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Post by question on Sept 10, 2024 14:52:03 GMT -5
Interesting: "makes it hard for our local scene to find a balance where most play is focused on fun and enjoyment". Yep, I'm in that camp. Theme and creativity will always win with me. Too much regimentation of the physical environment always seems to detract from my enjoyment of creative tactical application. Not to mention fighting over some very cool terrain kits and kit bashes.
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Post by trantos01 on Sept 10, 2024 17:21:40 GMT -5
I was on two of the 'official' terrain setups in the tournament. One of them wasn't that bad but the second massively favored melee/close range armies. You either needed to drive up into no-man's land for a shot or hope that you could thread the needle though a handful of narrow firing lines and that the enemy would be in front of one.
I don't mind plenty of cover etc on the table but when everybody is forced to fight at more or less 12 inches at most, certain armies get favored over others.
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Post by question on Sept 10, 2024 17:59:27 GMT -5
And that has always been a problem whether it's a game or real life. There is NO perfectly balanced cover that works for ALL army types. I don't think there ever will be. Sometimes it is just going to suck to be THAT army. And sometimes you can mitigate that by being the better tactician. Improvise, adapt, survive.
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Post by trantos01 on Sept 10, 2024 18:52:07 GMT -5
And that has always been a problem whether it's a game or real life. There is NO perfectly balanced cover that works for ALL army types. I don't think there ever will be. Sometimes it is just going to suck to be THAT army. And sometimes you can mitigate that by being the better tactician. Improvise, adapt, survive. Unfortunately some armies are better at this than others. Ultimately it's random chance in regards to how well one list does against another.
Though I admit I've generally not paid attention to the official terrain setups and just went with what felt balanced to me. Well that and working with what terrain hasn't already been taken by the other players.
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Post by cmcd on Sept 10, 2024 19:42:03 GMT -5
I'm certainly a big proponent of the footprint style, I feel like it lets you stage terrain of basically any look/design while still blocking a good amount of LOS lanes. Plus it's easy to whip the terrain off if you need to move/measure and then put them back in a pinch. That said - they were just ugly MDF squares this time, so I'm sure the look was pretty unpleasant. They'll be fully based and painted for Club Champs! And of course at less competitive tournaments (Santa, Great Crusade) they'll stay home entirely. Speaking of Great Crusade - hit me up if you want to design a mission around that sweet gothic bunker Andrew won. How large is it? Do you have to assemble any of it? |
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Post by voodoo on Sept 10, 2024 20:08:36 GMT -5
Terrain layouts 2 and 4 from GW's official Pariah Nexus setups look to be the worst offenders for shooting primary armies, BUT... not if those exact same layouts have terrain mixes that aren't inifitely high walls.
We're all smart folks, we can take GW's recommended layouts and have them as a mix of terrain that will be equitable for a wide mix of armies.
My two cents, I also enjo the "bases" for the terrain, as it helps identify boundaries. I like Kevin's idea whereby we take our existing terrain and get it onto the bases to help define those pieces, not as punishment for armies, but for ease of identification. They don't all (and god help me they SHOULDN'T!) be L-shaped ruins on a piece of MDF, that's boring, non-thematic and lame as the day is long. Varied, thematic terrain is cool; but the two ideas aren't mutually exclusive. We can have cool terrain that "fits" generally with the GW layouts.
Thereby striking a balance between the "all l-shaped ruins all the time" of the super-die-hard-competetive scene and the all-thematic-all-the-time folks on the opposite end of the spectrum.
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Post by Typhus on Sept 11, 2024 3:21:46 GMT -5
I'm certainly a big proponent of the footprint style, I feel like it lets you stage terrain of basically any look/design while still blocking a good amount of LOS lanes. Plus it's easy to whip the terrain off if you need to move/measure and then put them back in a pinch. That said - they were just ugly MDF squares this time, so I'm sure the look was pretty unpleasant. They'll be fully based and painted for Club Champs! And of course at less competitive tournaments (Santa, Great Crusade) they'll stay home entirely. Speaking of Great Crusade - hit me up if you want to design a mission around that sweet gothic bunker Andrew won. How large is it? Do you have to assemble any of it? 14" long and about 8.5" wide. It comes in two pieces for ease of transport, but no assembly or painting required. |
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Post by raceygaming on Sept 11, 2024 9:37:41 GMT -5
I was on two of the 'official' terrain setups in the tournament. One of them wasn't that bad but the second massively favored melee/close range armies. You either needed to drive up into no-man's land for a shot or hope that you could thread the needle though a handful of narrow firing lines and that the enemy would be in front of one. I don't mind plenty of cover etc on the table but when everybody is forced to fight at more or less 12 inches at most, certain armies get favored over others. I am curious what rounds / missions you found the GW table made a huge difference on. |
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Post by Hizack on Sept 11, 2024 11:42:10 GMT -5
There is a part of me that likes the symmetry and the well defined GW layouts with the terrain "base". If I remember right the GW layouts basically only use Ruins for their rules? We could easily use some of our woods to replace some of the ruins on maps we would feel are too much right?
The rules for Woods are much more forgiving for shooting armies instead of LOS blocking ruins.
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Post by raceygaming on Sept 11, 2024 13:07:25 GMT -5
There is a part of me that likes the symmetry and the well defined GW layouts with the terrain "base". If I remember right the GW layouts basically only use Ruins for their rules? We could easily use some of our woods to replace some of the ruins on maps we would feel are too much right? The rules for Woods are much more forgiving for shooting armies instead of LOS blocking ruins. I think the big sticking point is the LOS blocking. GW has multiple terrain lay out but the big commonality is that 80% or more the deployment zone is NOT targettable from the opponents deployment. You have to move out of your zone in order to interact with the other sides models. Most tournament that use a forest as a terrain feature now, use a infinitely high LOS blocking forest to make sure that a lot of the table is still out of sight. |
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Post by voodoo on Sept 12, 2024 10:32:30 GMT -5
I agree with Jordan, it's not the quantity of terrain that's the issue; it's the type. Remove some (not all) of the LOS blocking pieces, and the game now isn't dominated by melee heavy armies and/or those that have mechanics allowing them to deepstrike "danger close" like daemons and GSC. OR, by armies built to largely not interact with their opponent. If you have an infantry heavy build, and rely on having action monkeys able to go places and do the things; then you're just as happy to have few to zero lanes of fire to keep said action monkeys safe as long as possible.
Like I said, we have an opportunity to balance terrain; heck, look at all the major batrep players online, there's few if any of them that run with the absolute GW standard terrain layouts & types.
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Post by Jack Shrapnel on Sept 12, 2024 11:19:29 GMT -5
I've yet to see a batrep online - even the Art of War guys - that uses that dense of a board.
Plus the GW vs. WTC layouts/terrain are quite different as well.
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Post by Typhus on Sept 12, 2024 11:38:03 GMT -5
I've yet to see a batrep online - even the Art of War guys - that uses that dense of a board. Well, I can't speak to their usual MO but both of the most recent battle reports were on GW terrain layout. www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vmB7zpKvcA&ab_channel=ArtofWar40kwww.youtube.com/watch?v=dzfxVN86ipo&ab_channel=ArtofWar40kNot that we have to do what Art of War are doing. A mix of terrain types seems like a fine compromise to me. If you have some GW terrain layouts (that's what I modelled my tables after, obviously), some WTC (I believe that's what Jordan modelled his tables after) and some custom/non-layout tables, surely that would please both the World Eaters and T'au among us. |
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Post by Jack Shrapnel on Sept 12, 2024 12:24:16 GMT -5
Well that doesn't look as dense to me... but it might be the camera making it seem like more space, I'm not going to argue that point at all.
Bit of a moot point, but I'll retract Art of War as the example.
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Post by raceygaming on Sept 12, 2024 14:41:27 GMT -5
Hey I actually found a pretty good summary of this whole thread topic in the Table Top Titans www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQM3eivIHhMTop down table view from 5:18 - 6:12, they actually explain in the top down view what GW map they use and the rules for LOS and risk of " toeing in" for non-super heavies. It is a pretty good summary of the questions that was issued here. I will say since the new Mission packs TTT has switched to using GW tournament terrain for the majority of games that are non- narrative. |
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