NH24 - 40K Terrain Discussion

[Jye Nicolson]

<Snip>
As the terrain discussion was getting a bit long, I have moved it to its own thread.

Just to unpack the terrain issue - I think I mentioned it in the other thread already but I strongly feel we should use the standard GW terrain layouts. Having enough ruins is crucial for achieving the sort of close, 5 round idiomatic 10th edition games that are where the fun lives in 40K right now. I'd rather compromise on number of tables than terrain-per-table (we can stretch it a bit by using templates and have smaller ruins/scatter on the templates to add up to a ruin - a reasonable bit of this is actually good to stop the board being borderline impassable for vehicles and cavalry - but it's still pretty dense in the end).

You'd probably set the mission per table per round and have folks move around so they play on a variety of layouts.

[Primarch]

What is the area/footprint of the recommended level of terrain? Does it all need to be ruins, or can you sub in forests, craters and buildings too?

[Jye Nicolson]

What is the area/footprint of the recommended level of terrain? Does it all need to be ruins, or can you sub in forests, craters and buildings too?

Check out the Leviathan Tournament Companion. I don't think everything in there is important for us but the terrain layouts are good, as are the mappings of mission/deployment to layout.

Playing casually I often use solid buildings as substitutes but ideally they should be ruins as that's very helpful for infantry. It doesn't need to be a physical ruin model, but we'd ideally want a bunch of those 6x12 templates and enough stuff of various heights to largely fill them up (so they do the job of LOS blocking without being impassable or having too much magic LOS blocking open space).

Craters, forests, hills etc are generally extras (in that they provide cover but not LoS blocking), though again if you whack some on a template with some scatter walls or whatever and call that a ruin it's all good.

[Primarch]

So every game is on an urban battlefield? Sounds good if you're a company that primarily sells urban ruins for terrain.

I looked over the tournament pack. The diagrams seem to assume that everyone has paired/mirrored pieces of urban terrain that they can use and that all of the terrain is on fixed base sizes. But they also state that terrain sizes aren't fixed, and that you can mix in other types if you have them. Very clear.

Well my terrain is on all sorts of base sizes and is of varying heights, so we'll see how it goes.
I'm going to shoot for 25% table coverage (22" by 30"), and see how that goes. I think we may need to house rule that forests over a certain size block LoS through them.
I can probably knock together some more ruined walls and buildings over the winter break, so that should help.

#edit# - I just did a rough calculation of the area of terrain on the GW layouts using the dotted lines as a guide. They work out at around 23% coverage with my rough and ready approach, so 25% or 660 Square Inches is the target. Quite a lot of that is open space over an area of 'ruins' though.

[Jye Nicolson]

I looked over the tournament pack. The diagrams seem to assume that everyone has paired/mirrored pieces of urban terrain that they can use and that all of the terrain is on fixed base sizes. But they also state that terrain sizes aren't fixed, and that you can mix in other types if you have them. Very clear.

Many tournaments do have exactly that sort of terrain, as there are a lot of third party kits that give you sets of L-shaped buildings that are suitable for setting up tables in bulk. The language about not having to exactly that is probably just acknowledging not everyone has that stuff and to do your best, which is the position we're in.

I believe GW doesn't permanently attach terrain to bases but puts down the bases first and arranges scenery on them (not sure if that's always true now they run a bunch of different events in various places, but it's my understanding of the situation). I should be able to set up one table with exactly those bases, we can approximate for others.

Well my terrain is on all sorts of base sizes and is of varying heights, so we'll see how it goes.

Yeah the important bit is the rules concept of Ruin, which is "zone you can't draw LOS through, infantry can walk through it, everything else can go over/through the occasional low bit". It doesn't really matter if it's trees or building or whatever, if you have terrain that does that and substantially disrupts shooting lanes without making the objectives completely safe, the game should have the right dynamics and shooting armies don't autowin.

[Primarch]

Ok, I've just read through the 10th ed terrain rules and want to make sure I understand them correctly.

If you cannot see a unit, you cannot target it without some special rule/ability. Woods are an exception to the normal visibility rules and merely provide cover if you shoot into/through them.

Most models can climb over most terrain. So tanks can climb onto buildings (but not the upper floors of ruins).

Intact buildings are essentially hills. You can stand on top, but you cannot stand inside.

Ruins block LoS through them, even if there is a huge gap.

Is that all correct?
Why does the height of the ruins matter? It is specified in the tournament pack that some parts need to be taller. Is that just for Plunging Fire?

So it seems to me (and I could be wrong as 10th really isn't my thing) that Ruins aren't absolutely necessary, they are just the most efficient. They block LoS, give options to infantry and grant cover. You could definitely play on a forest board by adding some LoS blocking rocks/hills, (or just declaring that larger areas of woods block LoS). Likewise, you could have a bunch of intact buildings on a board to break up LoS and smaller walls to hide troops behind.

While I can see the appeal of the mirrored layouts in the tournament pack for ensuring as much balance as possible in a competitive environment, I'm not sure that they are entirely feasible without a massive investment in time and money, nor necessary for more casual play. Looking at some tournament pictures online, a lot of what I see looks utterly soulless and boring.

I will be making new terrain for this NH, but it won't all be stuff that fits the official suggestion of 'all ruins, all the time', as I plan on utilizing it in my own collection. I will ensure that there is plenty of stuff to block LoS and grant cover though. If people do want to craft tournament standard terrain and bring it along, that would be very welcome.

[Jye Nicolson]

Your read of the rules is essentially correct, though I don't think woods are actually an exception (they would block LOS if they were dense enough, it's just in practice they'd have to be way denser than any I've ever seen).

- LOS blocking is the vast majority of what we're trying to achieve here yes, so anything that accomplishes that is fine (which is essentially what I do when setting up a table at our monthlies - I approximate the layouts by cobbling together bits of terrain and calling them ruins, putting in some solid LOS blockers instead etc - just as long as you can set up with a high degree of safety and approach the middle while only exposing yourself to select angles of fire)

- I personally don't think ruin height matters, other than some bits ideally being 2" or less so you can move over them freely (vehicles and cav can theoretically get on terrain but usually their base doesn't fit and they don't have enough move to clear it), and others being high enough that small units can maybe hide even if they're in the terrain. Plunging Fire is irrelevant, though I guess if we happen to have any terrain that big it should be in the centre not deployment zones.

- The mirrored layouts aren't necessary but are made with the missions in mind. I think they're by far the safest bet for having good games. You could thin them out a bit by removing some of the corner pieces that don't matter much in game, but that would fix the table to probably one deployment layout rather than supporting a few with the same terrain. The terrain *itself* doesn't need to be mirrored - if you put down a bunch of 6x12 rectangles of felt or plexiglass in the right spots and then put whatever you like on them that folks are willing to accept are mechanically ruins or otherwise LOS blocking you're fine. But the symmetry of the zones means both sides have equally safe deployments and equally risky access to objectives.

For my part I think balanced terrain setup is more important for casual play than competitive play. Competitive players will gripe more but play often and adapt, casual players are more likely to be bringing a force dictated by hobbying time for its one big hurrah and should be set up for success.

The big question is how many tables do we think we need? With four players to a table, we should be able to pack people in reasonably efficiently. I can definitely do two tables worth at least from my collection (transport allowing; usually closer to one and a half in my suitcase on game days).

[Primarch]

I'm not sure how many tables we will need. I would (in times long past) have said 8ish, with a variety of set-ups and terrain types. If all the tables will be functionally the same, there is less need to give players options.
Anyway, I'll make sure there is enough terrain/tables available.

I have a lot of full size (6'x4') mats, but none of the new sized gaming boards, so if people have some we can use that would be great. Otherwise I can just mark the gaming area on the mats with some tape or something.

[Jye Nicolson]

I have a bunch of the boards, should be able to do 3 tables' worth at least.