New Warhammer 40,000 Edition announced!

[Lord Marshal]

Time for Terrain. Objectives later in the week.

 

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Terrain is made up of two components: terrain features and terrain areas. 

 

Terrain features are individual pieces of scenery, such as ruins, barricades, trees, rocks, and anything else you could conceivably encounter on the battlefields of the 41st millennium. Terrain features will always be placed on (or sometimes used to denote the edge of) a terrain area. Several key changes now allow for a wider variety of terrain features on the battlefield, and a greater degree of interaction with terrain than before. A terrain area is the footprint on the battlefield under the effects of that scenery, and these effects are undergoing some big changes compared with the current edition. 

 

Foremost amongst these changes is the addition of the Hidden rule. Infantry, Beast, and Swarm models inside a terrain area can be Hidden as long as their unit didn’t shoot in the current or preceding player turn (and so will be hidden at the start of the game). While hidden, a model is only visible to enemy units within their detection range – which is usually 15” – so you can deploy your models a lot more freely without worrying about a first-turn barrage. 

 

Additionally, most terrain is Obscuring, much as it is today. Obscuring terrain areas cannot be seen entirely through, so even large models and big units can use sections of terrain to avoid enemy fire. Infantry, Beasts and Swarm units in terrain areas also gain the benefit of cover, which in the new edition gives your opponent a -1 penalty to their Ballistic Skill, rather than the +1 bonus to armour saves you receive now.

 

 

Another change in the new edition centres on recommended terrain layouts. Last week, we showed you one half of the Mission generated when an army with the Disruption Force Disposition battles an enemy with the Take and Hold Force Disposition. The other half – Determined Acquisition – is their opponent’s briefing. 

 

The Primary Mission for a Disruption force taking on a Take and Hold opponent

The Primary Mission for a Take and Hold force taking on a Disruption opponent

 

Alongside these objectives, each mission suggests three possible terrain layouts for your battle – here are two of them.

 

Crucible of Battle layout

Hammer & Anvil layout

 

These layouts have been designed with this specific battle in mind, to help ensure a balanced match whilst reinforcing the story told by the mission, whether you’re playing at the World Championships or on your kitchen table. Of course, if you are playing a casual game with friends, you are welcome to set up your terrain in any way you like.

 

You’ll notice on the map there are a number of long, thin terrain areas. Since they are still Obscuring, they create new opportunities for different types of terrain, as units can remain out of line of sight just behind the footprint of the area. In our diagram, these are represented by Mechanicus barricades and field generators, but you can fill these areas with whatever terrain suits your collection  – do you prefer trees? Ruins? Strange xenos growths? You can build your battlefield your way, even while using these tournament-approved layouts, meaning your games will look great and tell a compelling story.

 

 

Large ruins still have a place, especially on larger midfield areas of terrain, and the physical features of terrain still matter for drawing line of sight into and out of terrain areas. It’s not all about the 2D footprint of the terrain, though. Height also plays a bigger role. In the current edition, units like heavy weapon teams seldom ascend the upper floors of ruins, as doing so exposes them to fire from across the table. With the hidden rule, you can safely access the upper levels of terrain, safe from long range enemy fire, at least until your unit has taken their first shots. You can now also take advantage of the Plunging Fire rule to give your unit a +1 to their Ballistic Skill, effectively cancelling out the benefit of cover, or make a devastating attack on an enemy unit caught out in the open.

 

Particularly tall models with the TOWERING keyword – like Imperial Knights – also get to unleash Plunging Fire on ground-level units within 12”.

 

A set of Terrain Areas footprints will be available to purchase alongside the new edition. These already work well with some of the existing War Zone terrain sets, and future scenery sets are already being designed with these templates in mind.

 

You may want to create your own terrain area footprints to match your battlefield or basing scheme – a great little hobby project to help create a thematic board to play on.

You’ll need the following sizes for the standard mission layouts:

 

• Four large rectangles – 7” x 11.5”

• Two large right-angle triangles – 8” x 11.5” 

• Four medium rectangles – 6” x 4”

• Two long lines – 10” x 2.5”

• Four short lines – 6” x 2”

 

These changes allow for more variety in scenery pieces, more interactive match-ups, better stories, and exciting, close-fought games. They also present a great opportunity for the average Warhammer 40,000 gaming experience to feel familiar and accessible on tables the world over, whilst still enabling varied and thematic terrain features on every battlefield.

 

Later in the week, we’ll be looking at how objectives work with these new terrain rules to create a really thematic experience.

 

 

Edited April 8 by Lord Marshal

[Subtleknife]

With the announcement of 11th did GW say if Morale would be getting a look at as it still seems like a bit of an after thought.

[DemonGSides]

I like the changes mentioned, especially making plunging fire worthwhile to attempt to get.

 

I know some people are gonna get hung up on the terrain being templated, but I think it really works well once you wrap your head around it.  It's better than true LOS (don't gotta argue about being able to see a millimeter of a model), not quite as stark as the "the base is the only thing that matters" that some games do, which is good for abstraction but sort of feels very gamey.

 

And to put a recent argument to bed; they don't even require you to use one of the three templates to play. Hopefully all the concerns there can go away. 

[Northern Walker]

8 hours ago, 01RTB01 said:

I've bleated this a lot but I said when itc got involved c. 8th ed it'd be horrific and I was correct.

I liked 8th, personally - because it still had thematic, chaotic things you could do. Plus, I love rolling big handfuls of dice.

[01RTB01]

Just now, Northern Walker said:

I liked 8th, personally - because it still had thematic, chaotic things you could do. Plus, I love rolling big handfuls of dice.

 

I liked 8th but as I said, it was around there that itc got involved - I can't remember specifically but 9th was a complete dumpster fire (as was 7th, I'm looking at you hideously broken detachments) and 10th had the soul sucked from it. 6th and 8th we're good. 

[Redcomet]

I really, really like these terrain rules. It really opens up how creative you can be with your terrain. 

[Rhavien]

1 hour ago, Mogger351 said:

 I'm playing a game tonight, it won't be a tournament game. But I'm not naive enough to think that units priced on behaving in certain ways for certain missions on specific layouts won't have ramifications for someone who doesn't use those expected resources.

I'm also hoping, that 40k will need less L shaped ruins in the future, but how would everyone else benefit if the units were priced to accommodate your specific playstyle instead? How should the points be measured if not against their abilities for a certain task?

[Karhedron]

20 minutes ago, Subtleknife said:

With the announcement of 11th did GW say if Morale would be getting a look at as it still seems like a bit of an after thought.

 

I don't recall hearing anything. The problem with some past editions was that Morale was too powerful and units could be either wiped out or chased off the board by a bad roll after suffering only moderate casualties.

[brother_b]

In the current and forthcoming editions of 40K there’s a lot of “we’ll tell you how to play”.
 

You must make your unit this way, build your models this way, equip your units this way, place your terrain this way. We’ll see how that shakes up in New 40K.
 

As for the terrain rules themselves I think they’re really good.

 

Hopefully there will be a section in the rulebook that is a nod to narrative games. And to clarify I’m all about competition. I’m also about story, player  agency, and FUN!

[Indy Techwisp]

4 minutes ago, brother_b said:

You must make your unit this way, build your models this way, equip your units this way, place your terrain this way.

 

The terrain layouts are suggested and seem like they'd be easy enough to shift at Tourneys, but I'd say it's likely that there's 1 or 2 "generic" terrain layouts that Tourneys will mostly use (and again, you can just ignore them entirely for casual games).

 

25 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

I don't recall hearing anything. The problem with some past editions was that Morale was too powerful and units could be either wiped out or chased off the board by a bad roll after suffering only moderate casualties.

 

I doubt 11th will change Morale/Battleshock that much since there's gonna be still usable detachments which feature is (as bad as it it).

 

 

Edit: Also I found the casual mention of a Towering unit buff quite funny.

Of course my robot who's bigger than a house gets the mechanical bonus for shooting down at units from a roof.

Edited April 8 by Indy Techwisp

[ZeroWolf]

26 minutes ago, Karhedron said:

 

I don't recall hearing anything. The problem with some past editions was that Morale was too powerful and units could be either wiped out or chased off the board by a bad roll after suffering only moderate casualties.

I think there is a balance to be struck but so far they've failed to do so. I think part of the issue is that some armies straight up ignore it (or really they should judging by their lore)

[Mogger351]

44 minutes ago, DemonGSides said:

I like the changes mentioned, especially making plunging fire worthwhile to attempt to get.

 

I know some people are gonna get hung up on the terrain being templated, but I think it really works well once you wrap your head around it.  It's better than true LOS (don't gotta argue about being able to see a millimeter of a model), not quite as stark as the "the base is the only thing that matters" that some games do, which is good for abstraction but sort of feels very gamey.

 

And to put a recent argument to bed; they don't even require you to use one of the three templates to play. Hopefully all the concerns there can go away. 

 

 

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These layouts have been designed with this specific battle in mind

Aka the mission is balanced around these.

 

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A set of Terrain Areas footprints will be available to purchase alongside the new edition

Odd if they're genuinely not expected.

 

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You may want to create your own terrain area footprints to match your battlefield or basing scheme

Encouraging all players to use them as part of their hobby.

 

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You’ll need the following sizes for the standard mission layouts

Oh look, they're framing it all as the defacto way to play and will be the expected standard for most games.

 

of course they say "you can do what you like", they never won't. But it doesn't remove the concerns.

 

Enjoy your games of standing on predefined layouts of squares whilst claiming others lack imagination I guess.

[Lord_Valorion]

More soulless layouts. Yay. It is not my 40k anymore.

[StraightSilver]

Boring, L-Shaped buildings and the exact same table layouts every game (thanks for nothing ITC) are what ruined 40K for me. sadly, this looks much the same. No thanks. 

[Mechanicus Tech-Support]

9 minutes ago, StraightSilver said:

Boring, L-Shaped buildings and the exact same table layouts every game (thanks for nothing ITC) are what ruined 40K for me. sadly, this looks much the same. No thanks. 

Dont let the actual article stop you from complaining. 

Not all terrain is L shape, there is no L shape terrain measurements given.

• Four large rectangles – 7” x 11.5”

• Two large right-angle triangles – 8” x 11.5” 

• Four medium rectangles – 6” x 4”

• Two long lines – 10” x 2.5”

• Four short lines – 6” x 2”

You dont have to play with the suggested layout (like always)

Tournaments will use the most boring layout for fairness (like always)

 

What a group of miserable people 

[Crimson Longinus]

Terrain rules overall seem like an improvement, though I’m not necessarily fan of the standardised layouts and sizes. 
 

I’d also like to know how the objective areas relate to these terrain areas. Is the whole massive square the objective?

 

I drew the templates on the paper so that I can see how my existing terrain fits on these. 

[jaxom]

Everyone, please don’t get the thread locked by continuing the recent trend of ad hominem attacks.

[ThePenitentOne]

In 10th, there were a lot of complaints about the "L-shaped terrain" problem... And I always responded the same way: those aren't actual rules from the actual rulebook; they are mere recomendations for tournament play provided in a separate, take-it-or-leave-it PDF document.

 

This seems different- both better and worse. Better because it's more flexible than the L-shaped stuff, but worse because it is now actually a part of the rules and the rulebook. 

 

I will say that I found the article had enough gaps that I still need the actual rules in order to determine net positive vs net negative- so other than the observations above, I kind of have to hold my opinions close to the chest until I see more information. But I gotta tell you, I'm running out of patience as I wait for confirmation about whether or not Crusade has a future.

[Bouargh]

There are things I like and other that are... what was expected.

 

The "hidden" and the "plundging fire" looks great. The area is also a good way to simplify and ease the game dynamics, killing discussions and arguments. 

 

But the suggested lay out are still smelling at tourney. But maybe it is a consequence of the exemple shown and that other suggestions will be less "symetric". That symetry is for me a complete nonsense that kill the argument of assymetric objectives for attacker and defender defined in the missions. But kit might worth a try or two before being too categoric. 

 

In fact I see this as a global improvement vs. the previous situation; but it is still something I find a priori not at my expectation level - still oversimplified. Improved but not enough improved yet? Too early to tell.

On the other side, I can still play Necromunda or KT if I want detailled terrain rules one will say...

I am also afraid that these lay out proposed (some have already insisted that proposed isn't egal to mandatory) do not contribute into supporting the "narrative" behind the existing terrain items: disconnected gantries and pathways located to fit the shadow board and not telling us a story anymore.

 

Yet should these proposal not be mandatory, one shouldn't affirm neither that they will not anyway become the baseline/standard in many cases: such as pick and go night games or FLGS. As such, for the ones among us who have a well established gaming group, it will not cause any trouble and it will leave enough option not to use proposed lay out. But for more casual gamers that rely on FLGS for example, it might not be that obvious. And as such I understand the "not my warhammer anymore" feeling too. 

 

Now I have only one idea in mind: recover my measuring tape and check how my terrain collection fits into the new footprints... For example, my beloved generatorum hub is 10,2"x9,1" - it does not fit that good in any new standard apparently. But the fronteris landing pad looks like it fits (more or less) into the 11,5"x8"... HOw does gantries fit? And all the rest of Fronteris, Administratum or Mechanicum sectors?  It will keep me busy tonight checking.

 

 

[Xenith]

The hidden special rule, aka "we have so many existing special rules and guns are so lethal, that we need to come up with an additional special rule and status to track to compensate"

 

Between this and "sometimes you had to make a tough choice to have units that didn't benefit from your detachment, so now we've added another currency allowing you to take more special rules" is poor game design - I'm not feeling optimistic for this edition.

Edited April 8 by Xenith

[Crimson Longinus]

So the long narrow terrain areas being obscuring is a bit weird, as these usually  are going to be some barricades or pipes that are not very tall. So some knee high barricade will block a LOS to and from a Redemptor dreadnought or some such?

[Mogger351]

1 minute ago, Crimson Longinus said:

So the long narrow terrain areas being obscuring is a bit weird, as these usually  are going to be some barricades or pipes that are not very tall. So some knee high barricade will block a LOS to and from a Redemptor dreadnought or some such?

Yes the footprints now denote the type of cover bonuses rather than the physical terrain pieces upon them.

 

You could arguably just use the footprints and have a half functional game. Some mdf or card ruins on them (much as now) takes it that last notch to "fully functional".

[DemonGSides]

The hidden rule is basically "Stop asking us for Alternating Activations, it's not going to happen."

 

Has almost nothing to do with lethality; most of these units in buildings weren't able to be targeted by most things if you were playing the game correctly anyways. This change is basically "Alpha and beta strikes were too strong, this evens the playing field for armies that aren't dealing well with going second."

 

It sounds like a big change but is going to be very little different for most engagements compared to what we currently have.

[Kommisar_K]

Hmmm

 

I appreciate the effort being put into new terrain. Hidden sounds like a pain but workable, and definitely pairs well with plunging fire. That's good. 

 

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about templates for everything. That, I think, takes away some flexibility. What I'm wondering is will every battle require actual templates or can you just denote borders with the terrain bits themselves: something like the rules for Woods in the 8th ed core book. After all, what do I do if I want a battlefield covered in individual trees? Not easy to actually fit them onto a limited number of outlines. Which in a way brings us to the next point. 

 

The age of suggested terrain layouts continues. In all fairness this isn't a bad thing. The layouts they showed in the warcomm terrain article look alright. They're mirrored, yes, but it looks to be crawling beyond simple Ls and now making use of more terrain shapes/pieces. So even suggested layouts have some more personality. And this'll be nice for the tournament crowd. 

 

What irritates me though is that people will continue to take suggested layouts as law, even in casual games. I play a couple pickup games every month at the FLGS. I'm a casual, narrative-focused player who lets his opponent choose how things will work because I'm just there to throw dice and enjoy some tabletop carnage. But everyone, repeat everyone I've played with in the last year wants to use 'official' terrain layouts. My opponents, even in casual games, want something like a tournament practice or balanced chess match. I'll gladly do that. I'll play that game. But sometimes, just every once in a while, I'd like to drop some stuff on the table, set up something with story (say an important highway that must be kept open, bordered by clusters of ruins) and have a fun, narrative-driven battle. It doesn't have to be unbalanced, just different. But with the suggested layouts just existing, everyone I play wants to stick to the cards. Every game becomes tournament practice, and the time we could be spending doing battle is wasted making precise measurements to get plastic squares into precise alignment.

 

It's a bummer to be sure, but I want to emphasize one point. This is a player problem. GW is doing great. Providing some templates for the tourney people and the competitive players while giving the rest of us the flexibility to play the game as we choose is a great plan. It's the player mindset that is messing things up. People see what's on the mission cards as holy writ and we lose the flexibility GW is trying to give us. That is why I can't be truly excited for the new rules. GW is trying, and I appreciate that, but nothing's really gonna change until the players do.

[MARK0SIAN]

1 hour ago, ZeroWolf said:

I think there is a balance to be struck but so far they've failed to do so. I think part of the issue is that some armies straight up ignore it (or really they should judging by their lore)

This is exactly the reason why morale has never really worked in 40k. I’d honestly rather they just got rid of it. The vast majority of armies should simply ignore it. The Literal tag line for Space Marines is they shall know no fear! A bunch of Khorne berserkers aren’t running from a fight. Tyranids propelled by the hive mind will die in droves to achieve their objective and so on. There’s only a handful of races where morale makes sense, Guard, maybe Eldar as they can’t afford to suffer lots of casualties, perhaps Tau and Leagues too. The rest should just straight up ignore it.
 

I’ve been on both sides when a unit has failed a morale check and I’ve never known it be anything other than a feels bad moment. It’s not satisfactory to inflict and it’s definitely not fun to have it inflicted on you.