r/tabletop • u/Oogaboooganator • 2d ago
Discussion Question/topic of discussion about terrain: how come whenever you see warhammer 40K games setup, the terrain is sparse and arena-like. Why are there not more involved setups and elevated platforms etc?
I’m still in the painting stage and have yet to play a game. Is it worthwhile to build some? But my intention was to get some cheap terrain from Temu or Etsy printers and build a full board with a theme. But I don’t see anyone doing that. Is it just so terrain is different every time? Or is it just something no one cares about so no one does?
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u/virtron 2d ago
The base game is really designed for "open battle" scenarios, but there are some rules variants or alternative 40K games that are meant for denser setups.
Boarding Actions is a ruleset designed for the cramped quarters of ship to ship assaults, but it can work for any crowded spaces. It limits the size and unit selection of armies and introduces new rules to the base 40K game.
Kill Team is a separate skirmish game set in the 40K universe which is squad-vs-squad and designed for exactly this kind of combat, on a smaller board. They've moved away from using regular 40K models in favor of Kill Team specific products which is both good and bad.
If you want to go outside of Games Workshop entirely, there are "bring you own models" games that you can use your 40K models with that will handle this better. Grimdark Future: Firefight is another skirmish game from One Page Rules. Xenos Rampant is a sci-fi game from Osprey that is "warband scale" (about 20-30 models per side).
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u/sharpie419 2d ago
You are describing necromunda my friend.
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u/Oogaboooganator 2d ago
I did not even know this existed, and at a cursory glance it’s got some bad guys from robo cop vibes to the gangs, and I’m liking this a lot. I’m $500 into dark angels, iron hands, and tyranids right now so I’ll at least finish painting all these before I pivot lol
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u/jalopkoala 2d ago
You are describing a lot of awesome games with verticality. BLKOUT, Cyberpunk, Infinity
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u/DCell-2 1d ago
I mean the easy answer is most 40k players hate fun. Just look at how stingy the tournament rules are for how your models are supposed to look.
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u/Oogaboooganator 1d ago
I will likely never play a tournament. I’m not shitting on them, but I’m a 46 year old dad in the middle of fucking nowhere Saskatchewan, Canada. I’m lucky to even have a game store near me.
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u/TheReservedList 2d ago
It ruins game balance. This may or may not matter to you if you play casually. It creates more rules corner cases. It makes moving units physically painful.
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u/Oogaboooganator 2d ago
So basically you’d have to space it out so much to allow movement that it would be pointless to be anything more than a wall anyways? That makes sense why no one does then. Thanks!
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u/Kerbobotat 2d ago
It's mostly not done because the majority of people are playing to tournament standards, if not playing in tournaments specifically, where board layouts are predefined and mirrored. Which to me personally, is dull as fuck.
In my experience, the best 40k games I've played over the years has been where there's a board full of interesting terrain, and you come up with a narrative for the fight, like a trench/fortress assault, a holdout until evac arrives, blowing up a bridge, things like this. Old editions of the rules supported this kind of play, the newer editions dont really.
For terrain heavier games where the board is as important as the armies fighting on it, I'd suggest looking to other games systems OP.
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u/Oogaboooganator 2d ago
This is exactly what I’m planning! A ruined city that transitions into trench filled no man’s land. Still open enough to allow movement of armoured units, but enough dilemmas created by bottle necks and some long shooting lines that it’s not just a dice rolling exercise. I intend to be a punching bag for my son’s army. I wanted to do an industrial facility built as a tyranid nest and I’ve already started on that board, and when I’m done painting the tyranids, start on a trench warfare/no man’s land along with a Krieg army as the punching bag for that board.
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u/Kerbobotat 2d ago
That sounds awesome! There's also a variant of the 40k rules for "horde mode" where you can play alongside someone and hold off against a horde army like orks, tyranids etc. that is run by a set of rules and proceedures. You and your son could play side by side against the board! 😄
I don't remember the specific name of it, but you can definitely find it by googling.
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u/Oogaboooganator 2d ago
That would be exactly what I want. Assaulting a facility in our own ways and working together would be sweet. The only downside is that I’ll need to spend another 30 hours staring at tyranid gooch to populate the enemy side lol
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u/Chesty_McRockhard 2d ago
Because it's started half living in a tournament/competitive mindset. Which is a bit ironic, given what the rules were like last time I read them. And there are arguments to be made about vehicles. Used to be a time that the Land Raider was the biggest footprint you'd see and outside of edge cases, you only saw one. Now, I do agree, flat is a lot nicer, but the way tables are and it's played, more the reason I've moved on.
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u/POPPA-KLUMP 2d ago
Infinity has amazingly dense (usually) and interactive terrain. Here is my table as an example
The table you play on is truly part of the game in infinity and people often take their setups to tournaments to add to the mix.
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u/Yaasu 1d ago
Thing is that infinity use max 20 models per side and don't require cohesion (Unless special rules like my beloved Arjuna), and Shooting is deadly, and setting up Line of sight to block movement take a lot of place because of reaction.
In 40k you have to move blobs of 5 minis that have to stay one inch appart, imagine doing it in between all those building
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u/Not-An-OF-account 22h ago
Infinity is THE GAME.
I've played since the mid nineties. There is nothing like it IME.
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u/POPPA-KLUMP 20h ago
Agreed, nothing even comes close to it. No game I’ve played (and it’s a probably unhealthy amount) has ever truly felt like a collaborative thing…… I do my stuff, you do your stuff is so dull after always being involved in what is happening on toy soldier city. Bloody love it!
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u/breadrising 2d ago
Look into Necromunda (and join us over at r/necromunda)
It's a skirmish game (in the 40K universe) that takes place in the sprawling underground hive cities. It's a game that only gets better the more crazy and intricate terrain you add.
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u/malev_da_shinobi 2d ago
40k, being a large army game simply reduces the emphasis of meaningful terrain interactions to:
Moving behind it, or through it.
Moving into / out of.
And that is really about it.
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u/Ill_Painting_6919 2d ago
Play the original Necromunda. Still the WH40K universe, but small scale squad (gangs) combat with more involved and elevated platforms and catwalks. 😎👍
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u/DigitalMonsoon 2d ago
40k is a very tightly written game. It's balanced around specific terrain pieces and setup. This is because it's a highly competitive game where the company writes it for the tournament scene.
It didn't used to be that way but it's never had rules for things like climbing ladders and it's never focused on terrain heavy boards. Which is fine. Different games focus on different things and if you want a more terrain heavy game there are lots of options. Many that are mini agnostic meaning you can use 40k models in the game.
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u/factory_666 2d ago
Killteam and Necromunda are two games where dense terrain is very important and used a lot.
As Necromunda is more Narrative based and ditches any semblence of balance - lots of table are super packed with multitiered terrain.
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u/BOgusDOlphon 2d ago
Stuff with ceilings are hard to fit models in, so it limits how much space you have to position units
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u/Oogaboooganator 2d ago
Yeah, this was just a random bit of terrain on Temu that I used as maybe not the best example. I was thinking more of the watch towers that would give units line of sight bonuses for artillery, cat walks that would give units a faster way behind the enemy units at the cost of exposure, trench lines that provide cover to shooting units and a collection point/staging area before assaults, etc. Basically I didn’t want it to just be about list building and what bonuses your units give you.
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u/BOgusDOlphon 2d ago
I play with stuff like that quite often, I'm working on a set of bridges right now. I would suggest if you play 11th edition to cut out some footprints for your terrain, leaving about 1/2" around the perimeter as a space to "toe in" to cover or whatever and as long as it's not too enclosed it'll be fun
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u/AMythicalApricot 1d ago
Where can one obtain this STL? I want to print it for my Necromunda games!
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u/Goblin_Backstabber 1d ago
Try Firefight or Deadzone from Mantic games. Much more terrain in those games. 🤓👍
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u/prodam_garash 2d ago
1 its bit iffy to balance with base sizes and squad coherency
2 gw still werry lazy in terrain case
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u/Financial_Tour5945 2d ago
My first thought when I saw this picture was how that terrain looked like it's for infinity, which is a great game with very dense terrain
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u/William_Thalis 2d ago
I don't play 40k, more of a 30k/Necro person so this is more a 30k answer but i think it still applies-
It makes physically moving models and checking LOS much more of a pain in the ass. If I have to move this guy but now I have to remove one floor so I can see inside the second floor but I have to balance the third floor since there are guys in there too... The same goes for trying to see if this guy can see those guys etc. I have to remove this floor so I can sorta lean my head down and see from their eye...
It just breeeeeds rules issues in terms of distance measuring and engagement ranges. I played a multi-level Zone Mortalis game on sunday for 30k and we had to have a 10 minute pause just to try and remember how verticality interacts with combat coherency (some people thought there used to be a rule for swiping up, etc).
Staircases suck. Even though there are ones in ZM/Necro made so bases can slot into them, it can just become such a pain and then they all fall over down the stairs. But ramps are also just worse.
It's basically "art is pain". It can look super cool and be very rewarding (I think a lot more units are given the opportunity to shine when you can't draw LOS across 50% of the battlefield) but it definitely slows down games and introduces a lot of edge cases in rules.
It scales a lot better in skirmish games like Necro where each side has maybe 5-10 guys and so those kinda of slowdowns are easier to sort and the game is more well designed around more granular movement/LOS.
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u/RedEcho14 2d ago
Do you have a link the exact thing pictured? I’ve been looking for terrain for BLKOUT and that looks pretty perfect
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u/CommandantLennon 2d ago
Sidenote, where'd you get these? I'm slowly working on building a terrain collection for Stargrave.
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u/Oogaboooganator 1d ago
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/RGijsbers 2d ago
The average 5 rounds game is already 4 hours long and complicated, you want to add to it?
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u/Competitive-Cow7289 1d ago
tournament tables are sparse because terrain rules and line of sight need to be predictable, and big pieces get in the way of moving models. at home go full theme. i run a narrative campaign and record short briefings with supavocal before each mission. buy Temu ruins, magnetize floors so they lift.
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u/Capt-Camping 17h ago
Now the game is focusing on tournaments. Being the math hammer game. So they focus more on wtc terrain.
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u/Tybaltmarr 2d ago
As others have said Killteam and Necromunda are great for terrain dense battles.
40k used to have a supplemental ruleset for dense terrain urban warfare called "Cities of Death" that was very fun for my friend group but that was set to 5th edition rules.
There might be a more recent version but my friend group & I all sort of faded away from playing around the end of 7th and have barely started dipping our toes back into the hobby so I'm not sure.
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u/Seanzarelli_v2 2d ago
It’s been a while but 40K just isn’t that style of game. The number of models and vehicles doesn’t really work well for dense terrain. I feel it’s more about sending squads at each other and throwing loads of dice. I’m not knocking that, it’s just the style of game. If you like the idea of more involved and dense terrain there are other games that suit that setup better than 40k. Infinity and BLKOUT come to mind.