terrain in 40k and real life-comparisons and "meta"

[MarshalMittermeier]

regarding recent hints about terrain rules changes, this post is about understanding how terrain rules influence the game's meta. to understand WHY terrain(in particular, its ability to affect LoS) is so important, i will explain briefly how it affects things in real life, comparing airforce(=very low ability of terrain to mask enemies) to army (=extremely high ability of terrain to mask enemies) to various 40k editions and changes in terrain/LoS. this sounds complicated, but it really is not, not at the super basic level we talk about here.

 

1. air force

ever since the discovery of radar, it has been increasingly difficult for air units to conceal their presence. this combined with the invention of BVR missiles,("beyond misual range" -a huge category of missiles which use radar to guide themselves across dozens or even hundreds of miles to their target) changed everything. for example, as aircraft approached, NO DOGFIGHTS needed to take place; pilots saw dots in the radar, electronics told them friend or foe,then they  clicked a button, and missiles were fired, never really seeing the enemy at all. no "hunt for his tail" like in the movies; nothing, just boring "fly towards there, shoot at huge range". even worse, even if you dodged, the missile simply followed; you can be a fighter ace all you want , the missile will follow you until its fuel and/or kinetic energy run out, you'll need to dodge repeatedly the same missile unless your electronic warfare systems win out.

 

dogfighting became obsolete. almost-but-not-really obsolete in vietnam war, then more in the 80s as tech advanced, but very steadily more and more obsolete. now we are in an arms race about stealth and more powerful sensors. *we dont care* about building actualy good planes anymore. "who cares, he who detects the enemy first in the long-range shootout wins".

 

does that remind you of anything? in 5th-8th edition 40k, it is similar: everything is "mostly in line of sight", so naturaly the best way to fight is to invest in lots and lots of long range firepower to shoot first OR to systems that are always out of LoS such as deepstrike units(like stealth irl).

 

2. ground combat

now, combat on the ground is different. caves, homes, urban warfare, mountains, all these prevent radar detection to a degree, at least to a level that it is not *super duper accurate*.so radar and other sensors, while not useless to prevent surprise, is not useful in *targeting*. a real person must target, even if it is via a thermal camera or electro-optical sensors, he at least needs to *see* something and *point* something at the target. the result is, the vast majority of army ground combat is still done in small ranges (1-5 miles, rather than 25+ miles in air force)

 

this is what we want as black templars, we and other cc enthusiasts. we want an environment where you need to WORK to achieve LoS and the chance to shoot.

 

believe me, cc being inferior to shooting is not a codex thing; it is a *meta* thing, and as such, it is edition-driven, not codex-driven. if terrain rules do not change, and "everything is still in line of sight to everything", then the shooty army will be able to focus fire any threat they want.

 

this is not whining. rather, it is *hope*. we have been hinted at some terrain rules changes at last! this means, now we have *REAL* hope, rather than hope due to some codex that was never the real problem in the first place.

Edited June 9, 2020 by MarshalMittermeier

[Medjugorje]

hmm. I am not sure about the BIG change because we never played the 8th edition rules for terrain. ground Floor of each building was always a LOS blocker and often a special building used to be los blocker too.

 

From that point of view its not very different how the new terrain rules might be.