Examples of the right amount of terrain

[eekamouse]

There is often discussion about what constitutes the right amount of terrain on the table, specifically in terms of Matched Play.  Here are the general rules:

Quote

The best battles are fought over lavishly designed and constructed landscapes, but whether you have a lot of scenery or only a small number of features doesn’t matter! A good guide is at least 1 feature for every 2 foot square, but less is okay and more can make for a really interesting battle.

To help you decide the placement of your scenery, you can choose to roll two dice and add them together for each 2 foot square area of your battlefield and consult the following table:

Roll Terrain Features

2-3 No terrain features.

4-5 2 terrain features.

6-8 1 terrain feature.

9-10 2 terrain features.

11-12 Choose from 0 to 3 terrain features.

I personally default to 2-3 features per 2 foot square (with extensive LOS blocking, and usually house rule that you can't see through trees etc...). I also roll for 5 of the large pieces on the Mysterious Scenery table, and splash a little bit of scatter terrain to further break up movement.

I've found that this style of table is almost the exact opposite of a couple of my FLGS, which are basically LOS across the entire table, and 1-2 features per two square (usually 1 per square), with minimal scatter if any, but again, almost zero LOS blocking. They also don't roll for Mysterious terrain.

Am I alone in preferring a "full table"? I know this supposedly gimps armies with lots of shooting, but I've found this not to be true in games at home. I guess if your army was "all shooting", it would be? I can take some pictures and add them when I get home, but I was curious if people wanted to share some examples of their tables, either in pictures or description.

[eekamouse]

10 minutes ago, Auticus said:

Not tiny pieces either.  Actual pieces that do something.

Ya. I'm talking pieces that area all taller than my Gargants, some by a long shot. Anything shorter than a Gargant is consider "scatter" for me

10 minutes ago, Auticus said:

My  next preference is to use extra rules so that woods block line of sight and things like rivers impede movement.  This whole terrain does not impact the game at all thing rubs me the wrong way because a large part of warfare is the ability to use the terrain to your advantage.  I would expect that to carry over in a WARGAME (and indeed having been brought up on wargames from the 80s and 90s, where terrain does have an impact, the current non-rules for terrain hurts my heart)

I need to do more of this. There is no difficult terrain rule anywhere that I've seen. I know there are things where you might be slain if you charge across. In 40k, craters reduce charge distances by 2. My worry about messing with movement is it would hinder melee units too much (say if you halved their move distance). I like the idea of reducing charge though. Has a bit of a cost/benefit (or better.. risk/reward) analysis to it.

[Travis Baumann]

I have to agree with everything being said here.  I grew up with Rogue Trader/WFB same era and they had extensive rules on terrain for everything.  I am not necessarily an advocate for things getting that heavy in AoS but I do have to say that when I first read the rules sheet I was surprised but then down right shocked there was not a more advanced section of rules in the big AoS Mighty Battles book I bought that would bring some bearing of the environment in which you fight.   

I really love AoS for many reasons but I am ok with them developing a more advanced rules set with future publications addressing a bit more complexity to terrain,  LOS, shooting, and magic (although I say the last hesitantly because I remember full well the Wind of Magic boxed supplement that basically stopped the game each magic phase).

I think I would have preferred a bit more invested main rule set than so much being added via battalions, battle tomes, and individual war scrolls.  I think it is actually harder to track and manage especially if you dabble in multiple armies.  I think that is why Skirmish seems so cool and fun to me as it is really easy to juggle that amount of warsrolls per side and still have plenty of room for terrain, objectives, and the like.   I would like to see Skirmish objectives actually be things as well... like when you discover that artifact in that shrine, it would actually do something.

 

[Carnelian]

For me the tables with the perfect amount of terrain are the busiest tables at warhammer world.

[tolstedt]

This is how we play.   The dark green areas count as cover.  The buildings block line of sight and you must consider where you are going to fight with your base sizes.

[TheWilddog]

I know people are still in a Warhammer Fantasy mindset about terrain.  It made sense to have a sparse board for the big blocks, I mean who wants their horde of 40 Savages teetering sideways on a turf hill. AOS with the move to round bases and loose units is made for heavy terrain.  Some of the best games I have played in AOS involved units sprawling over 2 and three story terrain pieces fighting very dynamic combats.  

On a side note, with the new emphasis on hordes with GHB2017 I have seen several people go to slotted movement trays to help push their guys around.  Today one of our regulars with a block of 40 Ghouls in movement trays started complaining about all the terrain on table making it hard for him.  I got a painful lurch in my stomach, man I hope I don't hear much more of that.  

[tolstedt]

11 hours ago, Auticus said:

I hear that a lot too.  People complaining that the terrain gets in their way so there shouldn't be much.  

Thing is I came up on historicals where there was usually a lot of terrain AND a lot of models in block formation and it was never an issue then.  The historical guys to this day still play on tables like that.

 

More terrain means more decisions.  It makes the game more dynamic.  Sigmar is all about movement, so more considerations for where you have to move and if it's worth it to fight in one place or another enhances the game for me.

[Infeston]

Here are two examples how I play with my gaming group

The first image was a triump and treachery game with 1000 points

The second image was the Beast Wars battleplan, where you have to get through a canyon full of beasts

I always use the the giant grey rock in the second image as a centrepiece of some battles. It perfectly blocks LOS. This is what I understand when people talk about "large" pieces. For me the best battles were with much terrain.

I also have a second question. I watched some battle reports where people used Sylvaneth units. And at the time the Sylvaneth Wyldwood had to be deployed they often only deployed the ground plate. And people could still shoot through the trees. I thought the Wyldwood trees would also block LOS. Is there a special rule, which I don't know that lets you shoot through the trees?

I didn't understand why units could still shoot through the Wyldwoods and why they haven't put any trees on the plates to show whether they block LOS or not?

[Ulf]

Here are some pics of the typical setups we use in my local club.

 

[eekamouse]

Lovely amounts of terrain!

I guess I should contribute. This is for a starter Path to Glory game I played the other day. It's only 4x4 table space at around 500-600 points worth of models on a side. 

[Galas]

@eekamouseThe ruin that has fall in that last image, is the one from Heroscape, the original box, no? I use them too in my house  

[eekamouse]

1 hour ago, Galas said:

@eekamouseThe ruin that has fall in that last image, is the one from Heroscape, the original box, no? I use them too in my house  

It certainly is. I've got a handful of those pieces and the "castle" set (which I've yet to actually use in any game. I've got a bunch of the normal hexes of various sizes, but can't figure out anything to do with them. I thought they might make for a cool base to build hills off of or something, but I've not found any solutions online for making use of them.

[MacDuff]

@Ulf you found a great local club!