Friday, February 18, 2011

Terrain in 5th Edition 40K



So, I read a little article over at a site called Yes The Truth Hurts - a place that is always good for a little controversy and entertainment.  The author there was talking about terrain in 40K.  How having terrain big enough to block line of site to things like Land Raiders and Valkyries was a bad thing for the game.  Thought I'd post my own thoughts on the subject.

Personally - one of the things that I think has really hurt the game with 5th edition is the lack of Line of Sight blocking terrain.   Gone is the ability to stage your army, position it utilizing terrain, then launch an assault from it.   Truly using TACTICS to play - vs lining up and rolling dice.   You still had fire lanes, fire control bases, high ground, etc - but you had to place them strategically.   All that was in good old 4th edtion.   Now - with the terrain you see in most clubs (and our club has some AWESOME terrain - but still mostly 4th edition style)you can pretty much shoot almost everything from anywhere.

But at the crux - a good general should be able to adapt his army to whatever terrain conditions he's faced with in a game.   Stating that Having or Not Having blocking terrain is the ONLY right way to play 40K is really just making excuses for why you can't win in a certain situation.   I fall into this myself from time to time.  I Have my preferences - but in all honesty to myself - I need to adapt to what the game board has in place.  That's the RIGHT way to play the game.

My opponents can remind me of this when I start whining in a game.  Although I will stick to my time honored excuse of my dice sucking - because in that category I AM a statistical anomoly.  :)

3 comments:

CORWINDAL5 said...

I would have to agree with you on that Al. With the lack of terrain that actually blocks line of site it hurts the tactical bases of the game. I hope that in 6th they fix this. Really they just need to tweak a few things to make the game system work really well.

Terminus Est said...

I play primarily assault armies so the lack of terrain blocking LOS can be a challenge. If you find a piece it's like solid gold. There is an abundance of cover saves now so I try to use that as much as possible.

G

swanson4969 said...

I agree with Al a good general adapts to the scenario. The only thing I hate more is the whining about kill points. they are in there to balance out the codex. I am sick of all the MSU people complaining they are unfair. Sorry for the tangent /rant there.
Thanks
Greg