Real Talk about the Double Turn

[Tidings]

That sounds like an unusual game to be honest. Every time I've played against BCR they position to cross the table, then do so in their first turn with all the bonus movement (ravager is standard afaik)

Not getting shot at at all on his first turn is a miracle lol. That's never happened to me 

 

[Azlak the Damned]

That sounds like an unusual game to be honest. Every time I've played against BCR they position to cross the table, then do so in their first turn with all the bonus movement (ravager is standard afaik)
Not getting shot at at all on his first turn is a miracle lol. That's never happened to me 
 

He kept all of his big guys back in case I got the next turn but it worked out in his favour.

Sent from my SM-G900F using Tapatalk

[Tidings]

That sounds like really poor play on his part, the most efficient way to thundertusk is to first turn destroy enemy general, important synergy, etc. I get wrecked by that every time.

[firebat]

I want to play where all these generals are just out in the open prancing around looking to be shot. Does no one play with decent terrain? I think, much like Starcraft mapping plays a big role in game balance. Those big BCR models are just running over the middle of the battlefield then make sure there are some ruins or something in the way they either have to go around or waste a lot of movement moving over so they can't just pick what to shoot and their movement matters. It really feels sometimes like everyone just plays with a bunch of woods where they just move the trees out the way or just fudges movement to be able to roll dice. The more obstacles there are for both players the more the decisions made of how to navigate those obstacles decides the game over the random dice rolls (be it double turn or just uncontested shooting)

I'd probably say you could dictate the level of game based on the amount and variety of terrain used with the table in the rules as the most casual. 

[Tidings]

My LHS has great terrain, but with all the bonus movement BCR has it's quite hard to guarantee that all your important characters are hidden. Line of site rules and all. A house rule my friends and I play is the old WHFB 3" rule, but no one at my LHS plays house rules

[wayniac]

15 hours ago, firebat said:

I want to play where all these generals are just out in the open prancing around looking to be shot. Does no one play with decent terrain? I think, much like Starcraft mapping plays a big role in game balance. Those big BCR models are just running over the middle of the battlefield then make sure there are some ruins or something in the way they either have to go around or waste a lot of movement moving over so they can't just pick what to shoot and their movement matters. It really feels sometimes like everyone just plays with a bunch of woods where they just move the trees out the way or just fudges movement to be able to roll dice. The more obstacles there are for both players the more the decisions made of how to navigate those obstacles decides the game over the random dice rolls (be it double turn or just uncontested shooting)

I'd probably say you could dictate the level of game based on the amount and variety of terrain used with the table in the rules as the most casual. 

The assumed baseline, at least to me, is GW terrain on GW boards (since anything else is "requiring" custom terrain) which often doesn't do much if anything to actually block LOS.  So that's the issue as well, most every board I've seen GW use would do nothing to help stop these things, and that's meant to be the baseline that most people try to emulate.

[firebat]

6 hours ago, wayniac said:

The assumed baseline, at least to me, is GW terrain on GW boards (since anything else is "requiring" custom terrain) which often doesn't do much if anything to actually block LOS.  So that's the issue as well, most every board I've seen GW use would do nothing to help stop these things, and that's meant to be the baseline that most people try to emulate.

But that's a baseline. The rules state that they recommend at least one piece of terrain per 2 square foot and sure less is ok but more can make for really interesting battles. Do you want really interesting battles? Why go for the bare minimum? The answer often enough I feel is one of it getting in the way and stopping a player doing what they want with their army. The problem with this is that it simply allows the more point and click army to get it's way faster. 

What is a piece of terrain? A Wildwood is 3 woods. A fortified manner is a chapel, a tower and a bunch of walls and barricades and is one terrain feature but many people would consider it 3 or 4. I can't view the dreadfort warscrolls but I bet many of them are a bunch of different combinations of fairly big terrain. Does Warhammer world only use sold terrain these days? The last I heard was that stores required the sold terrain to establish a bare minimum. You can't say there is a baseline when it it so poorly defined and I bet most don't even play with the rules that are there (I know I don't).

I'm a bit biased as i'm really interested in terrain and it's something i'd like to design and sell if I can. And perhaps there should be a good discussion about terrain in it's own topic to set out some standards or guidelines but I can't help but feel like map complexity is a really simple solution to stopping people just doing what they want.

[wayniac]

9 minutes ago, firebat said:

But that's a baseline. The rules state that they recommend at least one piece of terrain per 2 square foot and sure less is ok but more can make for really interesting battles. Do you want really interesting battles? Why go for the bare minimum? The answer often enough I feel is one of it getting in the way and stopping a player doing what they want with their army. The problem with this is that it simply allows the more point and click army to get it's way faster. 

What is a piece of terrain? A Wildwood is 3 woods. A fortified manner is a chapel, a tower and a bunch of walls and barricades and is one terrain feature but many people would consider it 3 or 4. I can't view the dreadfort warscrolls but I bet many of them are a bunch of different combinations of fairly big terrain. Does Warhammer world only use sold terrain these days? The last I heard was that stores required the sold terrain to establish a bare minimum. You can't say there is a baseline when it it so poorly defined and I bet most don't even play with the rules that are there (I know I don't).

I'm a bit biased as i'm really interested in terrain and it's something i'd like to design and sell if I can. And perhaps there should be a good discussion about terrain in it's own topic to set out some standards or guidelines but I can't help but feel like map complexity is a really simple solution to stopping people just doing what they want.

I think we should probably start another thread on this, but the point I was trying to make is that people are going to emulate GW's terrain setup, which often does little or nothing to prevent just allowing shooting free reign (and is, IMHO, a big reason why people feel shooting is so OP in AOS).  So I don't think saying to make your own terrain that blocks LOS is, for example, a valid response when most people aren't going to do that but buy GW terrain and use GW boards and set up terrain similar to how GW does in White Dwarf and their battle reports.

[firebat]

But GW doesn't powergame either and spam OP units or weapons. They routinely will take selections the community would deem sub par. If you're going to emulate their map philosophy you have to understand the army list philosophy and if you're going to break it you should at least understand the ramifications and be prepared to make other changes.

But again what is one terrain feature. The Dreadhold models are LoS blocking for anything but the biggest models and multiple sections of that or other terrain models count as one feature. By all accounts I could fill a 2 foot section of the board with terrain and as long as it had some cohesive narrative tying it together it would be 1 terrain feature. I could fill the board with Dreadhold models and make shooting largely redundant and BCR impossible to maneuvre. But then people will put 4 woods and 2 ruins on the board and complain about shooting and models being able to just run right at them. 

I don't think trying to wash your hands of any responsibility for making the game what it is in your meta is a valid response either. Most people like the double turn. Most people just want to run at each other and roll dice and have stuff die. Most people aren't that bothered about strategic depth and just want an easy game. But this topic didn't seem to be about that, it seemed to be complaining that it reduced the opportunity for strategy by OP abilities being able to be used twice in a row reliably for devastating effect and I believe that if you are bothered by those things and that you want a game where those factors are reduced then scaling map complexity and simply putting more terrain down is a way to do it without dramatically changing the core rules.

[Tidings]

I agree terrain can have a massive impact on games. And it can reduce the impact of shooting armies as well as turn one charge armies.  In casual games I tend to overload my table with terrain, generally making a very thematic and 'real' layout with stuff like an entire village on one half and a forest that gets thicker towards the other end of the other half. In tournaments you don't get to set up terrain though and it's usually a lot more open. 

You're right that outside changing rules, terrain is a great way to make the game both more interesting while also taking away the early turn effectiveness of certain things. I like as much terrain as possible, and I play a shooty army. 

However, I would still prefer the rules were written in a way that made for more interesting games, instead of having to use terrain to mitigate the problem. Especially since the matter of terrain varies a lot depending on your opponents and where you play.

[Menkeroth]

On 21.08.2017 at 2:34 PM, Auticus said:

Ours lets me bring in my own custom stuff for campaign days.  He actually encourages it.

This. It does not matter which terrain it is as long as it is of good quality. For example, a usual middle ages castle so many companies produce with banners, shields, spikes and the like will look great and properly warhammer-ish, especially because you usually have lots of these bits and can't use them all at once.