Do we want scenery?

[Wassa]

When fielding an Astra Militarum army, is it beneficial to have a lot of scenery?

 

 

On one side, we'd love to have a big mountain at the back of the battlefield to hide our artillery behind.

 

But on the other side, our long range turret weapons suffer if the middle of the battlefield has a lot of scenery for opponents to hide behind.

 

 

It looks like I'll be playing a few games with some players (space marine variants) who like to fill the battlefield with a lot of scenery in the middle, and nothing around the edges which kind of screws me over a bit.

 

 

What are your opinions?

[spafe]

minimum of a quarter of the table should be scenery (at our club), once you have enough to fill a quarter of the table, it is then placed, taking it in turns by each player, so you can usually get a fairly even split.

 

However we enjoy cityfights, built up areas and play very casual games, where I reg advance whole companies of inf into urban environments only for them to get jumped by flesh tearers jump pack marines, so dunno how representative a sample this is.

[Harrowmaster]

Depends on what you're going for battles with loads or virtually ni scenery can be quite fun if agreed upon.

 

Otherwise I would go with spafe's suggestion on density and distribution.

[WarriorFish]

As spafe said games need a fair bit of terrain, 25% of the table with some good line of sight blocking pieces is the standard usually. As mentioned, both players need to agree so if your opponent is trying to tip the balance in his favour asking for a more balanced table set up is the way to go :tu:

[Ahistorian]

I always vote in favour of more scenery on the table. If you're worried about it being fair, let one player set up and the other choose which side to start from!

[JBugman]

25% seems like a good fit.  I just hate seeing a 4x6' table with five small to medium pieces of solid, obscuring terrain (like ruined buildings).  This makes the table just short of a killing field.

[duz_]

I think there's a happy medium

 

Guard want some cover to place their troops in. Especially with the new cover modifier mechanic and limited ignore cover options in 8th.

 

However you dont want so much that the first time you get to fire on the enemy is the turn before they charge or overwatch.

 

I still like to optimise my firing range for the 36-24" mark though. Rarely do I get to make the most of shooting further than that distance with direct LoS.

[Tallarn Commander]

I tend to prefer boards with dense terrain. These boards tactically challenge me. They make me ask questions like:

 

Where must I manuever in order to achieve overlapping fields of fire? How can I take away my opponent's defilade? Where can I outflank or deepstrike so that I can achieve defilade from all but the target enemy unit?

[tychobi]

I think your question is hard to answer due to Astra Militarum having multiple tactics.

 

Long range direct fire weapons thrive in sparse scenery situations while artillery heavy armies may preferr dense maps with lots of places to hide. Close combat elements need places to hide and strike from around corners. Vehicles can sometimes have difficulty navigating dense terrain, even flyers have to put their base somewhere. Your opponents unit/tactics choice is a huge facor as well. Elevated positions vs a bike heavy or melee dreadnaught army can be devastating.

 

For me your list and tactics interplay with the same dynamic forces of your opponent to create tactical advantages and disadvantages in and around scenery. Your job is to recognise them as far ahead of time as possible and take advantage of them.

 

All that said a healthy amount of line of sight blocking terrain is vital for fun, fair, healthy warhammer imho

[Halfpint100]

You need some terrain. Games are boring if it is open gunlines. Need that LOS blocking terrain

[GuardDaddy]

I'd support idea that 25% at least needs to be terrain. In fact I'd go so far to say that 8th edition only really works as a balanced system with this level of terrain. Generally I find that line of sight issues for guard are balanced by ability to block movement routes and therefore screen more effectively when more scenery in place. 

 

A favourite tactic is to get squad to surround smaller transports with your models about inch and half away (pesky dark eldar for example) and then kill the transport - with scenery to help its easier to fulfill the criteria for having nowhere to place disembarking models and therefore wiping squad. 

[Kinstryfe]

 

It looks like I'll be playing a few games with some players (space marine variants) who like to fill the battlefield with a lot of scenery in the middle, and nothing around the edges which kind of screws me over a bit.

 

 

What are your opinions?

Well, there's your problem. Don't let them do that. Either point out that that isn't acceptable distribution of terrain, or insist that you take turns placing terrain pieces so you can spread it about.

 

That said, I almost always find more terrain better than less terrain. The more the better. It makes things way more fun to actually have to maneuver and set up firing lanes.

[allegedlynerdy]

More terrain the better! Using terrain I've been able to take what most people would call a straight up losing scenario into a win. Played a game of guard and a tiny bit of inquisition/deathwatch at 2000 pts, against a really nasty eldar list. We were running the ITC mission sets (I personally like some of the spins they have on missions) minus the secondary objectives they have (just using firstblood, warlord, and linebreaker). We rolled the "What's yours is mine" which is basically 2 objective markers, one in each deployment zone. I was able to place mine in a box created by some buildings which blocked LOS against the eldars, and basically filled the entire area up with guardsmen as an area denial tool. With my mordian 5+ overwatch, and having my vets out in some woods to fire on special targets, I was able to hold out long enough to get my deathwatch to contest their objective- just for one turn- but it was enough to win.

 

But just in general, I think that cityfight is what works well for 40k. trenches deep enough for infantry do too, but you don't see all that much of those specialty boards.