Faction specific Terrain

[Blurgh]

During the last couple of editions, GW have released faction specific terrain for a lot of the different factions. 

 

Personally I think this is nice. If one is so inclined, one can use these pieces of terrain with their rules in games as a part of the army list. If not, they can just be used as nice flavourful pieces of terrain on the gaming board, without the need to have them in the army list. 

 

Recently it have seemed to me as if not all of these faction specific terrain pieces are available to get from GW anymore.

 

As an example, the Adepta Sororitas Battle Sanctum, seems to have disappeared, at least from the version of the site used in my country.

 

Now I know a lot of this terrain have been made in China. I am aware there have been both manufacturing, supply and shipping troubles over the last few years, and this could of course be the reason.

 

I also think I saw that GW has been working on increasing their production in Nottingham, so it could be they are moving the terrain production inhouse. If they did this move, it could probably have caused some delays?

 

But I have also noticed a few of the newly released armies do not have their own faction specific terrain yet. This of course can just mean that these faction will get the terrain in a later wave or a later edition. 

 

Or are GW "calming down" on the faction specific terrain?

 

Any thoughts on this?

Edited January 22, 2023 by Blurghh
Spelling and clarification

[Joe]

From my view point, the faction-based terrain stuff has worked far better in Sigmar (they are also free points-wise, so they tend to be an auto-include option by default). The difficulty is trying to justify them, I think, versus something like the Endless Spells.

Would an Eldar army always be attacking from a Webway Gate? Do the Death Guard just start planting the Miasmic Malignifier the moment combat starts? These questions exist in Sigmar as well; I still have difficulty trying to justify why my Beasts of Chaos always have a Herdstone nearby. I wouldn't mind seeing more non-static terrain pieces, i.e. turrets and so forth, the sort of thing that an army can lug around and deploy during combat.

[Bouargh]

I would not say thay are "calming down". I would rather tend to think that they never found the riight way to balance it. In fact the Terrain is largely disappering. Some old kits were removed (Bastion, DA Fortress of Arrogance (or whatever it was named)...), one after another while some more recents have suffered mass extintion (Wall of the Martyr).

 

I would tend to consider the 2 types of release mechanisms for scenery:

1. Support a Codex / a la tectonic drill, giving a kind of "Taste"/faction background"

2. Support an extension / a la "City of death"

 

The first one is like a merch trap: the army release shall be popular enough to support a large on-shelf life and design/prod costs - there is a high risk the release is a Maverick, and it is probably easier suceeding into giving a strong background by other ways. See Votann release f.e.

The second one is a so bound to success of the extension that may collapse easily (So long CityFight.... ). Currently only KT and Necromunda are really supporting Scenery (and Boarding action eventualy). But you cannot expect a base of player will spend too much on terrain seen the price. This is absurdly costly, whate ever the detail/quality is, so it is restricted to small table games or people with a well established collection. I will not talk of the latter (I fall in this category and clearly I started investing in Scenery once the rest completed). Yet even in the former, I would not dare paying a big Hab Block from Necromunda at the price superior to a Rogal Dorn Battler tank. Question of priority.

 

So more than "calming down" I would say it is a strategic fallback because they still do not know how to properly balance coolness, cost and game usage. This and the fact that you can have very decent scenery from MDF, plastic, 3D printers from thrid parties at a very competitive price GW cannot achieve. Looks like to me they are choosing the battles they have a chance to win and that the design effort is better spent elsewhere.  

Edited January 22, 2023 by Bouargh

[skylerboodie]

 

I love the factor specific terrain; from my understanding, these are the ones that could be considered factor-specific released to date:

• Orks - Big'ed Bossbunka and Mekboy Workshop
• Aeldari - Webway Gate
• Genestealer Cults - Tectonic Fragdrill (OOP)
• Chaos Space Marines - Noctilith Crown
• Death Guard - Miasmic Malignifier
• T'au Empire - Tidewall Droneport and Shieldline
• Space Marines - Hammerfall Bunker
• Dark Angels - Fortress of Redemption (OOP)
• Necrons - Convergence of Dominion
• Imperial Knights - Sacristan Forgeshrine
• Adepta Sororitas - Battle Sanctum (OOP)
• Chaos Daemons - Skull Altar and Feculent Gnarlmaw both listed under 40K on GW, Fane of Slaanesh as AoS only
• Astra Militarum - Wall of Martyrs (incoming)

More than I realised, not that many factions without one. I was disappointed the GSC one disappeared so quickly.

 

I would also welcome a 40K version of Endless Spells.

 

[ThePenitentOne]

If you like scratch building faction specific terrain, one of the things I've been doing is using the Base of Operation Assets from KT Spec Ops as inspiration.

[Evil Eye]

My issue with the faction terrain is how it's made into another weirdly video-gamey element of gameplay rather than just being, well, terrain. "Rules-generic" terrain for each faction would be great; bastions, defence lines, turrets, bunkers, infrastructure etc, as it could either just be fun scenery for regular games or have more important roles in certain scenarios (planetary invasions, infiltrating a fortress, city combat etc). Likewise, "flavour terain" that fits with factions but has no special rules beyond regular terrain rules, confers no specific advantage to any faction and is only faction-specific aesthetically would be more than welcome (new Tyranid capillary towers please?). Taking a rather out-of-place terrain piece as part of your army selection is both rough from a gameplay perspective (either it confers an unfair advantage and sees every game, is a necessary crutch, or is so useless nobody takes it) and an immersion perspective (Chaos raiders on the attack bringing an entire warp gate with them seems...implausible even by 40K standards).

 

That said some of the terrain is quite nice. Some things like the Fortress of Redemption always looked goofy/"playset" like (IMO the FoR would have worked better as an "example kit" to be converted at will to represent one of many options in a "fortification design rules" table rather than one bespoke and very silly looking building) but more scenery is never a bad thing.

[Magos Takatus]

On 1/25/2023 at 1:56 PM, skylerboodie said:

 

I love the factor specific terrain; from my understanding, these are the ones that could be considered factor-specific released to date:

• Orks - Big'ed Bossbunka and Mekboy Workshop
• Aeldari - Webway Gate
• Genestealer Cults - Tectonic Fragdrill (OOP)
• Chaos Space Marines - Noctilith Crown
• Death Guard - Miasmic Malignifier
• T'au Empire - Tidewall Droneport and Shieldline
• Space Marines - Hammerfall Bunker
• Dark Angels - Fortress of Redemption (OOP)
• Necrons - Convergence of Dominion
• Imperial Knights - Sacristan Forgeshrine
• Adepta Sororitas - Battle Sanctum (OOP)
• Chaos Daemons - Skull Altar and Feculent Gnarlmaw both listed under 40K on GW, Fane of Slaanesh as AoS only
• Astra Militarum - Wall of Martyrs (incoming)

More than I realised, not that many factions without one. I was disappointed the GSC one disappeared so quickly.

 

I would also welcome a 40K version of Endless Spells.

 

Does Sector Mechanicus terrain fall into this category or is that too generic an example? There were a few terrain pieces with rules attached to them like the Haemotrope Reactor.

[skylerboodie]

59 minutes ago, Magos Takatus said:

Does Sector Mechanicus terrain fall into this category or is that too generic an example? There were a few terrain pieces with rules attached to them like the Haemotrope Reactor.

Were they Adeptus Mechanicus faction specific though, or could any faction/ Imperium use them?

[Magos Takatus]

I think they were mainly generic rules. I phrased my post as a question as I wasn't certain either way. 

Edited January 26, 2023 by Magos Takatus
Can't seem to words right now

[Bouargh]

On 1/26/2023 at 5:07 PM, skylerboodie said:

Were they Adeptus Mechanicus faction specific though, or could any faction/ Imperium use them?

they are generic. Faction specifics are the ones coming with rules or used as list entries in codices. Sector mechanicus, sector fronteris... are none of these, or at least if you do not play the extension (tactical depolyment?) that gave you special points to buy terrain affecting you.

Edited January 27, 2023 by Bouargh
F missing

[Jorin Helm-splitter]

I think GW is slowing down on fraction terrain. It just feels like GW has been putting the focus on tournaments, and the fraction specific terrain doesn't  fit into that scene well. 

 

I don't blame them because while tournament players aren't a massive part of the player population they spend a lot.

[mughi3]

Since i play oldhammer i collect a lot of faction specific 3d printed terrain 

 

the big ones are war scenery-admech, space marines, imperial guard, sisters of battle, tau- most inspired from the dawn of war video games

 

forbiddden prints has loads of industrial style terrain that can be used for admech. 

 

Sacrusmundus literally has sets of his own creation for just about every faction found in 40K 

 

I think the faction specific terrain really brings out the table. it draws you more into the game.