Terrain within more competitive circles...kinda bland

[chapter master 454]

So I play in a group that is good, friendly and welcoming, mostly open to doing whatever and playing for laughs however it is also where a good few of the competitive players also frequent who are of tournament level. This has meant I have played on UKTC terrain layouts with the UKTC style of terrain quite regularly and personally find it quite enjoyable mainly as the rules for it are straight forward and make understanding what line of sights can be drawn a lot easier as if a ruin's base reaches, that is how far the visual denial goes. Simple and easy.

 

However, these terrain layouts are incredibly boring. For those that haven't seen them, the layout of these terrain pieces aren't an issue because of shape, it is the lack of any want to allow interaction through them. These terrain pieces are just solid walls with no windows and commonly they have floors within but not like height means anything for line of sight (unless you are a towering unit toe tapping the structure) and these pieces also tend to make it so being on top of the terrain doesn't offer any LoS ether. I personally have found myself missing a bit of depth within the game, quite literally I suppose, with some elements of vertical game play being a point of interest. There isn't any reason to put infantry in these structures for optimal firing lines, they become nothing more than hiding spots, nothing else. Not an advantageous position to fire from and in fact, it is almost like these terrain pieces specifically don't want to be fire base locations but yet ironically become the best place for indirect artillery fire-bases.

 

I do suppose there is two layers to this issue.

1: the terrain rules from GW are quite straight forward with no real reason to gain height for Line of Sight. Ruins do offer I believe a plunging fire benefit but how many of you knew that? It is bonus AP for firing down from a higher position while within ruins. However this is the only benefit and does not extend to Line of Sight. This is something I feel would be quite good for the game, adding a layer of risk vs. reward as while the unit can see now further, it can also be seen from further. Maybe put some pressure on opponents with snipers this way instead of how hilariously easy it is to avoid precision weapons (remember, the attack must be able to see the character model so just make sure your characters aren't in Line of Sight. Works in Melee too btw if fighting through ruins just in case you are wondering).

However I would like to add an addendum for movement that occurs outside of phase or turn order, things like reactive moves and such: these movements cannot be used to move vertically (unless the unit can fly) nor can it be used to move THROUGH ruins. This add by me is just me being sick of how dumb it is that move shoot move can allow a unit to just nope out of any interactions completely.

 

2: The tournament organisers would need to agree on window arrangements and what would be fair.

It isn't an issue with me that bottom floors of all terrain are blocked out completely. Not hard to imagine surface level debris, dust and smoke blocking lines of sight through such structures. However this gets complicated once we start going above ground floor. How many windows do we include? What floors should windows be on and how big? How many? Thankfully terrain rules now mean you can't just thread a needle through multiple buildings to land that shot, however would be nice if the ruin I was in was actually a position I could fire from. It could even give some credit to some weapons that may struggle normally to do damage due to AP limitations.

 

Thoughts fellow fraters? Who here has also played on such terrain layouts (I believe UKTC and UTC use slightly different mission packs) and feels similar or do you feel it is perfect as is and tell me how long you've played Melee armies for ;)

[Deus_Ex_Machina]

When I think of tournament terrain L-shaped ruins come to mind which try to represent a former city but they are arranged in such way that the layout of streets have been designed by drunk people.

[Dark Legionnare]

We don't run official UTC, etc... but we have local tournaments and I set the tables the same way we do for normal fun games. For instance, heres from a 2v2 30K game a few weeks back as a picture of a city/port setup.

 

Local folks absolutely love this kind of arrangement; narrative & "serious" ones.

 

Plenty of clearly "ruins" with diagonal footprint, verticality, solid objects, etc... while fitting the mat's theme and layout.

[SvenIronhand]

Not every battlefield is Stalingrad. I'm getting tired of Cityfight terrain myself.

[Noserenda]

Ick, yeah the godawful tournament terrain setups are the worst, especially the ones that dont even bother to make L shaped ruins and just have armies fighting over giant open pizza boxes. Dreadful.

[Bung]

48 minutes ago, SvenIronhand said:

Not every battlefield is Stalingrad. I'm getting tired of Cityfight terrain myself.

 

Still better than any Terrain Setup i have seen for tournaments.

With most Tournament Setups i have seen the gane is basically decided by the dice roll on who goes first.

[Kastor Krieg]

4 hours ago, SvenIronhand said:

Not every battlefield is Stalingrad. I'm getting tired of Cityfight terrain myself.

WDYM, this is excellent. (by Rob Hawkins Hobby)

[Orion]

I don't think they're saying cityfight terrain is bad, just that there is no diversity.

 

Funny thing is when I started we were upset that there were no city tables.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

7 hours ago, SvenIronhand said:

Not every battlefield is Stalingrad. I'm getting tired of Cityfight terrain myself.

Me too. 
give me a remote outpost, or a wooded forest, or desert over a generic city board any day.

[gideon stargreave]

28 minutes ago, Inquisitor_Lensoven said:

Me too. 
give me a remote outpost, or a wooded forest, or desert over a generic city board any day.

I have no evidence at all for this, but I feel like since all the city terrain was released, and it became a sort of default, the game has become more competitive focused. At the same time, there’s much more discussion of balance. I wonder if they’re related. Competitive gamers prefer balance, and therefore tournament organizers want to support that, so we see the diagonal city ruins terrain that doesn’t favour a deployment zone. 
 

 

[Orion]

13 minutes ago, gideon stargreave said:

I have no evidence at all for this, but I feel like since all the city terrain was released, and it became a sort of default, the game has become more competitive focused. At the same time, there’s much more discussion of balance. I wonder if they’re related. Competitive gamers prefer balance, and therefore tournament organizers want to support that, so we see the diagonal city ruins terrain that doesn’t favour a deployment zone. 
 

 

Yeah maybe. Are competitive players and tournaments the ones buying the most GW terrain though?
I've bought a lot of GW buildings and I'm the furthest thing from.

 

I think it's more likely that it's just easier to sell in plastic, and seem substantial.

[chapter master 454]

I think the issue I have is that the terrain layouts are purely ruins and this actually puts a big favour to certain armies and style. While it is relatively hard to get alpha-struck off the table without a turn, it does lead to a feeling of going first is the losing move as you now have to position towards an enemy you may not want to have moved towards, though this is down to the die roll being the sole factor of who goes first (no decision made by players).

 

Next is the fact the layouts don't even try to use different terrain types. Due to ruins being the sole terrain, cover is comically easy to get. I slide one track wheel behind a building slightly and boom, cover. Similarly normally if you aren't wholly on a terrain piece you don't get cover but comically you can with the layouts I play on as the terrain pieces have blocked out windows thus you get a unit not being fully visible due to the ruin and boom, cover. However that is down to tournament organisers and thinking about it now, the removal of bottom floor windows is kind of pointless now as so long as you aren't on the terrain partially, it blocks LoS to units behind it regardless of appearance.

 

Some things need to worked out. Right now, competitive only uses one terrain type; Ruins. The reason for that is for LoS blocking but yet it also forms a major issue for tanks and the like. If LoS blocking was important, then making use of standardised hills could compensate for such issues with standard height (or heights) used to help block LoS, though adding small addendum about checking visibility from the hull, and not from pintle mounts or such. I just feel the reliance on Ruins infinite height LoS blocking is a bit too much as it also has issues with the fact infantry are massively favoured over armoured units and monsters. Would be nice to see some element of design put into terrain layouts.

Then again my club only has city based terrain really. So I can't test stuff much myself. However some degree of trying to create battlefields where the field maybe has a leaning of better LoS on one side than the other. Maybe have it that a key hill is placed for both players to advance on, if taken really bolstering their LoS but in return also being vulnerable for counter attack.

 

Maybe just a thing I am going to have to deal with at my local club. However would be nice to see the tournament boys not just take a selection of L-shapes or varying sizes and lengths and heights, but also consider using other terrain types to help create some more interesting battlefields. As it stands, I think most competitive boards look more like a complicated game of NIMM with both players trying to make the other take the last piece. While interesting, when that is EVERY mission...gets boring.

[Dark Legionnare]

11 minutes ago, chapter master 454 said:

I think the issue I have is that the terrain layouts are purely ruins and this actually puts a big favour to certain armies and style. While it is relatively hard to get alpha-struck off the table without a turn, it does lead to a feeling of going first is the losing move as you now have to position towards an enemy you may not want to have moved towards, though this is down to the die roll being the sole factor of who goes first (no decision made by players).

 

Next is the fact the layouts don't even try to use different terrain types. Due to ruins being the sole terrain, cover is comically easy to get. I slide one track wheel behind a building slightly and boom, cover. Similarly normally if you aren't wholly on a terrain piece you don't get cover but comically you can with the layouts I play on as the terrain pieces have blocked out windows thus you get a unit not being fully visible due to the ruin and boom, cover. However that is down to tournament organisers and thinking about it now, the removal of bottom floor windows is kind of pointless now as so long as you aren't on the terrain partially, it blocks LoS to units behind it regardless of appearance.

 

Some things need to worked out. Right now, competitive only uses one terrain type; Ruins. The reason for that is for LoS blocking but yet it also forms a major issue for tanks and the like. If LoS blocking was important, then making use of standardised hills could compensate for such issues with standard height (or heights) used to help block LoS, though adding small addendum about checking visibility from the hull, and not from pintle mounts or such. I just feel the reliance on Ruins infinite height LoS blocking is a bit too much as it also has issues with the fact infantry are massively favoured over armoured units and monsters. Would be nice to see some element of design put into terrain layouts.

Then again my club only has city based terrain really. So I can't test stuff much myself. However some degree of trying to create battlefields where the field maybe has a leaning of better LoS on one side than the other. Maybe have it that a key hill is placed for both players to advance on, if taken really bolstering their LoS but in return also being vulnerable for counter attack.

 

Maybe just a thing I am going to have to deal with at my local club. However would be nice to see the tournament boys not just take a selection of L-shapes or varying sizes and lengths and heights, but also consider using other terrain types to help create some more interesting battlefields. As it stands, I think most competitive boards look more like a complicated game of NIMM with both players trying to make the other take the last piece. While interesting, when that is EVERY mission...gets boring.

Concur here, and what it appears like others have said as a sentiment too, is that the overabundance of ruins is a lame part of 10th because of necessity.

 

I feel like the "obscuring" system of 9th was basically perfect for giving a system of "does it block LoS?" while allowing diversity. 

 

At worst a quick clarification before game of "Is this big tall rock arch that had some holes/gaps in it obscuring?

 

Yes.

 

Cool."

 

We've been house ruling said arches example as "ruins LoS rules" to have diversified tables in recent other games for Savannah/desert-world games.

[Bung]

7 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

I have no evidence at all for this, but I feel like since all the city terrain was released, and it became a sort of default, the game has become more competitive focused. At the same time, there’s much more discussion of balance. I wonder if they’re related. Competitive gamers prefer balance, and therefore tournament organizers want to support that, so we see the diagonal city ruins terrain that doesn’t favour a deployment zone. 
 

 

 

Nah, the first Cityfight Terrain was released in 4th Edition with an extra Book with Missions etc. for Campaigns in Urban Environment and the plastic Kits from then were some of the best terrain Kits ever made, plus the terrain gave us some sort of sci fi look instead on playing on a reused WHFB table.

 

The game has become more competetive since 6th Ed in my eyes as GW listened more to their loudest customers on the internet which are the competetive gamers, so nothing new here.

For me, i remember the cheap tables we had before the cityfight terrain with cheap polystyrol hills and forests made from railway trees for me cityfight terrain looks most times better than the alternative as most clubs / gamers dont spend much effort on their terrain.

 

The second thing is, you can get a table full of city terrain rather cheap from third parties which is another reason for clubs / tournament organizers if you have to provide 16+ tables.

 

If you want to blame people for boring tables, blame UTC / Tournament organizers listening to crybabies for fair tables.

Other games do it better in a tournament setting ans expect unfair tables, where the role for choosing the deployment zone matters. Infinity for example if you roll for deployment Winner may choose the side and the Loser may choose who goes first.

There  are other options, not accounting to GWs incompetence in writing good Terrein rules for at least a decade.

[Vassakov]

I think there's another factor that you're not considering - logistics. For UKTC (as this is what seems to have triggered the conversation) you're looking at now needing 100-200 tables worth of terrain, which needs to be packed and transported as well as being consistent so that the players can arrange the tables themselves when they get there. So you need probably 1,000-2,000 terrain pieces (assuming 10 bits of terrain per table), plus a few spares in case of damage.

 

If everything is regularly sized and quadrilateral, it's a lot easier to store and transport, as well as being reasonably durable. I get what people say about forests and woods and stuff, but they aren't usually regularly sized and they either look awful or are a complete nightmare to transport and store - and replacing anything would of course be a cost to the TO in both time and money. 

 

Smaller events that are more "for fun" I think can and should be more ambitious with tables and mission selections, but going from a dozen varied tables to 100 is an enormous challenge, especially when most of it has to be set up and taken down the morning of day 1 and the evening of day 2.

[gideon stargreave]

3 hours ago, Bung said:

you want to blame people for boring tables, blame UTC / Tournament organizers listening to crybabies for fair tables.

That’s actually what I was trying to get at. Cityfight became the norm not because of kits but because of the move to a more competitive scene 

[Bung]

55 minutes ago, gideon stargreave said:

That’s actually what I was trying to get at. Cityfight became the norm not because of kits but because of the move to a more competitive scene 

 

I dont think that.

Cityfight became the norm as its easy and cheap to get a table full of Terrain if you are not fixed on GW products.

 

If you didnt have the Cityfight Terrain there would be other "standard" Terrain used for tourneys.

You got cheap hill Nr. 3 combined with railrood forest Nr. 4 which have to the following size....

 

 

[MARK0SIAN]

3 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

That’s actually what I was trying to get at. Cityfight became the norm not because of kits but because of the move to a more competitive scene 

I actually think it because of the gradual move to bigger and bigger armies and games as well as the increased lethality rather than the competitive scene. As the armies got more deadlier then it became easier and easier to alpha strike people off the board. The adoption of cityfight as an almost default type of terrain was in response to this as it gave the best chance to mitigate the alpha strike somewhat by providing better cover/LoS blocking than things like forests etc. 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I think the competitive scene has had a huge influence on terrain and layout but that influence was on how the ruins/building worked and were represented, not necessarily the fact that using buildings should be the default. 

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

18 hours ago, gideon stargreave said:

I have no evidence at all for this, but I feel like since all the city terrain was released, and it became a sort of default, the game has become more competitive focused. At the same time, there’s much more discussion of balance. I wonder if they’re related. Competitive gamers prefer balance, and therefore tournament organizers want to support that, so we see the diagonal city ruins terrain that doesn’t favour a deployment zone. 
 

 

Everyone likes balance. No one wants to play an army that will get steam rolled with its strongest list 70% of the time.

im not a ‘competitive’ person I build lists that go along with my army’s lore, but even I am not going to want to play if the game is so poorly balanced that my only chance at a win is through extreme luck.

 

I think the correlation comes down to the internet mostly. The GW ruins kits started coming out as the internet and computers really started to become accessible to the common person.

 

I also believe the ‘competitive’ players are vocal minority.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

18 hours ago, JayJapanB said:

Yeah maybe. Are competitive players and tournaments the ones buying the most GW terrain though?
I've bought a lot of GW buildings and I'm the furthest thing from.

 

I think it's more likely that it's just easier to sell in plastic, and seem substantial.

I think there’s a few reasons for this.

 

 before those kits most terrain had to be scratch built. So these ruins and ruins in general are easy to make and place.  Compared to an intact or mostly intact structures to build a military outpost, or the extremely boring and mind numbing process of making dozens of trees or their equivalents for a forest.

 

secondly, again balance. It’s easy to measure an L ruin and make sure you have another one of identical dimensions mirroring it on the opposite side of the table.

 

i could probably knock out  a table’s worth of ruins homemade or GW in less time than it took me to make this, even using store bought trees.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

14 hours ago, Dark Legionnare said:

Concur here, and what it appears like others have said as a sentiment too, is that the overabundance of ruins is a lame part of 10th because of necessity.

 

I feel like the "obscuring" system of 9th was basically perfect for giving a system of "does it block LoS?" while allowing diversity. 

 

At worst a quick clarification before game of "Is this big tall rock arch that had some holes/gaps in it obscuring?

 

Yes.

 

Cool."

 

We've been house ruling said arches example as "ruins LoS rules" to have diversified tables in recent other games for Savannah/desert-world games.

Maybe I’m misunderstanding terrain rules in 10th but ruins and woods operate basically the same do they not?

 

And all terrain can provide cover

 

so what about the rules are preventing you from using rocky arches and what not?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

11 hours ago, Vassakov said:

I think there's another factor that you're not considering - logistics. For UKTC (as this is what seems to have triggered the conversation) you're looking at now needing 100-200 tables worth of terrain, which needs to be packed and transported as well as being consistent so that the players can arrange the tables themselves when they get there. So you need probably 1,000-2,000 terrain pieces (assuming 10 bits of terrain per table), plus a few spares in case of damage.

 

If everything is regularly sized and quadrilateral, it's a lot easier to store and transport, as well as being reasonably durable. I get what people say about forests and woods and stuff, but they aren't usually regularly sized and they either look awful or are a complete nightmare to transport and store - and replacing anything would of course be a cost to the TO in both time and money. 

 

Smaller events that are more "for fun" I think can and should be more ambitious with tables and mission selections, but going from a dozen varied tables to 100 is an enormous challenge, especially when most of it has to be set up and taken down the morning of day 1 and the evening of day 2.

I transported two large woodsy/rocky pieces 2k miles without any damage except 1 tree popping off, but i used a fairly large tub without much else in it, so definitely not an ideal solution