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One of the least defined mechanics in 8th edition is the cover system, to the point where it's almost non-functional. Different types of cover had confusing or contradictory rules, vehicles and large models were almost impossible to get in cover, and for the most part, terrain on the battlefield really didn't have much tactical impact.
HOWEVER, with CA out, and now that we've had a chance to chew through it's entirety, there's been a few small, but interesting changes to the game's terrain and cover systems. Along with the inclusion of the Cities of Death expansion, which expands farther on cover, could this be a return of meaningful battlefield terrain to 40k?

First let's go over what changed with the basic terrain datasheets:

1) All in all, GW has done a pretty good job consolidating the different terrain to have consistently worded rules. No more are forests, ruins, craters, and other types of terrain all confusingly worded slightly differently.
Generally speaking, INFANTRY gain cover if they are entirely within area terrain (ruins/forests), or if they're nearby and behind obstacles (barricades, scatter terrain, etc). Other types of units can gain cover from ruins and forests in they are also 50% obscured.

2) Because of the consolidated wording, units must be entirely within area terrain to gain cover (rather than confusing wording flipflopping between models entirely within and units entirely within). This means large single model units can receive cover with a toe in (but still must be 50% obscured)

3) A subtle, but important change: Obscuring is now determined by the firing model instead of the firing unit. This means that the onus is on the attacking player to seperate out their attacks into cover and non-cover attacks, the same as they would if checking weapon ranges.
For example: A five man unit is firing at a vehicle in terrain. The vehicle is 50% obscured to three of the firing models, but the other two can see it clearly. The firing player divides their attacks into those that allow cover, and those that dont, and resolves the attack.

These changes help to clean up the cover system into something much more useable and less confusing. It also sets clear precident for establishing custom-terrain because all the cover types use consistant rules: INFANTRY gain cover by being in it, or behind it, other model types must also be 50% obscured, and weither something is obscured is determined by each firing model.

This is all well and good, but where it really starts getting intersting is Cities of Death rules, which expand on the mechanics. I hope that people really take a look at these rules and try them out in their games. Their inclusion seems to really bring positioning, manouvering, and terrain back into importance, rather than just having two armies blasting/charging at each other with terrain just being a meaningless setdressing.

Let's go over the additions from Cities of Death and what their impact on gameplay is:

1) Obscured units are at -1 to hit. Again, this is determined by each firing model.
2) Soft/hard cover gives +1/+2 armour respectivly
3) 6's always hit
4) firing from an elevated position gives +1AP
5) Roads (if any) make units go faster (not super relevent, but its there anyways)

These do a couple of (in my opinion) good things for the depth of gameplay:

1) The power of shooting is blunted by tactical positioning. I think everyone can agree that shooting is king in 8th, and things die very quickly. There isn't much one can do to prevent getting shot at aside from pray to the dice gods, but with the rules for obscured targets and heavy cover, players now have some way to actually interact with the battlefield (and thier own units, such as using obscuring screeners).

2) This forces decision making. Currently, unless a unit is out of LoS or out of range, they can usually fire at full efficiency. An antitank unit can usually just fire at it's optimal target every turn, regardless of terrain. Now with these rules, it's much more likely to force tough descions. Does the anti-tank unit fire at it's desired target, even though it's -1 to hit and +2 armour, or does it fire at a less desirable target that's in the open?

3) It promotes movement. Because the advantages of digging in are so great, the real way to cicumvent them is to move. Move so they're no longer obscured. Move to an elevated positon. Move to assault and dig them out. Cover might seem highly powerful, but it actually promote less static gameplay. This is espeically true with the Cities of Death stratagems, battlezones and mission types, which I think do a good job of promoting the risk/reward of movement vs staying in cover (such as ruins lighting on fire).


What do you guys think of these new rules? Will you try them out in your games? Did I miss anything here?

I really like the new cover and rules, but since it's Narrative play and not Matched you'll likely never see them adopted.

Yeah they should've been Matched Rules for sure. Unsure why they went that route unless they're legit looking for feedback first before implementation?

I'm gonna pretend that's what it is.

Considering that even ITC had to invent houserules for cover (1st level ruins are LoS blocking) because they were so underdeveloped, I have some hope that these might see widerspread adoption in some comunities. I know I'll be pushing them at my FLGS.

The changes to the terrain dataslates ARE however matched play canon, so there's little argument in that department.

My group is so glad that GW decided to tackle how cover was defined/rules, we had to house rule stuff to make games more interesting.

I'm glad that they've deciding to actually tackle them with new rules. cover vs concealment, hard vs soft, obscured vs not, all add depth to both offense & defense.
I think going forward my group is gonna use the cities of death rules for most games.

Thanks for doing the work on this and laying it out very clearly.

My concern on cities of death rules are they are just too easy to dig in with cheap troops. IS with a 3+? Gross. Obviously the missions can blunt this dynamic (and it goes both ways), but I think it needs a lot of testing before it could be used confidently.

Getting a major influencer to do so will be difficult.

I think it's definitly a thinking shift at the least, because you aren't blasting units off the table with ease anymore. People that are used to powerful gunline armies that might be a tough pill to swallow. You cant really just plug in the current meta, things have to change to make the most of the rules.

I think there's enough play and counterplay with movement, assaults and stratagems (some of the COD strats are pretty neat) that it's not unwinnable. And you know what? A unit of guardsmen in heavy cover SHOULD be difficult to shift by just shooting at it with small arms. The fact that a unit can go from a 5+ to a 3+ because of tactical descision making is a much more interesting design space to play in. They are not always going to be 3+, and they arent always going to be contributing anything to the battle. Your opponent isnt always going to want thier troops in cover. But when they are dug in, they become a different problem to solve.

The Confligration battlezone I think is brilliant, because you can light terrain on fire and burn units out if they're too dug in.

Me likey. We've kinda played with similar house rules for a while already, but this is an interesting direction for the official materials to go and I support that. Especially the interplay of movement and being Obscured promotes better play.

What McGibs didn't say was that there is also a small caveat in the rules about camo cloaks, lictors and other units that gain extra plusses for being in cover: they only gain their bonus in Soft Cover, gaining +1 (regardless of their rule) in Hard Cover, for a maximum of +3. Not too important, but might sometimes come up with scouts, rangers or other light recon units. Dangerous Terrain is also in, forcing units to roll 1/6 for Mortal Wounds for each of their number when they Advance or Charge through.

Having had a read through the CoD stratagems, I like them too. Siege Shells allow heavier guns to demolish buildings and make them Dangerous Terrain, Blood in the Streets murders things that stay in the open for any period of time, you can fortify positions of Soft Cover to Hard at the beginning of the battle, vehicles can be reinforced against fire from above... Good stuff, very flavorful.

Love it personally! Also it really helps more combat orientated armies really get close and requires more tactical positioning on both sides.

I see my Chaos Daemons loving this personally as I don't need many Bloodletters to get to the enemy and the penalties to shooting barely bother me as most of my ranged presence in the psychic phase, as befits children of the warp!

As for my new eldar, I mostly run Wraith Heavy+ tanks, so my D scythes don't really care as it's all -4 ap and auto hits, and my wraith blades/wraith lords are looking pretty tasty with buffs to cover

Since I started prefering playing smaller games rather than huge battles (1750+), I'm eager to try playing CoD with infantry heavy Guard list with some limited armoured support.

 Daedalus81 wrote:
My concern on cities of death rules are they are just too easy to dig in with cheap troops. IS with a 3+? Gross.

I think that would make assaulting with non-dedicated units more appealing. For example, a unit of tac marines would probably do a lot more damage charging a dug in enemy than shooting.

All new CoD rules are understandable and logical, a big difference from core 8th edition rules. I would try it out in smaller games first, units will last longer and that means slower games with more whiffed shots. 2k battles might be too much for this.

The first big issue and the reason why it should stay in Narrative mode, for now, is the imbalance it will introduce, not every faction has answers for +1/+2 cover stacked with -1 penalty to hit on top of existing penalties to hit.

The second issue is that close combat rules don't handle vertical space and dense terrain very well, and the Spring FAQ made it even worse by flipping around the previous edition's view on charging into tight spaces. It's a broken exploitable mess of rules and that's just the start of the combat. Pile-ins in multi-level fights are...I'd just use a shooty unit instead.

Doesn't better cover favour fast moving armies that can engage from the other side of the table and swarms, that get more out of +1 or +2 to save then a more elite army? Checking LoS on a model per model basis, only means that turn 2 an orc player is going to shot with his ~30man lootaz mob and take 40 min to resolve his shoting phase, by which time the game ends, and he wins, no matter if he went first or second.

We already determine range and LOS on a model per model basis, I don't think this system adds much additional time to that.

And yes, it favors certain units over other, the same as the current meta favours certain units over others. Like I said, it's a different design space, you cant just drop in the current meta and expect it to work exactly the same.
Elite armies with MSU will have an easier time exploiting the terrain though, so you could get things like terminators with a 2(-2)+ save at -1 to hit, which might actually make them durable for a change. Fitting a swarm of 30 orks into a ruin or having every model obscured is a tall order.

Well my LGS is going to build a urban table with lots of buildings/ruins so it'll be nice to play with rules that fit. I agree trying to play 1000 pts might be wiser because I feel like it's going to be longer to just even move the models around, and shooting, and charging.

If it sticks it might be worth it to include more Omnispexes in my AdMech to ignore cover.

GW should revamp all the terrain.

When you realize that despite all the name they have 5 types of terrain only… And then the labor them up with names and stuff that makes it so people don’t understand them… It is frustrating. Ohh and when you see that some terrain counts as more than 1 type… That makes your head pop.

Here is my rules for all terrain when you play, to clear up terrain.

Anything a model can be sat on counts as a Ruin, Barricade, and unpowered Haemotrope reactor, and if its big enough that a model can finish a move on it )more than 4 inches across, it’s also a crater and a obstacle.

If it can’t be sat on it, it is a barricade and unpowered Haemotrope Reactor.

Now all of the sudden terrain makes sense. If you’re an infantry on a terrain piece or within 3 inches and obscured, you get cover. If you’re not an infantry, you have to also be 25% obscured and you get cover. If its big enough you move on it, it cuts your charges and advances in ½.

wouldn't it be better to work with abstract terrain and model sizes. Woods would be M, infantry S, tanks could be anything between M and L, and then something like a castellan would be XL. This way it wouldn't matter how the terrain actually looks. If a building is L, you can't see a unit that is 3" in to it or anything that is not XL behind it. Would speed up LoS checking or the shoting through 2 buildings, a wood right in to their baner sticking out a bunker.

Reemule wrote:
GW should revamp all the terrain.

When you realize that despite all the name they have 5 types of terrain only… And then the labor them up with names and stuff that makes it so people don’t understand them… It is frustrating. Ohh and when you see that some terrain counts as more than 1 type… That makes your head pop.

Here is my rules for all terrain when you play, to clear up terrain.

Anything a model can be sat on counts as a Ruin, Barricade, and unpowered Haemotrope reactor, and if its big enough that a model can finish a move on it )more than 4 inches across, it’s also a crater and a obstacle.

If it can’t be sat on it, it is a barricade and unpowered Haemotrope Reactor.

Now all of the sudden terrain makes sense. If you’re an infantry on a terrain piece or within 3 inches and obscured, you get cover. If you’re not an infantry, you have to also be 25% obscured and you get cover. If its big enough you move on it, it cuts your charges and advances in ½.

Honestly with the new CA dataslates, they've basically boiled it down to just two types of terrain, even if they used way too many words to get there. There's Area Terrain (woods, ruins, buildings) where Infantry gets cover if the entire unit is within the area, and other units are in cover if they're 50% obscured. And then there's Barricades (walls, obstetrical, little tractors,etc) where Infantry get cover if they're standing close it and behind it from the firing model's direction. Everything else is just flavour dressing for their own specific kits (dangerous terrain, overheating plasma, +1 leadship statues etc etc). You could get away with basically ruling any custom-terrain as either area-terrain or barricades.

wouldn't it be better to work with abstract terrain and model sizes. Woods would be M, infantry S, tanks could be anything between M and L, and then something like a castellan would be XL. This way it wouldn't matter how the terrain actually looks. If a building is L, you can't see a unit that is 3" in to it or anything that is not XL behind it. Would speed up LoS checking or the shoting through 2 buildings, a wood right in to their baner sticking out a bunker.

There are plenty of better ways a cover system could be handled, but that's more of a place for the proposed/house rules forums. GW actually wrote these rules, so they might actually have a chance at getting some traction.

 McGibs wrote:


Honestly with the new CA dataslates, they've basically boiled it down to just two types of terrain, even if they used way too many words to get there. There's Area Terrain (woods, ruins, buildings) where Infantry gets cover if the entire unit is within the area, and other units are in cover if they're 50% obscured. And then there's Barricades (walls, obstetrical, little tractors,etc) where Infantry get cover if they're standing close it and behind it from the firing model's direction. Everything else is just flavour dressing for their own specific kits (dangerous terrain, overheating plasma, +1 leadship statues etc etc). You could get away with basically ruling any custom-terrain as either area-terrain or barricades.

I’d have loved it if they had terrain building rules. Would have been much smarter than Character building rules. While I can see your points on only 2 types of terrain, it does ignore the Hematrope reactor, something that is way out of place for the other rules (25% obstruction over 50%)

My house rules handle this in a less extreme way.
-1 to hit for obscured targets
+1 to armour save in hard cover
Infantry count as obscured in soft cover even if not visibly obscured.

As the rules stand, most of the GW ruins still do not anything without houserules or modifying the model (i.e. giving it a base.) You need to be in the ruins to be in a cover. How am I in the ruins is the ruin is just a piece of a wall?

 Crimson wrote:
As the rules stand, most of the GW ruins still do not anything without houserules or modifying the model (i.e. giving it a base.) You need to be in the ruins to be in a cover. How am I in the ruins is the ruin is just a piece of a wall?

Thats rubble not ruins, ruins are still standing buildings with some holes and destruction dealt to them (or decay), not 1 piece of a wall.

 Amishprn86 wrote:


Thats ruble not ruins, ruins are still standing buildings with some holes and destruction dealt to them (or decay), not 1 piece of a wall.

It doesn't matter how intact the walls are. GW ruins do not come with a base, so you cannot be in the ruins, unless you're on the upper floor (assuming the ruin has one.) By RAW, GW ruins without upper floors do nothing.

 Crimson wrote:

 Amishprn86 wrote:


Thats ruble not ruins, ruins are still standing buildings with some holes and destruction dealt to them (or decay), not 1 piece of a wall.

It doesn't matter how intact the walls are. GW ruins do not come with a base, so you cannot be in the ruins, unless you're on the upper floor (assuming the ruin has one.) By RAW, GW ruins without upper floors do nothing.

B.c they want you to buy their plastic table board that has the buildings floors on them to show where they are....


Edit: here is an example https://www.games-workshop.com/resources/catalog/product/920x950/99220199053_SectorImperialis01.jpg

they used to sell a couple types, but looks like only 1 now

But that would meant he cover rules are not being changed to make the game better, but for GW to force people to buy stuff directly for them.

I think that terrain rules shall be the defining "bad rule" of this edition. Although now I come to think about it, almost everyone I know immediately house ruled area terrain back in as soon as 8th came out. Does a bad rule still count if almost everyone forgets what the actual rules are and uses house rules?