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So far GW has been producing the same type of terrains for the past decade or so. I know some old models are desperately in need of update (such as those ugly Dark Reapers), but what about the environment where the game is set in?

I am tired of seeing Imperial buildings every time even when it is Orks fighting Dark Eldar. If you want Tau or Ork city blocks, you have to make them yourself. I understand terrain is not a priority for GW because people don't buy terrain pieces; it is the GW stores that put them in place so that people can have a public game.

What do you think? Will you be glad to see a GW store that does make Tau or Ork or Chaos buildings to decorate the gaming table you are playing on?

I doubt there's eneugh demand for a huge range of xenos terrain.
First off, Chaos Terrain would, MOSTLY be defaced IoM terrain, (I'd love to see something like a big chaos shrine though) Chaos, outside of deamons, and let's face it, you can't invade the Warp.. (unless your name is Kaldor Dragio) so Chaos would presumably use well IoM terrain sets, this means over all about 14 armies (I'm including Genestealer cults as "imperium" in this case as they are arcitectually) of 23 armies, are Imperial, at least inso far as their architecture goes. So it makes sense to use that terrain. Simply put, assuming a healthy community where every army is equally well represented, it simply is more likely to make sense to have IoM buildings then not, more often then not

Third parties do a good selection - Kromlech do an Ork Town, for example.

From memory, the Tau Fortifications didn't sell as well as GW hoped, so that might add to their reluctance.

Sadly Imperium's the only thing in 40k GeeDubs considers worth investing in to any greater extent that an odd model here and there.

But, yeah - it's nice to have terrain from other cultures, like chaos having buildings made from the ground up by them, instead of just imperial stuff they sanctified.

Well if you consider the fluff POV, Imperium of Man has pretty much settled every hospitable planet known, so there is an abundance of imperial worlds i.e. imperial terrain to fight over. Whereas Tau are a pretty young race with maybe a couple of planets afaik. And Orks are not known for their knack of building cities. All in all, Imperial buildings and ruins just make the most sense from background and commercial reasons.

There are always the 3rd parties and of course DIY if you want something else.

Uh no Imperium does not control every hospitable planet. Orks have tons of planets. Tau have more than "couple". Then some eldar planets here and there, necron ones. Then all the other alien races.

Million hospitable planets would be pretty slim. Especially as some of those millions are not so hospitable humans live by virtue of technology

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
Sadly Imperium's the only thing in 40k GeeDubs considers worth investing in to any greater extent that an odd model here and there.

But, yeah - it's nice to have terrain from other cultures, like chaos having buildings made from the ground up by them, instead of just imperial stuff they sanctified.

thing is, Chaos (out side of deamons who don't live in this world) are human traitors from the IoM, their buildings.... likely aren't gonna be that differant, and how they are differant you can proably just green stuff,


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beast_gts wrote:
Third parties do a good selection - Kromlech do an Ork Town, for example.

From memory, the Tau Fortifications didn't sell as well as GW hoped, so that might add to their reluctance.

third party is the way to go, they can manage to do smaller things that a company like GW just wouldn't be able to justify

tneva82 wrote:
Uh no Imperium does not control every hospitable planet. Orks have tons of planets. Tau have more than "couple". Then some eldar planets here and there, necron ones. Then all the other alien races.

Million hospitable planets would be pretty slim. Especially as some of those millions are not so hospitable humans live by virtue of technology

Relatively speaking the T'au would only have a couple. The Imperium doesn't control every planet but they have over a million inhabited worlds spread across 2/3 of the galaxy. The Eldar practically don't count because the vast majority of their planets were swallowed by the eye of terror. Then when you take into account the propensity of the imperium to destroy anything even remotely Xenos it provides a very strong reason for the terrain to all be Imperium focused.

The real world reason of course, is money. Producing molds is expensive. They'd need a new board and several pieces of terrain to match it and it becomes prohibitively expensive. Whereas they can easily introduce one or two pieces of Imperium based terrain without needing to launch a whole product line. They couldn't really release T'au terrain without simultaneously releasing a game board and I'd say at minimum 4 different terrain pieces. Then take into account that only people who play T'au would be particularly inclined to buy it and you have a product with a very small market and a very high cost to produce.

Space marines and the Imperium models outsell pretty much everything else by quite a large margin. Terrain is also often a lesser sold item compared to models.

So already its got the same investment as models, but a potentially smaller bracket of the market. Furthermore, as said above, the most likely person to buy xeno specific terrain is a xeno player rather than an Imperial player.


Furthermore a huge amount of the visual material GW produces is imperial world based. So a huge visual side of the game that is marketed to people shows big cities with gothic ruins. The whole Gothic theme really comes through strong in the marketing so it makes sense that Gothic terrain is their most heavily featured.

It also builds on itself quite readily so that adding "one more bit" it easy. For Xenos they would indeed have to add a bunch of things to make it work as an entire board not just one or two bits of terrain here and there. That means either al ong term commitment to releasing bits here and there or a big release in one go.

Exactly. I don't play Eldar so I'd have zero interest in getting Eldar terrain. But playing something like Orks I can easily see my Waaaagh! ravaging an Imperial world so Imperial terrain makes a lot of sense.

And as an imperial player, why would I want to invade or attack and Ork infested planet unless that planet was imperial before being overrun by Orks?

Xeno terrain is just a bit too niche in the grand scheme of things.

I love decent terrain, and would buy faction specific items. But can understand not enough other people would to justify GW producing it.

A self perpetuating cycle - one thing sells well, so it gets more attention to the detriment of those that sell less - and, as they get less and less attention they keep selling less and less, with the makers having less and less financial incentive to support them.

An understandable but still regrettable situation, since 40k always has so many more things to see beyond what we have at the moment.

There's so many 3rd party laser cut MDF terrain and buildings, GW would probably struggle to compete, as they've lost ground and their prices are high in comparison.

Check out TT Combat stuff, there's plenty of Necron, Eldar and other Xenos buildings. That's just one of the brands. There's lots of others and they're quite well priced for the size of the kits.

Morgasm the Powerfull wrote:
A self perpetuating cycle - one thing sells well, so it gets more attention to the detriment of those that sell less - and, as they get less and less attention they keep selling less and less, with the makers having less and less financial incentive to support them.

An understandable but still regrettable situation, since 40k always has so many more things to see beyond what we have at the moment.

In the last five years haven't we had more xenos terrain than ever before though?

It's a shame that it appears GW is no longer making this terrain set, but the AoS Chaos Dreadhold was a BEAUTIFUL set of Chaos terrain. It wasn't but a couple of years ago when this set came out, so I'm not sure why it's not being made anymore. While it is a set of AoS terrain, I think it would have looked amazing in a 40K game as well. It's only downside was its truly expensive cost.

SG

There are loads of things that'd be awesome to see:

- A ruined Eldar maiden world city overgrown by jungle.
- The streets of Commoragh.
- The inside of a Necron tomb.
- A daemon world.

Orks are probably the easiest to scratch build terrain for as the ramshackle appearance doesn't require any finesse.

I think part of what's interesting about xenos or chaos terrain is the smooth angles of Eldar and Tau structures or the odd angles of Orks or Drukhari suggest a different geometry to the right-angles you typically see on Imperial worlds.

The biggest problem is for any of that is economics. GW will not produce something as expensive to make as terrain if they feel it won't sell well and from what I've read the Tau terrain they put out didn't see all that well.

What about in art? Not as costly as terrain. I can't think of many examples that aren't imperial.

I just picked up two sets of mantic battlezones and they look fantastic, not too Imperial looking but very sci-fi. They also had a 20th century brick building set that looked great. Not exactly xenos terrain, but it has a different esthetic and could make for a nice change.

GW actually have been releasing more diverse terrain than before, you just have to get them before they are OOP.

Ork: they released this barricade a while back for about $30 for 6 pieces, now OOP, you may find it on ebay sometime.
https://imgur.com/1vOTGMy
Alternatively, you can make any building run down and add ork bitz, perhaps a rock statue representing their gods.

Tau: FW released this downed Piranha way way back, now also OOP, very hard to find these days.
https://imgur.com/WNF5c9Y
Alternatively they released the Tidewall fortification, still available.
FW also released drone turrets, recently OOP, but you can find recasters selling them, they are fortifications, but are great visuals representing Tau.
https://imgur.com/zzGlm03
https://imgur.com/FNXzb6E

Chaos: GW released this Chaos Altar some time back for $30, now OOP; even though it was meant for WHFB, you can use it for 40k easily as most Chaos are interchangable between the 2 game system.
https://imgur.com/Y5ft23z
Alternatively you can try to find the recently OOP Chaos fort mentioned above, great terrain but expensive. You can also use downed imperial vehicles/aircraft as Chaos terrain.
They also have the Nurgle tree, still available. You can also make some easy swamps from craters with water effect poured in and some bitz.
https://imgur.com/myzbtFu
https://imgur.com/dygIGkz

Tyranids/GSC: GW released some electric fences in the Battle for Macragge boxset. They also released the objectives markers with a Genestealer in tube, still available.
Alternatively you can DIY some jungle bushes(local petsmart fish section) and mix in some ruins.
https://imgur.com/a/sNuUR
You can also find some 3rd party Tyranid Breeding pits on ebay.

Necrons: GW does need to make some cavern terrain suitable for this faction.
Alternatively you can find some 3rd party crystal terrain on ebay that is suitable.

Eldar/Drukhari/Harlequins: GW recently released the alien jungle trees, one even have the Eldar ruins mixed in with the vegetation. There is also the webway gate. All are available.

Mechanicum/IK: most of the new imperial forge terrain are suitable. Mostly available, with exception of this Plasma Obliterator, which was a limited release.
https://imgur.com/IDFtkvY

Final thoughts: I highly reccomend you go get the terrain you desire before they go OOP, GW's terrain are usually made from cheaper and harder plastic than the miniatures.