40K 8th: Your New Tabletop Terrain
Those forests, ruins and hills all do very different things in 8th. Get ready for the new Grimdark battlefield.
The three most common things you see on 40K tables are Hills, Forests and Ruins. In 8th editions each of these acts little bit different to what you’ve seen in the past.
Woods
There are two basic categories of units as they apply to woods:
Infantry: Gain cover if the unit is FULLY within the woods, and move through them freely.
Non Infantry: Gain cover ONLY is half of EVERY MODEL in the wood is physically half obscured.
Verdict: Most of the classic GW terrain have zero effect on non-intantry as it’s not dense enough to obscure. It is effectively open ground. If you want more useful forests, you will need to bulk them up a lot with low LoS blocking foliage.
Ruins
There are three basic categories of units as they apply to Ruins:
Infantry: Gain cover if the unit is FULLY within the Ruins, and move through them freely* (like straight through walls, etc…).
Non-flying Vehicles, Monsters & Bikes: Can only end movement on the ground floor of ruins.
Non Infantry: Gain cover ONLY is half of EVERY MODEL in the Ruins is physically half obscured.
Verdict: A Strange one. Infantry move through these as clear and easily gain the cover bonus. Rules as written makes me think non infantry cannot just “teleport” within ruins and may have to physically fit and move around walls and such that Infantry are specifically listed as moving through freely. Many more units can probably still claim cover in dense Cities of Death style GW terrain, but you have to be careful as it only take ONE model out in the open to deprive the whole unit of cover.
*Note: Basically, if the wall is less than 1/2 your move in inches tall then Infantry can pretty much ignore it for movement as Infantry can “effectively” move through walls thanks to the vertical movement they get. They can also move through windows and gaps unlike non-infantry. (Added for clarification and edited for specificity)
Hills
A simple one, no cover at all. The only thing you can grant is blocking of LoS for very large hills.
Verdict: It’s back to hide and seek with hills. either you can see even a small piece or your target and can shoot it with no cover, or it’s totally out of LoS. There is no middle ground as the rules are written. I think folks should start to bulk up on oversized hills that are capable of completely hiding “normal sized infantry and small to medium vehicles. The GW gently sloping hill pretty much only give the models on top a little extra height to help with LoS.
~ How will this affect your terrain collection?
