Cityfight in the Age of Darkness

[Bung]

After playing a few games in the new edition i feel something lacks.

What i miss ar the dense tables of earlier editions i used to play but my friend with most of the terrain moved away.

 

Digging through my old rulebooks and stuff i found my old Cityfight and Cities in Flames books, going through the old books etc. andaccess to a 3d printer an idea emerged. 

 

So how much terrain should i consider necessary to at least get teh feeling of cityfights in the Horus Heresy? The books dont give good advice on bow much should be covered with buildings, ruins etc.

 

I probably print more modular terrain to cover a whole 4"x4" table for Zone Mortalis. (I am going to print the Modfab Terrain).

But for planing reasons i would like to have some suggestions of how dense the table should be covered with stuff.

[Dont-Be-Haten]

As long as the terrain does not get too obstructive for gaming I think upto 3-4 pieces per square should be fine.

 

I would take a drive through your city and get a feel for a few blocks. Like I feel as though the table size could easily represent a few blocks. Maybe 103rd-105th avenue or 228th st to 232nd Etc. If you are wanting to do a hive city etc. People usually complain/don't want to play on terrain pieces 3ft tall unfortunately.

 

That's the best way to represent sky scrapers though. 

[Xenith]

37 minutes ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

I think upto 3-4 pieces per square should be fine.

 

I think once piece of terrain per square foot is a rule of tumb somewhere. Similarly, an older version of the rules suggested a battlefield surface should be 1/3 covered by terrain in a mix of types, and these were for normal games.

 

For cityfight, I think that having a table 50-75% covered in terrain and ruins would be fine. Obviously, you letthe opponent know youre doing a cityfight and they adjust the list accordingly, however tanks getting trapped in cities and ambushed by more mobile infantry is just...war. I'd have at least one main thoroughfare to allow tanks to traverse, then go nuts. You can always have more open parts of the table also, I freuently do this with mechanicus terrain to make like a gasworks/promethium refinery which things can go through.

[Bung]

For clarificartions, i have found some good examples of tables, like this:

 

Source:

https://www.michaelhanns.com/blog/2020/06/18/cities-of-death/

 

I am mostly struggeling wth home much space the terrain should cover for gaming purpose.

As the old books are partly: Use whatever you have.

 

 

[Xenith]

 

 

3 hours ago, Bung said:

I am mostly struggeling wth home much space the terrain should cover for gaming purpose.

 

As I said above, this is largely a subjective issue, and you should use as much terrain as you think would be good. Maybe cut out a bunch of shapes from paper and put them on a 4X6 board to see what feels right? In your example above I feel that's a decent density for a normal 40k game, maybe due to a lack of verticality and LoS blocking stuff, however I guess you think that density is ok? 

 

Search 3rd edition cityfight, there's loads of images of tables to inspire. 

 

 

[Noserenda]

I think in the OG cityfight they advised 50%+ coverage rather than the standard 25%, certainly our group always runs heavier on terrain than most and we love it :D 

[Brofist]

I want to make a cityfight table myself, but I haven't really found any buildings that both look good and have surfaces you could put models onto/into

[Bung]

3 hours ago, Brofist said:

I want to make a cityfight table myself, but I haven't really found any buildings that both look good and have surfaces you could put models onto/into

 

I am going to print stuff from the Modufab Terrain for versatility.

 

 

I got both expansions Gothic and Harbingers of Damnation.

 

I plan to print enough tiles over time to cover a 4" x 4" table for Zone Mortalis etc.

But i was looking for a starting point for normal - Cityfight density terrain.

 

[Corswain]

I love cityfight. I think it was a cityfight battle report between Salamanders and maybe Eldar (?)  in white dwarf about 2 decades ago that got me into 40k.

I got rid of my codex cityfight years ago, which I regret, but I do still have the Cities of Death supplememt for 4th edition. It suggests 3-6 pieces for a 4x4 table or "as many as you can get your hands on," for a 6x4 table.

 

Pretty much whatever you want is what I say. 

[Bung]

8 hours ago, Corswain said:

I love cityfight. I think it was a cityfight battle report between Salamanders and maybe Eldar (?)  in white dwarf about 2 decades ago that got me into 40k.

I got rid of my codex cityfight years ago, which I regret, but I do still have the Cities of Death supplememt for 4th edition. It suggests 3-6 pieces for a 4x4 table or "as many as you can get your hands on," for a 6x4 table.

 

Pretty much whatever you want is what I say. 

 

Thats what i found in the books, but they never give you a rough size for the Terrain pieces.

[Xenith]

A lot of GW publications say 6"X6" is a guide, however the size of individual pieces doesn't matter, just that they total over 50% of the table surface area.

[Bung]

1 hour ago, Xenith said:

A lot of GW publications say 6"X6" is a guide, however the size of individual pieces doesn't matter, just that they total over 50% of the table surface area.

 

Probably i am overthinking.

Its more about the Modufab Terrain has a Base size of 10 x 10 cm.

I amat the planing stage of how much i would need to print for a decent table.

 

[Dont-Be-Haten]

Is there a petrol station in that set? Personally I think a city rim/outskirts or decommissioned tanker station would be cool. Think dual layer, with snipers/gunners on the roof, while vox +bolters are able to shoot through broken windows etc. That would be awesome. It could be piloted near a main roadway with city structures around it.

 

I would definitely map everything you want to do out and have at least 1 straight away for tanks/Knights to path through.

Edited January 13, 2023 by Dont-Be-Haten

[Brother Sutek]

I love tons of terrain. One of the reasons my group was so successful with infantry was our lack of clear lines of fire that made most tanks so strong. 

 

 

 

[SkimaskMohawk]

Remember that a big part of 4ths cities of death was how ruins limited LoS through them (could only see 6" into them and can't see stuff on the other side) and also had the rules requiring blasts to target ruin levels/barrage hitting the top floor and stopping. Oh and probably limits on going up the ruin levels by unit type. 

 

Simply plopping down a lot of ruins and using the 2nd heresy ruin rules will be a really different experience.

 

 

[Bung]

1 hour ago, Dont-Be-Haten said:

Is there a petrol station in that set? Personally I think a city rim/outskirts or decommissioned tanker station would be cool. Think dual layer, with snipers/gunners on the roof, while vox +bolters are able to shoot through broken windows etc. That would be awesome. It could be piloted near a main roadway with city structures around it.

 

I would definitely map everything you want to do out and have at least 1 straight away for tanks/Knights to path through.

 

The Modufab Terrain is really modular.

Its not quite like Legos, but you basically stick Walls and Floors together without glue. 

[Bung]

3 minutes ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Remember that a big part of 4ths cities of death was how ruins limited LoS through them (could only see 6" into them and can't see stuff on the other side) and also had the rules requiring blasts to target ruin levels/barrage hitting the top floor and stopping. Oh and probably limits on going up the ruin levels by unit type. 

 

Simply plopping down a lot of ruins and using the 2nd heresy ruin rules will be a really different experience.

 

 

 

I still have the old rulebooks, if nothing is done by GW we need to houserule what doesnt work.

[Xenith]

1 hour ago, SkimaskMohawk said:

Remember that a big part of 4ths cities of death was how ruins limited LoS through them (could only see 6" into them and can't see stuff on the other side) and also had the rules requiring blasts to target ruin levels/barrage hitting the top floor and stopping. Oh and probably limits on going up the ruin levels by unit type. 

 

Simply plopping down a lot of ruins and using the 2nd heresy ruin rules will be a really different experience.

 

 

 

I think a lot of that could be fixed by having ruins with solid-walled ground floors, so they provide any table should have a mix of fully LOS blocking and other terrains. 

[Corswain]

If you know you have 10cmx10cm standard footprints you could get started by cutting out card or paper that size and laying them out on your playing surface to get a feel for how many you might want. Even put some models in around them.

Then you just need to figure out height.

[Brother Sutek]

One thing I loved about the original Cityfight was how mortars and flamers came I to their own. Yes my IG were slaughtered in CC by Marines but they kept them honest with the shear amount of templates I could put out.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Petitioner's City]

It's also quite fitting that Andy Hoare wrote the 2004 Cities of Death book for 4th edition (following on from the also excellent 2001, 3rd edition, Codex Cityfight by Chambers, Haines and Johnson).

 

[Brother Sutek]

Nice! I only had the Codex version, how well did this version play?

 

 

 

[Bung]

@SkimaskMohawk

Comparing the old Cities of Death Rules to the HH rulebook there isn much difference.

Horus Heresy has reduced cover save like 4+ in CoD to 5+ in HH.

 

Using the Movement and Template rules / explanations from Cities of Death should work too.

 

The only bigger difference is, how Intact Buildings are handled. I think thats the only part that needs some modifications.

[Marshal Rohr]

Cityfight and Zone Mortalis are mentioned by name as expansions in the AoD rulebooks, so one of the upcoming rules expansions will likely cover it in detail. 

[Noserenda]

Id be interested to see what they come up with actually, with cover being a lot more trivial for marine armies these days it does undermine urban fighting themes a fair bit. Id certainly expect a bit of a re-jig/expansion of the terrain rules and probably a buff to blast weapons and such to make that cover appealing.