TACTICS TALK: THE LAY OF THE LAND

And that is a hill...and that is a building...

Hello there everyone, with the release of 9th Edition one of the big topics is the new rules for terrain.  This edition looks like it is going to have a significantly better grasp of rules for terrain being more clear and practical.  Not to mention a bunch of new rules and abilities to add more tactical elements to the game.  Terrain has been divided into four categories, hills, obstacles, area terrain, and buildings, then to further give pieces definition there are traits that can be assigned to them, but that is getting a little ahead of ourselves.

Look, a hill.

HILLS are probably the most basic piece of terrain.  Models use normal rules for moving over them, standing on them, standing behind them, etc etc.  HILLS can be modeled right into the battlefield, like the plastic Realm of Battle board, or they can be physical pieces added to the table, which is far more likely since most tables nowadays are covered with neoprene mats.  Regardless of what shape they take, they are considered to be part of the battlefield itself.

OBSTACLES are a little more varying and can encompass things like barricades, ruined walls, barbed wire, or it could be just a huge rock.  Infantry, Beast, and Swarm units gain the benefits of cover when they are within 3" of an OBSTACLE unless you can draw a line from the attacking model to any part of the target model without touching the OBSTACLE.  Here is a funny little note, just gaining the benefit of cover doesn't do anything, you need to have rules on the piece of terrain or the models affected by the terrain that actually come in to effect when the unit gains the benefit of cover, but that comes later.  Models can move up, over, and down OBSTACLES using the normal movement rules, and they follow the normal rules for determining line of sight through it.

Area terrain...

...also area terrain

AREA TERRAIN is where shit gets fuzzy cause it basically covers everything else that has a base or footprint which is defined as a boundary of the terrain feature at the ground level.  This can include things such as ruins, forests, craters, mine fields, I mean the list really is endless.  Keep in mind that the footprint will not always be obvious and should be discussed prior to the game.  Infantry, Beast, and Swarm unit gain the benefit of cover while they are within it.  Thanks to our new definitions of WITHIN, we know that this means every model in the unit needs to be touching the terrain feature.  AREA TERRAIN follows the normal rules for movement and line of sight yada yada yada.

BUILDINGS are typically things like fortifications.  They follow the normal rules for line of sight, but they cannot be moved across, are considered units as opposed to terrain features, and enemy BUILDINGS can be attacked.  I'm not going to talk about them much as they really don't show up in tournament tables very often, and they typically have a fairly well defined set of rules for them.

Now we get into the traits, which is where the real rules come from, and I have to start with a complaint.  They have fucked up right from the get go and have failed to consistently use their special terms.  Specifically "Within" and "receives the benefit of cover".  The above rules specify what is required to "receive the benefit of cover" for each category of terrain, so why not KEYWORD that term and re-use it?

The very first trait, DEFENSIBLE, is a perfect example of what I mean.  They could have replaced the first two paragraphs with something like: If an Infantry unit would receive the benefit of cover while within a piece of AREA TERRAIN or an OBSTACLE when an enemy unit declares a charge against it, then it can either Hold Steady or it can Set to Defend, unless it is already in ENGAGEMENT RANGE of another enemy unit.  I'm not going to drone on and on about this lack of consistency, but know that it is rampant through this section of the book.

Anyway...back to the point.  Hold Steady allows the unit receiving the charge to fire Overwatch and hit on 5+, while Set to Defend prevents the unit from Overwatching, but gives them a +1 to hit in the next Fight phase.  Take note that this +1 to hit has no restrictions as to what enemy unit you can attack, so you still get this +1 to hit bonus if multiple units charge you.  This is a great little boost since Overwatch was turned into a stratagem.  Its also a great boost for those times when units are not visible to the target of the charge as they will at least get a bonus to hit should they survive.

Next trait is DEFENCE LINE, which basically changes the ENGAGEMENT RANGE to 2" as long as the enemy unit is within 1" of the terrain feature and you end your charge touching the terrain feature.  This means that only a single model of the target unit has to be within 1" of the terrain feature, and there is no mention of having to be on opposite sides, or drawing a line over the piece or anything like that.  There are stipulations on being on opposite sides of the terrain feature and within 2" in order to make attacks against the target, but if you are on the same side you should be able to Pile In to normal ENGAGEMENT RANGE.  This eliminates players using wide barricade like pieces, where you can't physically get within ENGAGEMENT RANGE, as a way to keep from getting charged.

BREACHABLE means that Infantry, Beast, and Swarm units can walk through any part of the terrain feature.  Typically, you have to measure up, across, and down a terrain feature when moving over it, but not in this case.  This makes things like networks of short walls and ruins much less tedious to navigate.

DIFFICULT GROUND subtracts 2" when making a Normal Move, Advance, Fall Back, or when charging over this terrain feature, unless the model has FLY.

DENSE COVER confers a -1 to hit penalty when shooting at a unit that receives the benefit of cover from a terrain feature.  This does not apply if the shooting unit is within the terrain feature.  The terrain feature has to be 3" or taller and does not give the penalty to unit whoa re shooting at Aircraft or models with a wounds characteristic of 18 or more.

An UNSTABLE POSITION cannot have models be placed on top of it.  They can move up, over, and down them, but they can't end their move on top of them.

Models do not receive the benefit of cover from terrain features that are an EXPOSED POSITION while on top of them.

OBSCURING terrain that is over 5" tall gets into some janky shit as it completely blocks LOS when looking through or over it but uses normal LOS for units that are within it.  However it does not block LOS for Aircraft or models that have a wound characteristic of 18 or higher.  So get this, an Infantry model on one side of an OBSCURING terrain feature could see a Knight on the other side of the terrain feature, but the Knight could not see the Infantry model.

I kind of like this rule, mainly due to how it kind of fucks over gun line static shooting armies.  It makes seeing across the table is incredibly difficult, and if you can't navigate your way to a better vantage point and create lanes of fire, then you're BONED.

A unit that is receiving the benefit of cover from a terrain feature that is LIGHT COVER gets a +1 to saving throws against ranged attacks.  This does not apply to invulnerable saving throws.

HEAVY COVER grants a +1 to saving throws against melee attacks, which does not apply to invulnerable saving throws.

SCALEABLE terrain can be moved through horizontally and vertically by Infantry, Beasts, Swarms, and models that can fly.  These models can also be set up on and end their movement on top of this feature.  This is pretty much what ruins were in the previous edition.  Note that they have not really solved the problem of putting a Repulsor on top of a Ruin.  Unless they remove the FLY keyword from it and replace it with something like HOVER, which will need to be created still.

INSPIRING terrain gives a +1 to Ld to units that are wholly within 6" of it.

So there we have all the terrain traits, and thankfully they give us some common examples of terrain features that bring these all together.

Ruins are AREA TERRAIN that have the SCALEABLE, BREACHABLE, LIGHT COVER, DEFENSIBLE, and OBSCURING TRAIT.  What they all means is that you can move through the walls and floors, get a +1 to your saving throws from ranged attacks, can't see through it or over it, but can see into and out of it.  Also, you can Hold Steady or Set to Defend which I think is a great addition.  I do have some reservations though as ruins tend to be a quite popular terrain feature, and they tend to be quite large to keep set up and tear down of tables relatively simple.  I cold see the OBSCURING rule that these pieces have slowly see them taking the place of the "NOVA L" pieces that are popular in the tournament scene.  Also keep in mind that the OBSCURING trait takes effect from the entire base, or footprint of the feature.  In the case I show above that means that the empty front right corner will block LOS over it, even though you can clearly see past it.

Craters are one of the most under valued pieces of terrain out there and I really hope that they can make a bit of a surge to popularity.  They are AREA TERRAIN that have the LIGHT COVER and DIFFICULT GROUND traits which make them a perfect position for small fire base units.

The armoured containers are OBSTACLES with the LIGHT COVER, SCALEABLE, and EXPOSED POSITION traits.  This means that you can climb on top of them, but you can't walk through them.  They give you a cover save, but not if you are on top of them, and the unit has to be within 3" of it to gain that cover save.  I really like these containers and how they play on the table.  They are typically used just to block LOS, but the way they are set up above, with little cracks in their set up is probably the best way to set them up now.  They are serious deterrents to armies that need to be mobile, but don't have FLY or some other ability to ignore having to move up and down terrain.

Barricades have gotten a ton of rules and I think will likely see a ton of use.  They are OBSTACLES, with DEFENCE LINE, LIGHT COVER, HEAVY COVER, DEFENSIBLE, UNSTABLE POSITION, and DIFFICULT GROUND.  That's a ton of rules that make them really strong pieces to hide behind and they don't take up a ton of space which make them great pieces to fill out the spaces in between your larger terrain features.  You will want to use them sparingly though as you don't want to saturate the entire table.

Woods are another great piece of terrain that can break up the monotony of ruins and shelled out buildings.  They are AREA TERRAIN that have the traits DENSE COVER, BREACHABLE, DEFENSIBLE, and DIFFICULT GROUND.  I like the new addition of DENSE TERRAIN trait as it gives pieces of terrain different uses in different situations.  For example, against units that have tons of shots, bonuses to hit, and re-rolls, the Woods is not going to help a lot.  However, Tau don't deal real well with penalties to hit, and with a mediocre BS the penalty really helps.

Battlefield Debris is an interesting OBSTACLE that is also an EXPOSED POSITION.  This means that it doesn't really do anything on it's own.  It doesn't do anything unless the model itself has a rule that gives it some benefit from receiving the benefit of cover like the Raven Guard chapter tactics or Scout camo cloaks.  For the most part, these things will just get in the way and slow down ground based models.

Overall, I think these rules are really going to move the game in a better direction.  There is going to be a couple months of playing around with quantity and variety of terrain, but after that things will smooth out and we will have ourselves a decently solid table set up.  Thanks for reading.

Til next time, keep them dice rollin.

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