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Pondering some more terrain, the way we arre setting it up is roughly thus

- 1d3+1 per quarter rolled, with a dice put in the quarter with that value
- alternate selecting terrain from the box and placing it, decrementing the dice as its done
- some big bits of terrain counting as 2 choices for the quarter - e.g. woodland areas designed for 28mm and 15mm so a decent size, and one or two larger buildings

so far it works, but the board feels empty, ok very easy to just increase the number of items, which will likely be done

ok, the question, if creating obstacles, e.g. tank traps to be impassable to ground vehicles, razor wire to be difficult & dangerous to infantry and just difficult for ground vehicles what would a suitable size be?

pondering 8"x2" for razor wire (because I've got loads from flames of war), ditto as a "minefield" (dangerous to everyone, including skimmers) for the same reason. then the same for tank traps, though they would be remade to be more suitably scaled.

with these counting as a terrain choice are these likely too large/small? thought is they are "up to" so if someone wants a 4"x2" bit to fill a gap they can, its still one choice.

thoughts?

For tanks traps or anti infantry stuff like razorwire, I think it depends entirely on if the sections of terrain will be removeable at all. For example tanks removing razorwire by driving over it, or infantry engineers removing tank traps with explosives.


I can't really speak to the methodology of setting up a board, opponents generally trust me to setup a fairly considered/timely board. How are you integrating this system with the actual mission/scenario being played and the location of objectives? While I do like how streamlined missions are in the book with just telling you the location of objectives relative to one another, I find it clashes with creativity because I either have to start with a scenario/mission in mind and setup the terrain on the board in accordance with that and where the mission wants the objectives to be placed.

I like to play on a board with lots of terrain be it city or other dence terrain features. Need to play hide and seek It looks good to see your army clean citybloks or take control of airfield or village.

 Crablezworth wrote:
For tanks traps or anti infantry stuff like razorwire, I think it depends entirely on if the sections of terrain will be removeable at all. For example tanks removing razorwire by driving over it, or infantry engineers removing tank traps with explosives.


I can't really speak to the methodology of setting up a board, opponents generally trust me to setup a fairly considered/timely board. How are you integrating this system with the actual mission/scenario being played and the location of objectives? While I do like how streamlined missions are in the book with just telling you the location of objectives relative to one another, I find it clashes with creativity because I either have to start with a scenario/mission in mind and setup the terrain on the board in accordance with that and where the mission wants the objectives to be placed.

the idea actually was along the lines of Razor Wire being area terrain, just difficult for vehicles, but then overlay perhaps vehicles can move through it, or they can elect to end their movement upon contact, and then the following turn if they have a movement order before moving, remove it - in effect they gave up the previous turns partial movement to clear a path - would permit infantry to move up, stop moving, then a d6 for the detachment at the start of the following turn etc

likewise tank traps need a way to clear them

heck you could even add a "Pioneer" order, unit doesn't move, doesn't shoot (may fight normally if charged), but then the unit can do some battlefield engineering functions

needs to be nice and simple, like a pioneer unit can clear a minefield, roll a dice, on a "1" it takes a single hit, on a 2+ the minefield is cleared, and have "pioneer" as an upgrade for infantry or vehicles (mine flails, ploughs etc)

from other games there needs to be some way to remove such


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 skeleton wrote:
I like to play on a board with lots of terrain be it city or other dence terrain features. Need to play hide and seek It looks good to see your army clean citybloks or take control of airfield or village.

infantry needs cover, as do vehicles, and yes it does look good to have something to actually be fighting over

have got hold of some terrain tiles I'm, slowly, printing, 6" square, this stuff https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/game/titanstructure-dark-future-8mm-scale-city-tile-for-epic-titanicus though I have the paid set which provides more options and the buildings to go with them. a nice mix of roadways and line of sight blockers

idea is razorwire, barricades etc that can block, for a while at least, the roadways and a player is able to select such to place instead of placing a building tile. maybe "one choice" is say four razor wire sections, or two tank traps or two minefields (or some combination), that goes down in place of a specified area of terrain - and yes this is basically lifted from Flames of War, and initially likely would use the stuff I did years back for that game but likely gets its own eventually.

with alternating terrain placement its just more "stuff" to put down

Okay rate my board. Is this bad amount of terrain? Specifically I'm worried is this too much as I would presume too litte would favour long range solar's and we are having solars being annihilated and badly.

Funny as I get impression solar considered better than non-infiltrate marines(mine's blood angels unsurprisingly) but we are having total routs.

This time we called it at 75-12 after 3 rounds, every objective my hand and enemy army more or less decimated with most of my infantry and titan left(titan btw hadn't really made it's point nor was it soaking damage as it was ignored). At least my armour company was mostly dead though as we knew game over went for over risky(seeing he went army wide 1st fire i could have ducked out of sight forcing overwatch. I'm at objectives. He needs to move. Not me).

It was so 1 sided i had to double check i had 2k list...

The board looks decent for coverage, the big los blocking mountains/rocks are good, perhaps if there's anything I'd suggest more of is similar stuff like that, perhaps placing them with very deliberate spacing but center weighted to have interesting choke points/place only so many tanks or infantry can fit through in line or perhaps just enough for the warlords base to fit through ect.

Did you play the forests as obstructing areas of terrain? How did you play the wheat fields?

One thing I noticed recently, flyers ignore knights and titan's -1/-2 from 25/50+% natural obstruction but don't ignore the -1 for models wholly within areas of terrain.

Forest are obstructing(ie same as ruins) as per rulebook. Note forest are specifically listed as examples of obscuring. Don't feel need to change that one either.

Wheat fields are difficult terrain so 6+ cover, -1 to hit inside, infantry&walkers normal, rest halve their movement speed. Seems most logical option(like hell it is dangerous, full los block over it doesn't seem logical. It doesn't look like garrisonable...Leaves as difficult terrain or just decoration and I prefer to have more types of terrain at hand).

Titan was flat out ignored probably smartly due to it still taking quite a decent firepower and for all it's guns and firepower it STILL didn't make it's points back. Killed 7/8 of leman russ plus bunch of infantry(when game was already in the bag) and gave bit of a light show toward lightnings trying to shoot those down but zero hits. It was more of distraction carnifex. Last time we played 2 thunderhawk and reaver basically ate his entire firepower for 2 turns resulting my armoured company resulting in literally 0 damage. Now my armoured company was nearly annihilated.

Just feels weird on how we are having solar auxilia to be so outclassed here where usually seeing more of SA wins and it's not like we had any of the strong legions...Blood angels rule is neat but rather niche. Only thing it did here was kept assault marines in charge range after 11" withdraw.

Though I asked him to double check his list. I put all I could remember and I'm like 150-200 short...Funny how he asked me am I really playing with 2k. I would like to ask same question for opposite reason...

(yes I double checked and triple checked. 1998 pts to be exact)

I had warlord titan, I had more detachments. Feels...weird.

Though we both agree fliers are partially to blame and those have problem that while they are decent vehicle hunters my list isn't really halted by those busting some vehicles(and 4+ to hit limits damage a bit) and those cost a LOT.

I'm fairly casual player, win rates usually around 40-50% so I'm not player who generally trumps opponents this badly. I was ahead on current vp's, on objectives controlled and my army was in far better shape. We could zero vp's and go for end game objectives and I would win even if I don't even bother to shoot anything turns 4-5. Too far away and too many marines as a roadblock to reach 4 of the objectives. He might get home objective back top center one but that's the limit he could even reach by the end of the game...

So apart from possibility of him having screwed up his list or forgot to put something on board resulting in quite an handicap was wondering do I have TOO MUCH terrain since logically solar auxilia should prefer less board the better with all the vanquisher cannons he has. Though to be fair with 6 lightings it's fairly hard to avoid losing bunch of tanks each turn as those sees everything.

tneva82 wrote:
Forest are obstructing(ie same as ruins) as per rulebook. Note forest are specifically listed as examples of obscuring. Don't feel need to change that one either.

Only thoughts are defining a max height maybe, if it matters in game. How do you handle the trees themselves like if the titan wants to move into the forest? Are they glued or can they be lifted off?


Automatically Appended Next Post:

tneva82 wrote:


Wheat fields are difficult terrain so 6+ cover, -1 to hit inside, infantry&walkers normal, rest halve their movement speed. Seems most logical option(like hell it is dangerous, full los block over it doesn't seem logical. It doesn't look like garrisonable...Leaves as difficult terrain or just decoration and I prefer to have more types of terrain at hand).

Makes sense, generic areas of difficult terrain seem pretty useful and it's a good balancer for planes as they can seemingly ignore the obstacle cover but not area.

those trees look removable. We've been using terrain previously used for 15mm games as well as newer 8mm type buildings.

woods are really a defined area with a few removable trees on each to remind players its a woodland area. I've got swamps and similar but so far no one has let me put them on a table

sad panda

as for the board, I'd say its not bad, certainly playable, perhaps more LoS blocking could be useful but then not every battle is fought in dense terrain so a mix of terrain levels is a nice way to shake lists up

leopard wrote:


as for the board, I'd say its not bad, certainly playable, perhaps more LoS blocking could be useful but then not every battle is fought in dense terrain so a mix of terrain levels is a nice way to shake lists up

Yea trees removable.

Los blocking or lack of it wasn't issue as such. After all most of casualties i caused was via short range after moving. And units he wanted to shoot at me so mutual firepower.

The field area ended up tank graveyard(my tanks mainly thanks to lightning). Central forest and above my dreadnoughts and infantry swept. Thunderhawk delivered 4 base of assault to 1 objective. And then 4 assault marines drove 6 ogryn and bunch of infantry away...

Sounds a good game, and actually remarkably like how 15mm WW2 games go, expensive aircraft are murder on armour while its infantry that clear terrain

nice with four bases of assault driving the enemy away, I've found the moment you are outnumbered stuff drops really fast due to the pairing and additional dice - unless you use movement, charge something that has already moved (or been pinned) and then gang up on one end

The enemy had already moved so i was able to just charge 3 reqular inf and then 1ogryn had to be charged. But ogryn flopped as well...

I was actually expecting to lose the 4 but just keep them away from objective t2 and t3. Then the 8+4 missile squad ought to be close enough. Delay. Not kill.

Then they failed morale and withdrew straight into bolter range of terminators(who had nothing but knight in range...). Well that caused more casualties and then combo charge and his home objective was mine.

That went WAY beyond my plans lol.

tneva82 wrote:

leopard wrote:


as for the board, I'd say its not bad, certainly playable, perhaps more LoS blocking could be useful but then not every battle is fought in dense terrain so a mix of terrain levels is a nice way to shake lists up

Yea trees removable.

Los blocking or lack of it wasn't issue as such. After all most of casualties i caused was via short range after moving. And units he wanted to shoot at me so mutual firepower.

The field area ended up tank graveyard(my tanks mainly thanks to lightning). Central forest and above my dreadnoughts and infantry swept. Thunderhawk delivered 4 base of assault to 1 objective. And then 4 assault marines drove 6 ogryn and bunch of infantry away...

Would the titan remove the trees if moved over? Would this be temporary or permanent? like is it phasing through them or wrecking them i guess is a better way to ask it.

tneva82 wrote:
The enemy had already moved so i was able to just charge 3 reqular inf and then 1ogryn had to be charged. But ogryn flopped as well...

I was actually expecting to lose the 4 but just keep them away from objective t2 and t3. Then the 8+4 missile squad ought to be close enough. Delay. Not kill.

Then they failed morale and withdrew straight into bolter range of terminators(who had nothing but knight in range...). Well that caused more casualties and then combo charge and his home objective was mine.

That went WAY beyond my plans lol.

I hope you had your evil laughter well practiced. love it when stuff like that happens


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Crablezworth wrote:

tneva82 wrote:

leopard wrote:


as for the board, I'd say its not bad, certainly playable, perhaps more LoS blocking could be useful but then not every battle is fought in dense terrain so a mix of terrain levels is a nice way to shake lists up

Yea trees removable.

Los blocking or lack of it wasn't issue as such. After all most of casualties i caused was via short range after moving. And units he wanted to shoot at me so mutual firepower.

The field area ended up tank graveyard(my tanks mainly thanks to lightning). Central forest and above my dreadnoughts and infantry swept. Thunderhawk delivered 4 base of assault to 1 objective. And then 4 assault marines drove 6 ogryn and bunch of infantry away...

Would the titan remove the trees if moved over? Would this be temporary or permanent? like is it phasing through them or wrecking them i guess is a better way to ask it.

personally I'd have titans slowed by forests, they may knock some trees over but will be slowed to negotiate the terrain when its harder to be sure of the footing for something that size, and a need to be cautious in case there are teddy bears hiding

Titan has special rule only for obstacles(pipes etc). Not obstructing like ruins/forest. So without house rules titan is slowed same as any other vehicle.

Keep in mined that buildings are a infantry's best friend. if solar is dropping like fly's he doing something wrong. SA has the range and power to kill every SM tank from range with his tanks.
And the cc to kill the marine infantry. And his planes are better, keep some interceptors of, so you can intercept the thunderhawk and shoot him down.

 skeleton wrote:
Keep in mined that buildings are a infantry's best friend. if solar is dropping like fly's he doing something wrong. SA has the range and power to kill every SM tank from range with his tanks.
And the cc to kill the marine infantry. And his planes are better, keep some interceptors of, so you can intercept the thunderhawk and shoot him down.

True range is good advantage. But of course if he wanted to shoot my tanks(which were mostly moving around behind terrain t1 marching because of range) he has to expose to my warlord titan. 30" and 40" ranges aren't that bad and it was spearheading. Plus thunderhawk is pretty reliable tank buster with...well hefty range as well. And I don't need to kill all. Just enough to keep him from wiping my guys TOO fast. Because the other issue with range is if he stays back then I'm going to objectives. If he stays at 2 objectives trying to play range game I'll go into 42-16 lead in 2 turns in this scenario. Then you are struggling to come back.

As for buildings funny thing is...NEITHER side wanted to go there I didn't want to risk my 12 stand detachments at essentially coinflip(4 shots at 4+, average 2 hits, I need to pass at least one 9+ save on 2d6. As every 40k/aos player knows 9" charge with reroll is 48% odds. Same here) to lose average 10 stand.

He was even worse as my gun is "wee" bit better averaging two hits and he needs to fail 2 8+ save. That's 66% chance of passing ONE of them and one pass and boom building destroyed and in SA case that's entire detachment dead.

If he risks and there's 2 buildings and he tries garrisoning both...Well imagine face of SA player who loses 32 stands of infantry to single gun

Funnily we were both treating buildings as no go danger zone ;-)

I admit we both could have been overreacting but I entered only when I had other good targets for the knight to shoot to give him hard choice. Do I go for blowing infantry? Or maybe those tanks? First time I faced that acastus didn't realize the danger so lost 10/13 infantry including every heavy support stand. And that was with above average dice rolling...

If there's titan graviton weapons or acastus with conversion beamers around recommendable to do the same Don't make target priority too easy to go at the building with juicy infantry inside.

tneva82 wrote:
Titan has special rule only for obstacles(pipes etc). Not obstructing like ruins/forest. So without house rules titan is slowed same as any other vehicle.

I'm asking about its ability exist in the same space as the trees, do you pull the trees? Can it not move through them? The obstructing terrain rules are lacking in this area, similar to ruins, do you move the ruins? Does the titan exist in a hypothetical position?

How are you doing height, can the warlord shoot over the forest or is its los blocking infinitely tall?

I would follow the sort of rules as used in Flames now for stuff like this, largely because its simple

forested areas are considered to block line of sight to and from ground units, fliers can see over. Titans are, for the most part, ground units so its blocked. trees can be really tall. and its easier this way.

titans can enter such areas if the tree models are physically removable, if not they can't (assume its dense forest with unstable ground) - basically if it can fit it can go there, if it can't, it can't.

you could go down the height stat route, as with battletech, but to be honest its probably not worth bothering with - if you want to try it the easy way is give stuff like forested areas a "scale", stuff thats larger can see other stuff thats larger, but is partly concealed. observer or target are smaller, can't see past it

leopard wrote:
I would follow the sort of rules as used in Flames now for stuff like this, largely because its simple

forested areas are considered to block line of sight to and from ground units, fliers can see over. Titans are, for the most part, ground units so its blocked. trees can be really tall. and its easier this way.

titans can enter such areas if the tree models are physically removable, if not they can't (assume its dense forest with unstable ground) - basically if it can fit it can go there, if it can't, it can't.

you could go down the height stat route, as with battletech, but to be honest its probably not worth bothering with - if you want to try it the easy way is give stuff like forested areas a "scale", stuff thats larger can see other stuff thats larger, but is partly concealed. observer or target are smaller, can't see past it

It's more just that obstructing terrain is lacking any specificity in regards to heigh and how models interact with that's actually on the base. I've made this point before but it is very odd to have a titan removing 2 inch tall silos only to have a 2 inch tall tree get in its way. furthermore that 2 inch tall tree is effectively infinity height tree because you can't shoot through the areas of obstructing terrain, but no mention to "over".


That's also something they will invariably have to faq/comment on, there is currently nothing in the rulebook explaining total los/heigh/where los is traced from. This is part of the height thing, but it also cuts both ways, shooting "under" things like landed ships or trains. In AT weapons are considered to fire from their mountings, basically where they are on the arm or carapace.

It's a rather large incogruity for a titan to be able to fire "over" a structure it's taller than, but somehow be completely blocked by 2 inch tall ruin or tree, I'd go further than its incongruity, its just badly handled and could be fixed with a single sentance, "area terrain's heigh is considered to be that of the tallest terrain element (tree, ruin).

It doesn't fix how moving into/through trees/ruin models works in any practical sense but that would require more than a few sentences.