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Coming fresh from threads about terrain types and traits.

It should be required by the missions & its deployment where you must place a large Area Terrain, or series of Obstacles acting as a boundary, in the center of the map (or around central-most objective).

Such Area Terrain/series of Obstacles shall be large enough to cover majority of the no-man's land, and it shall have at minimum Obscuring & Dense Cover terrain traits.
For example, in 2k pt games, it should be roughly 18"x24" on a 60x44 boards.

What does this solve?
1. Incentivizes rush towards the middle of the map, where majority of the battle shall be fought within. Makes melee units more relevant without the necessity to wombo combo 3~5 abilities and stratagems to make that turn 1 charge for them to be effective. Makes footsloggers relevant since the active combat zone is that much closer.
2. Prevents cross-board bombardment without any repercussions. Obscuring prevents drawings LOS to units that are outside the area terrain, and dense cover allows targeting of units inside the terrain with -1 to hit.

I wouldn't want that to be a hard and fast rule, but it seems like a decent piece of advice. I usually try to have a fair bit of dense or obscuring terrain in the center to mute firepower a bit and make firing lanes more interesting.

I'm surprised that you feel point 1 is still a thing that needs solving. I haven't been able to play much lately, but I was under the impression that 9th edition's emphasis on primary objectives was already providing lots of incentive to venture out into the middle of the table. I know that at Combat Patrol and Incursion-sized games my banshees were getting into melee turn 1 pretty easily. At 1500 and 2k point games, I usually had at least one unit (and not necessarily an especially fast one like banshees) in melee on turn 2. Even necron warriors can be 10" from their deployment zone by the end of their first movement phase, and that's potentially without even having to advance!

*Theme and board diversity is harmed.

*Objective markers cannot be placed within terrain.

*Big pieces of terrain can be ignored by getting a toe inside. Multi-meltas are overpowered and their range is so short that getting a toe into the piece terrain piece is not a major hurdle.

*Long-range units that do not want to get a toe inside are for the most part not overpowered. There is one meta no-LOS unit AFAIK, the AdMech Skorpius Disintegrator. Mortars, Basilisks, Wyverns and Thunderfire Cannons are meh or worse. Heavy Blast D6 S4 AP-0 D1 costs the same as Heavy 3 S5 AP-1 D2 for the privilege of ignoring LOS.

I'm not sure this solves the problems you think it does. The current mission structure already encourages melee units and close-range fire support units as you need to control objectives in no-man's land anyway.

We used to play with ITC ruins rules at my club and one consequence of being able to hide an entire army, either using a central ruin/ruins or one in your deployment zone, was that deployment became dull and uninteresting in each game as players simply made sure everything was out of LoS. I think a more nuanced approach where players can choose what they want to try to hide with varying degrees of effectiveness is better.

I also think we're already heading towards a situation where the 9th edition primary missions are approaching solved status. Mandating certain terrain placement just moves us even closer to that and removes more of the skill from the tabletop.

I would love there to be a more uniform Terrain rule set, because I am sick of the way it's currently implemented. It always ends up being a shoot out and the LOS blocking terrain isn't plentiful enough. I always wanted a mission set with hallways, where you cant see around corners, like Space Hulk.

FezzikDaBullgryn wrote:
I would love there to be a more uniform Terrain rule set, because I am sick of the way it's currently implemented. It always ends up being a shoot out and the LOS blocking terrain isn't plentiful enough. I always wanted a mission set with hallways, where you cant see around corners, like Space Hulk.

You should try the old Zone Mortalis rules. ;D

I like having a good bit of BLOS terrain too, but that's generally up to you and your opponent (or your tournament organizer). You can always say, "Hey, I'd like to have a bit more BLOS terrain on the table." Your opponent will probably be fine with that. If he's not, there's probably a reason. And as long as that reason isn't, "I want to play on planet bowling ball so I can outshoot you," you ca probably find a reasonable middleground.

Wyldhunt wrote:
I wouldn't want that to be a hard and fast rule, but it seems like a decent piece of advice. I usually try to have a fair bit of dense or obscuring terrain in the center to mute firepower a bit and make firing lanes more interesting.

I'm surprised that you feel point 1 is still a thing that needs solving. I haven't been able to play much lately, but I was under the impression that 9th edition's emphasis on primary objectives was already providing lots of incentive to venture out into the middle of the table. I know that at Combat Patrol and Incursion-sized games my banshees were getting into melee turn 1 pretty easily. At 1500 and 2k point games, I usually had at least one unit (and not necessarily an especially fast one like banshees) in melee on turn 2. Even necron warriors can be 10" from their deployment zone by the end of their first movement phase, and that's potentially without even having to advance!

Yes, the statement of intent was a bit muddled during revisions.

The intent of the proposal is to establish a ‘combat zone’ where long range bombardments have reduced efficacy. In a way, this is a bit of a roundabout way of establishing a mechanic that’s similar to night fighting & fog of war ideas I’ve been throwing out here at dakka.

Despite numerous attempts at fixing the issue, the malady still persists because dead units still can’t hold objectives. It’s still far easier to kill the unit contesting the objectives from afar than it is to actually get close and kill them in the business zone (>24”). Currently, top-tier middle objective holders are DWT/BLT equivalents, and both of these units have at least 3 abilities/stratagem that needs to be combo’ed in order to reach their potential. Aside from these outliers, most middle ground holders get wiped out with ease from plethora of shooting from the opponent’s board edge.

The current iteration of 40k still doesn't give enough incentives to really get close to the enemy. Majority of close combat damage output comes from characters, with close next majority being weight of dice (hordes) - meaning, there are some units that are more viable than others getting into melee, but melee in general is deadbeat. The only REAL incentives we have is that some of the CC units are one of the coolest models in the game, so you WANT to use them (“get me closer so I can hit them with my sword!”).

The game can still be easily won by screens and heavy hitters parked at the edge. For these types of lists, there’s really no reason to move except to establish LOS – which, is given away like candy, more so than invul saves. With the lack of distinguished rules regarding terrain placement, and the general scarcity of terrain in most boards, it’s actually rarer to NOT have LOS. This proposal aims to make it a conscious effort to establish LOS and force movements in the backfield as to create healthier game set up.

 vict0988 wrote:
*Theme and board diversity is harmed.

*Objective markers cannot be placed within terrain.

*Big pieces of terrain can be ignored by getting a toe inside. Multi-meltas are overpowered and their range is so short that getting a toe into the piece terrain piece is not a major hurdle.

*Long-range units that do not want to get a toe inside are for the most part not overpowered. There is one meta no-LOS unit AFAIK, the AdMech Skorpius Disintegrator. Mortars, Basilisks, Wyverns and Thunderfire Cannons are meh or worse. Heavy Blast D6 S4 AP-0 D1 costs the same as Heavy 3 S5 AP-1 D2 for the privilege of ignoring LOS.

1. I’m not sure where you’re going with this. There are literally 2 and half different types of terrain released by GW. Rest are ‘flavor of the faction’ buildings that already break the immersion anyways. The interior dimensions can be altered to suit the board - it just needs to be large enough to fit good amount of models in.
2. No such rule exists AFAIK. Even then, objective placement is mission dependent so you can alter it as you see fit (i.e. only 1 objective marker can be placed inside the central Area Terrain).
3. Nothing prevents placement of terrain inside a terrain (“Yo dawg, I heard you like to terrain…”). You can place additional Obstacles to mitigate the ‘openness’ of the interior of the proposed Area Terrain. Alternatively, you can also choose to set a loose boundary by linearly arranging tall Obstacle terrains - Area Terrain is proposed as a simplified version of this.
4. The point of the dual Obscured + Dense Cover is to provide blanket LOS blocker that’s fair to both sides. Currently, there are plethora of +48” guns that can point and shoot at anything on the board, given that it can draw LOS to it. It’s not about nerfing non-LOS weapons, but rather giving it a fair chance under the given proposal.

Now, the way I see it in order to achieve a balanced game is that these types of guns should be thought of as weapons that can “reach anything it can see” rather than “shoot everything as long as it has LOS”. Note, the key difference is the emphasis on LOS – LOS should be something that’s ‘secured’ by the active player as opposed to something that you normally have but rarely is lost.

 skchsan wrote:
The current iteration of 40k still doesn't give enough incentives to really get close to the enemy. Majority of close combat damage output comes from characters, with close next majority being weight of dice (hordes) - meaning, there are some units that are more viable than others getting into melee, but melee in general is deadbeat. The only REAL incentives we have is that some of the CC units are one of the coolest models in the game, so you WANT to use them (“get me closer so I can hit them with my sword!”).

The game can still be easily won by screens and heavy hitters parked at the edge. For these types of lists, there’s really no reason to move except to establish LOS – which, is given away like candy, more so than invul saves. With the lack of distinguished rules regarding terrain placement, and the general scarcity of terrain in most boards, it’s actually rarer to NOT have LOS. This proposal aims to make it a conscious effort to establish LOS and force movements in the backfield as to create healthier game set up.

You claim this but this emphatically isn't how most tournament winning lists are approaching the game. So you need to ask yourself why your take on the game doesn't match what top players are actually doing.

 Canadian 5th wrote:

Spoiler:

 skchsan wrote:
The current iteration of 40k still doesn't give enough incentives to really get close to the enemy. Majority of close combat damage output comes from characters, with close next majority being weight of dice (hordes) - meaning, there are some units that are more viable than others getting into melee, but melee in general is deadbeat. The only REAL incentives we have is that some of the CC units are one of the coolest models in the game, so you WANT to use them (“get me closer so I can hit them with my sword!”).

The game can still be easily won by screens and heavy hitters parked at the edge. For these types of lists, there’s really no reason to move except to establish LOS – which, is given away like candy, more so than invul saves. With the lack of distinguished rules regarding terrain placement, and the general scarcity of terrain in most boards, it’s actually rarer to NOT have LOS. This proposal aims to make it a conscious effort to establish LOS and force movements in the backfield as to create healthier game set up.

You claim this but this emphatically isn't how most tournament winning lists are approaching the game. So you need to ask yourself why your take on the game doesn't match what top players are actually doing.

So you're saying...

1. majority of melee damage comes from run of the mill TAC units and not specialists (characters or weight of dice, or dedicated CC unit requiring massive CP/ability support).
2. melee is super effective against everything.
3. fire corridors are limited.

That is factually not true.

The fact is:

1. Melee is generally not viable except for few units which eschews the whole shooting phase. Even then it necessarily needs to be provided additional defensive/offensive gimmicks to make any meaningful contribution. This is a stark contrast to what units can do in shooting phase. Even a humble bolter (S4) in the hands of a space marine (S4) is more powerful than its melee will ever be. This is the general trend for the entire game, despite the fact that there are THREE phases (movement, charge, fight) dedicated to getting closer to the enemy to deal damage in melee. One way of dealing with this is by imposing additional rules that tone down shooting, and turn melee into method of dealing damage that ignores all these restrictions. All the people who plays on higher terrain density would attest it helps the game, even those who bring lists that chill out in the back most of the time.

2. A standard LVO or NOVA terrain setup typically involves 1 medium sized terrain (~8x8) per 2'x2' square, with minimal scatter Obstacles here and there. This is nowhere near the amount of terrain that's needed, which is made evident by the fact that it is a STANDARD EXPECTATION to lose about 1/3 of your army in the opening volley. Now, we can blame poor deployment, but we cannot ignore the fact that everything can draw LOS to everything in 99% of the cases. The case stands - shooting on its worst day is still stronger than melee on its good day. Now, you can argue that "40k is a game whose setting is in distant future, where guns dominate, therefore it makes sense that shooting is more powerful than melee because it's that guys fault for bringing a knife to a gun fight", but the attitude towards melee is quite apparent in the way the game is designed - melee is supposed to be a significant part of the game. But it's not.

But this digresses - the whole point is that units with active range of 0~24" needs some sort of assistance because 3 out of 5 times they get killed off or forced to footslog for 2 turns before getting into their effective range, while guns with +36" range guns are always contributing from turn 1. Just as how melee units need to spend turns setting their position up, so should shooting units, but in the form of securing a fire corridor.

I just don't see the validity of the arguments against designing the "openness" of the central area where most casualties occur. 40k as it currently stands is still a game of battleship with maphack.

Western Aus Ironman GT, one list with 3 long-ranged units in top 4.

Tables and Towers GT, two lists with 8 long-ranged units and one list with 1 long-ranged unit in top 4.

Clutch City GT, one list with 5 long-ranged units, one list with 7 long-ranged units and two list with 2 long-ranged units in top 4.

Equinox 40k GT, one list with 2 long-ranged units, one list with 4 long-ranged units and one list with 7 long-ranged units in the top 4.

Free City GT, one list with 7 long-ranged units, two list with 6 long-ranged units, one list with 5 long-ranged units.

This is counting units with one or more weapons with a range of more than 24", including flyers, vehicles with melee weapons, transports and HQs.

Count out the dual purpose units and the flyers that don't really care about the long range as much and the long-ranged units only amount to 500+ pts in 25% of top 4 lists in these 6 GTs. Just because someone is taking dark lances on their Raiders does not make long-ranged weapons overpowered. How popular do melee units have to be before you call them OP?

Go back to LVO 2019 and 2020 and I'll bet you that more than 50% of top 4s spent 500+ pts on units that were primarily ranged.

And you can see that the DA and DG are placing lot higher than they used to because they take advantage of multiple new rules that grant some units nigh-invulnerability. Such units are not healthy for the overall game and typically gets nerfed into 'niche' level. It'll only take a few months to get rid of the permanent trans-human physiology that inner circles gives to DWT's.

We need something to keep this meta trend going (the focus on infantries), and it's not going to happen at unit/army levels because, lets face it - GW is not that good at balancing things out.

 skchsan wrote:
And you can see that the DA and DG are placing lot higher than they used to because they take advantage of multiple new rules that grant some units nigh-invulnerability. Such units are not healthy for the overall game and typically gets nerfed into 'niche' level. It'll only take a few months to get rid of the permanent trans-human physiology that inner circles gives to DWT's.

We need something to keep this meta trend going (the focus on infantries), and it's not going to happen at unit/army levels because, lets face it - GW is not that good at balancing things out.

So you want to buff melee infantry based armies now via terrain on a hunch you have about GW nerfing the best melee infantry armies in the future?

 vict0988 wrote:

 skchsan wrote:
And you can see that the DA and DG are placing lot higher than they used to because they take advantage of multiple new rules that grant some units nigh-invulnerability. Such units are not healthy for the overall game and typically gets nerfed into 'niche' level. It'll only take a few months to get rid of the permanent trans-human physiology that inner circles gives to DWT's.

We need something to keep this meta trend going (the focus on infantries), and it's not going to happen at unit/army levels because, lets face it - GW is not that good at balancing things out.

So you want to buff melee infantry based armies now via terrain on a hunch you have about GW nerfing the best melee infantry armies in the future?

If you really want to be that black and white about it, no, I want the rules to be punitive towards units that do nothing but sit at the back of the board and take part in 2 phases (movement & shooting) only.

I also don't want the rules to be configured in a way where only the hard skew units can be made viable, in both competitive and casual settings. There shouldn't be such thing as "useless units" in wargames, and units shouldn't require stacking of abilities to be made useful. It is one thing to make a 'niche' unit more viable, it is another when you're expending points to make 'unusable' units into 'niche' units.

If you're not going to fix it at unit levels, use the design space created by re-introduction of terrain types & traits. Rather than buff/nerfing units, make universal elements (i.e. terrain) to have more prominent feature in the games that can be taken advantage of by both sides. Then, it will become more about ground control & active decision making rather than "who brought the biggest guns".

The game should be about duking it out in the noman's land, not "how much of opponent's army I can kill from a far in a single turn". No matter how you want to spin it, the game is still "shoot the enemy down before they get close to you", which is one of the main reasons why turn 1 charges are frowned upon and gets called "OP" because it doesn't give you a chance to try and prevent it from happening. Having to resolve charge & fight phase is the unfortunate side effect of you failing to prevent it from happening in the first place, and not a prominent component of the game.

skchsan I feel like you are moving the goalposts, what could convince you that long-range units are not a problem? What could convince you that melee units are a problem?

40k is not WHFB shooting should absolutely be a big part of the game. If you are spending 500 points on melee, 500 points on long-ranged shooting and 1000 points on mid-ranged shooting then you've got a solid mixed army. Whereas in WHFB 500 points on shooting, 1000 points on melee and 500 points on magic would be a balanced mix. I agree that every melee unit should be viable and units relying on Stratagems or characters to be viable is not good for the game, but while your suggestion will improve the bad melee units, there will still be better and worse melee units. If you want bad melee units to be better you have to increase their cost-benefit ratio, not just relative to ranged units, but relative to better melee units. No matter how many forests you place on the battlefield Deathwing Knights will outperform Kroot Hounds.

Your suggested terrain is going to make a lot of borderline useless long-range units into totally useless units and make a lot of OP melee and short ranged units better. If you and your mates agree that long-ranged units are unfun then super, I think your terrain suggestion will work for tilting the game away from long-ranged units. But rolling it out on the competitive scene would do more bad than good.

 vict0988 wrote:
skchsan I feel like you are moving the goalposts, what could convince you that long-range units are not a problem? What could convince you that melee units are a problem?

40k is not WHFB shooting should absolutely be a big part of the game. If you are spending 500 points on melee, 500 points on long-ranged shooting and 1000 points on mid-ranged shooting then you've got a solid mixed army. Whereas in WHFB 500 points on shooting, 1000 points on melee and 500 points on magic would be a balanced mix. I agree that every melee unit should be viable and units relying on Stratagems or characters to be viable is not good for the game, but while your suggestion will improve the bad melee units, there will still be better and worse melee units. If you want bad melee units to be better you have to increase their cost-benefit ratio, not just relative to ranged units, but relative to better melee units. No matter how many forests you place on the battlefield Deathwing Knights will outperform Kroot Hounds.

Your suggested terrain is going to make a lot of borderline useless long-range units into totally useless units and make a lot of OP melee and short ranged units better. If you and your mates agree that long-ranged units are unfun then super, I think your terrain suggestion will work for tilting the game away from long-ranged units. But rolling it out on the competitive scene would do more bad than good.

It's not moving goal posts - the problem is just multi-faceted.

Let me ask you this: have you won any games without ever shooting at enemy units? Then, have you won any games without ever getting into combat?

You really don't need to get into combat to win games despite the fact that there are two phases dedicated to CC. Hell, you don't even need psychic phase. All you need is movement phase and shooting phase to play the game. Shooting phase is so powerful that all other phases are practically optional - I find that to be a jarring design flaw.

The game systematically, not thematically, favors shooting. Terrain provides unbiased protection for both sides against the bias towards shooting.

The proposal is simple - create a zone where the effects of shooting is diminished. Plain and simple. When shooting is diminished, you don't need 3~5 abilities to keep a unit alive.

FYI, you're forgetting long range units can also benefit from the zone - obscured and dense cover applies to non-infantry, swarm or beast. The point is even the long range units need to rush into the zone so you can shoot at enemy outside the area terrain without the penalty. In order for you to shoot at full capacity, you need to put yourself into harm's way, just like ANY OTHER UNITS IN THE GAME. It only penalizes units that park in the back all game long.

I have won games without shooting and without combat more of the latter obviously, there are more shooting units than melee units, you have to really try to build a shooting-less list. On the other hand I have used shooting units in melee to disrupt my opponent's plans or to get to objectives. Unless a unit is immobile it can engage in melee.

Daemons are also pretty strong right now and was in 8th as well, that's a faction almost entirely without shooting. Making melee mandatory is going to put the final nail in Tau's coffin, 40k is not made to be a melee slog in the middle of the board. Maybe AOS is more that kind of game.

You still haven't shown that units that are parked in the back all game long are actually a problem in 9th. Those units are already failing at winning the mission and a board with several large LOS-blocking terrain features can do the job without mandating a huge part of the board be obscuring.

I don't hate the idea as a game mode, like city fight or something, but for the current state of the game I think it'd do more bad than good. Have you tried it out?

 vict0988 wrote:
I have won games without shooting and without combat more of the latter obviously, there are more shooting units than melee units, you have to really try to build a shooting-less list. On the other hand I have used shooting units in melee to disrupt my opponent's plans or to get to objectives. Unless a unit is immobile it can engage in melee.

Daemons are also pretty strong right now and was in 8th as well, that's a faction almost entirely without shooting. Making melee mandatory is going to put the final nail in Tau's coffin, 40k is not made to be a melee slog in the middle of the board. Maybe AOS is more that kind of game.

You still haven't shown that units that are parked in the back all game long are actually a problem in 9th. Those units are already failing at winning the mission and a board with several large LOS-blocking terrain features can do the job without mandating a huge part of the board be obscuring.

I don't hate the idea as a game mode, like city fight or something, but for the current state of the game I think it'd do more bad than good. Have you tried it out?

Yes, all of my games more or less follows the guideline as shown on 'Example Battlefield', in particular, the 1st and 3rd layout.

What we normally see in ITC/nova set up is closer to the 2nd example in that section, where all the large terrain pieces are aligned along the board edge, with the middle more or less naked. Even GW notes that such terrain set up is "not ideal for a matched play game, it would make for a very thematic set-up for a narrative play game such as Ambush" (SHOCKING. I know.) and yet, it has become the norm in many communities.

Setting aside questions of competitiveness and tournaments aside for a moment, I'd absolutely prefer a more concrete/official set of terrain outlines for missions. Look at Warcry for examples.

This could (should) have been worked into the core rulebook; we already have Recommended Board Size based on game size, so add an extra column of Recommended Terrain Pieces/Footprint, and add placement points for terrain on each of the mission maps, along with the deployment zones, objective tokens, etc. Or a separate set of Terrain Maps, which you can template onto different missions for variety. They clearly have an idea of how much terrain should go on what size boards and where - they just convey that through the frustratingly vague "Example Battlefields" section, which even says the words "ideal number of terrain features" without ever actually specifying what that is!

Even just proper rules or guidelines to adjudicate setting up a battlefield's terrain would be nice; at the moment you just have to... figure it out with your opponent.

It's such a major part of the game now - or is clearly meant to be - that it's kind of bizarre to have it be so off-the-cuff.