCom article padding text.

Tyel wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The plunging fire is nice. The hills are nice. It makes them more tactical, at least.

Plunging fire is my big concern. Having a big tower to deploy your shooting units on has often been a balance concern. Giving them +1 AP against stuff on the ground in an edition which is trying to cut back on AP seems nuts.

We are going to need terrain deployment rules that avoid deploying 6"+ ruins in deployment zones.

Also would have preferred it giving ignore cover instead of +1 to AP.

 lord_blackfang wrote:

Dudeface wrote:

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So the assumption is that terrain has more rules than what is pictured?

Maybe a sentence or two that's referenced elsewhere in the book in other sections maybe? I.e. the ruins exemptions might be on the Towering or Aircraft keywords, so wouldn't make sense to be on the little snippet.

Exemptions to what? If ruins are supposed to block LOS it needs to say so in the ruins rules, not a WarCom article padding text.

I'd imagine there's another sentence or two about ruins to do with area footprints, maybe a generic sentence in the terrain section about how you are to assume doors/windows are true line of sight apart from ruins. Maybe that rule is in the intro/shooting/LOS rules instead. Stop trying to make a problem out a preview article that's perfectly clear in its communication.

Edit: this isn't a photo of the page or the exact rules verbatim, you do realise that, yes?

Although not terribly complex or new I overall like the rules.

Capping the save at 3+ I'd argue is quite good if we want to keep AP Low in this edition. If everyone is in cover with +1 save and no ap then the game comes to a standstill.

I also liked that they removed the -1 to hit. A +1 to save and -1 to hit is annoying gamewise even if lorewise one might like it.

Okay, so benefit of cover on or in, and obscuring through. Correct?

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although not terribly complex or new I overall like the rules.

Capping the save at 3+ I'd argue is quite good if we want to keep AP Low in this edition. If everyone is in cover with +1 save and no ap then the game comes to a standstill.

I also liked that they removed the -1 to hit. A +1 to save and -1 to hit is annoying gamewise even if lorewise one might like it.

it's not capped at 3+ tho.

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although not terribly complex or new I overall like the rules.

Capping the save at 3+ I'd argue is quite good if we want to keep AP Low in this edition. If everyone is in cover with +1 save and no ap then the game comes to a standstill.

I also liked that they removed the -1 to hit. A +1 to save and -1 to hit is annoying gamewise even if lorewise one might like it.

it's not capped at 3+ tho.

It's not possible to get a 2+ in cover.

I like the terrain preview so far. Means the scatter terrain actually has a purpose now, and with Precision USR presumably letting the attacker allocate wounds to a specific model, sniper type attacks have more value.

 lord_blackfang wrote:
So the assumption is that terrain has more rules than what is pictured?

Probably - there's no mention of the concept of difficult ground in the article, and I'd be surprised if craters, etc. didn't slow units down.

Dudeface wrote:

 VladimirHerzog wrote:

 Eldarsif wrote:
Although not terribly complex or new I overall like the rules.

Capping the save at 3+ I'd argue is quite good if we want to keep AP Low in this edition. If everyone is in cover with +1 save and no ap then the game comes to a standstill.

I also liked that they removed the -1 to hit. A +1 to save and -1 to hit is annoying gamewise even if lorewise one might like it.

it's not capped at 3+ tho.

It's not possible to get a 2+ in cover.

terminators/custodes agaisnt ap1 in cover?

Tyel wrote:

 Daedalus81 wrote:
The plunging fire is nice. The hills are nice. It makes them more tactical, at least.

Eh...

Plunging fire is my big concern. Having a big tower to deploy your shooting units on has often been a balance concern. Giving them +1 AP against stuff on the ground in an edition which is trying to cut back on AP seems nuts.

I think limiting cover to a 3+ save is quite a good idea. It stops the "My Marines are in cover, I have a 2+ save and laugh at AP-"/"What do you mean GW gave AP-1 to everything in the game, and my Marines out of cover die to a stiff breeze?"

Back when towers were a thing they were used often, because it gave heavy cover to devastators. Being at the top of a ruins doesn't give much extra protection comparatively and exposes them a bit. And it basically has to be the third floor, which is usually spare in floor space -- though I can see people making big second floor ruins at 6".