Fighting in City terrain

[szendroib]

Hello guys!

I'm still deciding between 40k or Sigmar as my first GW game. By default I like the fantasy figures more, but one thing that keeps me from jumping into Sigmar is that all the games I see only use a handful of terrain. I come from Malifaux where terrain is king, and it should be all around the board. So my question is how does Sigmar handle city fights? Did anyone try it? What I like about 40k is that it works on quite busy tables, but not sure if Sigmar can handle them or not. (on the flip side I only really like orks from 40k)

[Mayple]

Pretty sure Age of Sigmar can handle terrain-heavy maps (such as a city) due to the way they've freed up your unit shapes and such. I think the more terrain the better is a good rule of thumb, but that's just my two cents - Some people still prefer the more open battlefields of old kind of style, which there are plenty of room for as well Terrain is costly, which I think might be at least part of the reason we don't see much of it in use beyond the bare basics. 

I'm with you on the Orks of 40k. Can't help but love the tons and tons of dakka and "red makes it go faster" type of thinking so common in their gangs. I'd go for Tau personally, but only because I'm a Farsight fanboooii and want to make them work in close combat. Expect the unexpected! But I digress..

What factions do you have your eyes on in Age of Sigmar, if I may ask? 

[Guest]

For some reason there is a tendency for a lot of AoS players to use less terrain than is ideal (possibly a throwback to the not-so-distant past when Warhammer Fantasy involved big blocks of infantry that needed an open battlefield to manoeuvre). AoS absolutely works best when you use lots of terrain - it's more dramatic and presents more tactical challenges. Of course you'll want to scale the amount of terrain you use to the size of your army (it has to be able to move and engage the enemy after all), but for the average game you can have quite a densely populated table and even vertical terrain for fighting on different levels. For me, terrain selection and layout is absolutely critical to a great game of AoS.

I'm not a 40K player, so take this with a pinch of salt, but I would say that if anything AoS should work even better with lots of terrain than 40K does, even though you tend to see 40K players go more all-out with their terrain than AoS player. 40K after all usually involves lots of large vehicles that can't move vertically and need room to manoeuvre, and also generally involves much bigger armies that you'd think would need more space than a typical AoS army. If 40K works with tons of terrain then AoS has no excuse!

 

EDIT: Other reasons why I believe AoS tables often seem sparsely populated - there is a woeful lack of high fantasy terrain available for purchase (affordable or otherwise) and it's also less intuitive to make yourself than European woodland and 'ye olde peasant cottages'. Some enterprising people really need to get on this and start taking our money.

[szendroib]

Hello, thanks for the quick responses, it's great to hear that terrain is not a problem in the new version of the game :).

@Mayple: I'm still looking for the perfect starting team, but for now I'm interested in starting either Seraphons for the big dinosaurs or Tzeentch mortals. Maybe Aelf if they will return soon.

[Mayple]

Just now, szendroib said:

Hello, thanks for the quick responses, it's great to hear that terrain is not a problem in the new version of the game :).

@Mayple: I'm still looking for the perfect starting team, but for now I'm interested in starting either Seraphons for the big dinosaurs or Tzeentch mortals. Maybe Aelf if they will return soon.

Have you seen the DREAD SAURIAN?!!?! 

I'm sorry. It is my favorite Seraphon piece, and the best argument to never start any other army than Seraphon. Except maybe Dark Aelves. Because they'd keep it as a pet

Plus, if you ever get tired of Age of Sigmar, you can always convert your massive killer king-of-the-jungle dinosaur beast to 40k Orks by sticking a bazillion guns on his back and call him a tank, or something. 

[Popisdead]

There is a scenario from the Glotkin End Times book that exists in some form in AoS in an early "setting" book (god beasts, whatever these are called) where the spirits of a city attack.

I think AoS lends well to City Fighting but you may want to scale down.  If you come from Malifaux maybe try Hinterlands first (go Bottle thumbs up) and then scale to maybe 500-1000 point games first?

Try to search out some scenarios if you know of any open copies of books to see what they offer.  I know Roder from Skull Bros Awesome talked about the scenario I'm thinking and how it turned him around fully on the game (pre-GHB).  

[Trout]

I purchased the following terrain recently for use in AOS. Unfortunately, with all the painting of models I have left to do, I just haven't had time to assemble it. Hopefully I can get around to it towards the fall and maybe set up some kind of narrative battle or campaign.

 

[Davariel]

My one concern with fighting in city terrain would be how the unit coherency rules would work. Stuff like balconies, stairways, or towers might be a little difficult to work around. Perhaps you could use a house rule that models could move individually rather than as a group in certain situations?

Then again I'm coming from a Mordheim background. I'm used to terrain with lots of nooks and crannies that only one or two guys on 25mm bases can fit into, so maybe this wouldn't be a problem for most people

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Davariel said:

My one concern with fighting in city terrain would be how the unit coherency rules would work. Stuff like balconies, stairways, or towers might be a little difficult to work around. Perhaps you could use a house rule that models could move individually rather than as a group in certain situations?

Then again I'm coming from a Mordheim background. I'm used to terrain with lots of nooks and crannies that only one or two guys on 25mm bases can fit into, so maybe this wouldn't be a problem for most people

Yeah, I don't think nooks and crannies are going to work out so well, but alleyways, stairs and balconies are fine as long as they're wide enough. The only drawback is that most fantasy scenery doesn't reflect the scale and base sizes of the miniatures these days, so it can be a bit of a fuss getting them into position. The buildings need to have a bit of openness and scale to them for best results.

That said, I once had 10 Bloodreavers conga-lining up a tiny spiral staircase to reach a Stormcast Prosecutor at the top. When they got to the top he flew away. Damn Stormcast.

[Guest]

15 minutes ago, Auticus said:

The only conflicts I've had are people that think if you aren't using GW terrain that you are somehow "cheating". 

 

What?? This is a thing?? :shakes head sadly: 

[Joakim]

Can you show photos of your acclaimed gamey terrain? (I like custom stuff so don't worry about accusations from me)

 

but the rules doesn't cover how to deal with terrain in terms of step height, if a model can jump up or down, ladders etc. there is hardly clarity for bases or LOS

not sure we need that per say but gw terrain is rather lackluster for being integrated into the game more I feel. You all may disagree but using terrain is a mechanism closer to using scenarios in Aos for regulation/comp/balancing certain armies/play styles compared to just pitched battle of 8th with the same or less terrain.

[AGPO]

Auticus you're a genius! You've successfully found a way to identify people who'll be a pain in the a** to play before setting up a single mini

Seriously though, why does our hobby attract so many of these people!?