Terrain: what it is, and what it should be.

Groomie · Terrain: what it is, and what it should be.

Terrain is one of the most radically changed aspects of 5th Edition. With the shift to True Line Of Sight (TLOS), table tops around the world were redefined.

I think that the current terrain we play with at the store, is not satisfactory in terms of having a wide variety of terrain that is useful to 40K. There are plenty of pieces the do well for WFB and Warmachine/Hordes.

We should consider another Terrain Workshop day for the store, or look through our pieces at home that might be able to part with.

Looking at the examples of battlefields, and reading through the amount of terrain that the game designers suggest, I think that there are two areas of importance.

First is the balance of terrain. Terrain should be varied, as that makes the games more enjoyable to watch and more challenging to play. We have plenty of forests and hills. We have too few walls and difficult terrain. We have no blocking terrain.

The examples given in the 40K rulebook call for six to seven pieces of terrain with each piece covering about 12" by 12".

Of those pieces, roughly one third should be pieces that block line of sight. The important thing to remember is that it must block line of sight for the majority of models. Tall hills (which would probably be difficult terrain), Rock Spires, enclosed buildings would all fit this category.

One third of the pieces should be terrain that interferes (emphasis mine) with line of sight and provides cover. This kind of cover should interfere with LOS with the majority of models, including vehicles and monstrous creatures. Forests and Ruins are the staple of this category. These pieces used to be area terrain. Many players use movable trees in their forests. The problem with TLOS and movable trees is that the actual cover provided may change from turn to turn. I don't see an easy fix for this, except to adopt the following "Gentleman's agreement":

Players should agree before the game what amount of cover (and the save) modular or movable pieces of terrain provide. This amount of cover is to remain consistent throughout the game regardless of the position of the parts that can be moved.

The last category of terrain is pieces that do not block line of sight, but provide cover. Walls, Barricades, Piles of Rubble, and Craters constitute this category. The store currently has more pieces like this than the blocking terrain, but less than the forests or ruins.

The second important aspect of terrain is size. The footprint of the terrain is something that I think needs to be observed. I think that we should start out with fewer pieces, but each piece should be larger than the ones we currently have at the store.

Having a LOT of pieces that interfere with LOS, or block LOS, or provide a cover save isn't the same as having the fewer pieces with larger footprints. First, having fewer pieces makes setup faster. It also makes placement of pieces more strategic.

We play with about 9 pieces of terrain here. Three enclosed buildings, three ruins, and three bases with rubble and craters. The ruins are GW ruins, the buildings are styrofoam blocks mounted on bases, and the rubble and craters are bases which contain the crashed Imperial Lander from the 4th Edition "Battle For Macragge" set.

Ellery, Jason, and myself have found this to be a better way to play, as it really helps balance out shooting vs. assault. Shooting armies tend to lose if there is too much terrain, and assault armies tend to lose if their is too little.

The last thing I wanted to bring up is Roads. There are rules for roads in 5th Edition. I have played with roads, and the thing is, it helps make the board look more interesting aesthetically. It does help vehicles, but it also puts them in the open at the same time. In my mind Roads are kind of a wildcard, as they have none of the qualities of other terrain. I would suggest that we also look into making either road tiles or finding a way to make roads for the tables at the store.