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A few questions on terrain/battlefields:

What type of terrain do you usually play on - thematic, mirrored, random, planet bowling ball etc?

What is your idea of a perfect battlefield?

Do you believe there are cases for unbalanced battlefields or stranger terrain setups?

I like a battlefield which doesn't, overall, favour one particular strategy.

Something where there are tight spaces with lots of LoS blocking terrain so that pure shooting can't easily win the day, but a battlefield were there are places that a gunline can set up and hope for a lucky round of shooting, and where vehicles can have their role.

It's a difficult combination, I'll admit, but basically I don't like a battlefield where only one tactic is ever going to be viable. I like to come into a map and try to think up a new way of getting to the enemy, new places to hold a last stand, etc. I'll happily play on the same battlefield over and over if there's no clear winning strat for the map.

 Ratius wrote:
A few questions on terrain/battlefields:

What type of terrain do you usually play on - thematic, mirrored, random, planet bowling ball etc?

What is your idea of a perfect battlefield?

Do you believe there are cases for unbalanced battlefields or stranger terrain setups?

My FLGS has a ton of ruined imperial buildings. and because im lazy i just ask an impartial person like the store owner to set up the table. thematically.

the Perfect table is one that is fully painted and properly themed. no miss matched terrain from 20 different settings.

the weakest table is the open barren wasteland.

I'd like to build my own table. I like the Mars wasteland scenario. I'd use large oblong boulders and craters as terrain.

In 7th I like a board with lots of big ruins to create conflict focal points while the areas inbetween are littered with light cover such as barracades, tank traps, barrels, etc. A few open ground areas are nice as well but there needs to be paths to take that have decent cover along the way. A big LoS blocker in middle area while there are small LoS blockers along the edges of the board (corners work well for that). Don't want the terrain to be perfectly mirrored but the general distribution of area terrain needs to be somewhat even so it isn't open plains for one board half while the other half is dense city ruins. I also like hills in terms of what it does for LoS and positioning but i hate how most hills just cause the models to slide off them so you end up fiddling with getting the models to stand and not pile up at the base of the hill.

In 8th I haven't found a good terrain style because the terrain/cover rules are a joke and is the biggest reason why I don't play 8th anymore.

Terrain, more than any other feature is the best way to create longevity in your game - force non-spam/tournament list builds and create actual narrative or depth on the table. If you can't be bothered to create interesting tables or (gasp) create some simple terrain rules for yourself, that just smacks of laziness.

Terrain or decent boards is probably the weakest aspect I've seen in 40K as a whole. While terrain and tables take pride of place in most other wargames I participate in, the general feeling I get from the 40K community is laziness, or lack of enthusiasm for the "3rd army".

I've not yet played 8th, but when I did play most of the tables available were very sparse in cover or real terrain - the then-loal FLGS just didn't have much to use. The current one appears to be much the same, though a bit better. Thinking about cranking them out some woodland terrain and donating it.

My ideal table is, as others have said, using a lot of LOS blocking / cover inducing terrain. I'm a fan of having regions of the table that interrupt a given strategy - dense areas that reduce the effectiveness of gunline armies, open areas where vehicles can dominate, etc. All the while looking like a real place!

In my opinion, terrain makes the game - both thematically, stylistically, and mechanically.

M.

I won a drawing at work last year and ended up with a 3d printer. I really haven't used it for much but have big plans if I ever find the time (since printing on it takes forever)

I've been buying 3d object files (for a comic project I'm working on, on the side) from Daz3d and Renderosity which some stuff would make good scenery pieces, but then there's also Printablescenery.com which has a lot of modular stuff specifically for wargaming.

The nice part is, once you buy the 3d object, you can print as many as you like (for personal use only of course) so I can see my tables getting pretty complex when I get back to it.

I much prefer a table full of scenery/terrain over lack of it.

We are spoiled by our FLGS, they have tons of terrain ranging from imperial ruins to rock formations. Whenever I set up a table it has a variety of tactical restrictions (bottlenecks, fatal funnel, or open areas).

If a vehicle is next to or in terrain and it blows up, the building is removed and a crater replaces it.

A table full of terrain just adds an additional layer of texture and nuance that the lack there of doesn't.

I love terrain. The more the better. Only thing is that vehicles on the table do need to be able to move. Did a tournament recently, and because someone broke the rules and brought a superheavy, it was actually too big to fit through most of the terrain on most of our tables! Heavy terrain rarely neuters shooty lists right now because it's so easy to get line of sight, but it massively changes the movement options available to most units. It's good for units to easily claim cover, and makes Iron Warriors and Imperial Fists and other cover-ignoring things more useful too. Lastly, some big LoS blocking terrain is great for making a "ring around the rosy" situation where both forces are chasing each other into better positions.

I like it when a table has matching pieces so that it looks thematic.
Functionally I like there to be a few LoS blocking pieces, but not enough to hide your whole army and far enough apart that you must risk being exposed if you wish to engage the enemy.
I also prefer both sides of the board to be relatively similar (mirrored) so that the chose of side becomes rather irrelevant.

I feel that this is the most fair for both players.

-

I like it "full 3d" - that means not only LOS blockers on flat battle mat, but actual height differences of the "base" level, both "up" (large footprint hills/concrete foundations etc) and "down" (like trenches or craters built in XPS base board...). It makes HUGE difference, if the "base" level just isn't flat. Then lots of LOS blockers, cover, barricades, catwalks etc, so that rules like Height Advantage matter. And of course use sensible terrain rules with all of this (one of the biggest flaws of "stock" 8th for me).

This is probably my why I rarely play at FLGSs, and prefer to play on my own terrain sets or with people who care about having great terrain as much as I do.

One other thing - I really dislike artificially symmetrical, "fair" terrain, it's simply boring as hell for me. I much prefer to play double match with switched deployment zones but have interesting map to "solve".

I build my own terrain. Most of it is ruins of a town or city out of cork tiles. I'm also working on some ork terrain as well.
I usually add books or magazines underneath the cloth I use to work like hills.
A perfect battlefield (to me) would be something that doesn't give an advantage to either player. Annoyingly, there aren't many like this. Most have lots of LOS blocking terrain or not much, giving the advantage one way or the other.
I played a game recently where there was a lot of LOS blocking terrain and that made it very hard to move my vehicles around. Too much terrain is bad, and so is not enough.

Since I use Legos for terrain, every battle has been different from one battle to the next, because I usually spend half the day creating all the pieces of terrain for the battle at hand. Then we take turns placing the pieces. Or I just set it up in advance and give my opponents their choice of deployment zones.

It works like a charm every time!

Thematic in short but whats been really important is differing elivations both up and down. With los being so important this really adds depth to the game

 Galef wrote:
I like it when a table has matching pieces so that it looks thematic.
Functionally I like there to be a few LoS blocking pieces, but not enough to hide your whole army and far enough apart that you must risk being exposed if you wish to engage the enemy.
I also prefer both sides of the board to be relatively similar (mirrored) so that the chose of side becomes rather irrelevant.

I feel that this is the most fair for both players.

-

Is it possible for elevation to effectively "break" LOS? Like, if I roll a Russ up alongside a 10 floor building on the table, can it shoot straight up 10 floors?

M.

Here's a couple of pics from tonites Cities of Death 2k
Death Guard & World Eaters vs Salamanders, ImpFist & Custodes.

We loved the variety of terrain. A good mix of everything. Hella fun had by all.

So if I had no limit on expanse and I could draft in some of the most creative people I know..

I'd love to create a table that's in the eye of terror. A table that's inside the warp, with some other worldly terrain and some real funky flooring (maybe even LEDS through the bottom of it)

In my mind it looks amazing.

Racerguy180 wrote:
Here's a couple of pics from tonites Cities of Death 2k
Death Guard & World Eaters vs Salamanders, ImpFist & Custodes.

We loved the variety of terrain. A good mix of everything. Hella fun had by all.

That is a very fine example of having drastically not enough terrain on the table for my taste. Unfortunately, this is also a fine example of typical FLGS terrain amount per table.

I have like to have themed boards for my games as follows
Ruined city
City industry
Out of town industry
Tank trap and craters no mans land
Imperial shrine complex
Imperial military base complex
Contryside/medieval ruins
Overhead pipeline /pumping station
Junkyard
Stone slab/massifs
Ork stronghold

My gaming group has a substantial terrain collection, and we usually go with a balanced set up with lots of cover and LOS blocking. It's not super thematic, but it keeps one player from having a huge advantage in deployment zone.

nou wrote:

Racerguy180 wrote:
Here's a couple of pics from tonites Cities of Death 2k
Death Guard & World Eaters vs Salamanders, ImpFist & Custodes.

We loved the variety of terrain. A good mix of everything. Hella fun had by all.

That is a very fine example of having drastically not enough terrain on the table for my taste. Unfortunately, this is also a fine example of typical FLGS terrain amount per table.

The other large pieces of terrain were being used on another table. I was just using it as an example of having varied but thematic terrain.

I would love to have something like the table in the brb for cities of death.

forgot to add that it was vanguard deployment.

Just to give a visual sample of what I like, one of my setups for a 1500pts, 7th ed game (used couple of times with various deployment zones, it's 5.5'x4', far right .5' is left out):

that's killer...both literally and figuratively

I prefer thematic, asymmetrical battlefield terrain with the taller stuff more toward the center than favoring any one side. Dynamic variety in levels is equally good and I find, especially with 8th's new movement rules no longer worrying about "difficult" terrain, that it adds tactical options to an otherwise flat playing surface. Now, I build all my own terrain and tend to make really large, but mostly flat hills that act as a secondary base for other terrain features to sit on.

The battle for a cross roads, where a few buildings cluster around a road junction in the off-center of the table with only sparse vegetation and rocks for cover leading up to it, can be just as interesting as a dense urban cityscape or a fetid alien jungle. Variation is awesome.

My rule of thumb has been, instead of rolling to see which side players choose, one of us sets up terrain and the other chooses their side. Then we place objectives.

That's just my 2 cents.

Very few games in modern 40k come close to the feel of a real battlefield with the sparseness of terrain
Factory


Exodite Maze

AirStrip

Coastal Refinery

CityFight



Automatically Appended Next Post:

licclerich wrote:
I have like to have themed boards for my games as follows
Ruined city
City industry
Out of town industry
Tank trap and craters no mans land
Imperial shrine complex
Imperial military base complex
Contryside/medieval ruins
Overhead pipeline /pumping station
Junkyard
Stone slab/massifs
Ork stronghold

We do the same...and love your settings....you are making an area that a battle takes place in....not just setting up a board as a battlefield.

 admironheart wrote:
Very few games in modern 40k come close to the feel of a real battlefield with the sparseness of terrain

Spoiler:

Factory


Exodite Maze

AirStrip

Coastal Refinery

CityFight

Automatically Appended Next Post:

licclerich wrote:
I have like to have themed boards for my games as follows
Ruined city
City industry
Out of town industry
Tank trap and craters no mans land
Imperial shrine complex
Imperial military base complex
Contryside/medieval ruins
Overhead pipeline /pumping station
Junkyard
Stone slab/massifs
Ork stronghold

We do the same...and love your settings....you are making an area that a battle takes place in....not just setting up a board as a battlefield.

My board is currently WiP but here is the gist of it:

- industrial style 6x4 mousemat
- depending on flavour, lower height ruins along the outer ring of the board
- centre 2x2 will be a big scenic piece, which is quite high
- several types of scatter terrain

The idea is to force movement and deny early sniper shots with lots of low cover leading to the boards center. The center will have the highest vertical height, to serve a dual purpose of being full LoS blocking and stop people climbing a tower in deployment and just snipe.

Lower rung buildings will be a mixture of small Gothic buildings, Ryza pattern ruins and assorted defensive trenches.
Center scenic piece will be large Gothic buildings, sector Mechanicus built up or large fortress works.

I prefer dense LOS blocking with a variety of elevations.