Are there any terrain placement rules?

[Scarsnik]

I play casual games and one of my friends plays Dwarves.

Every time we play he will try and make a ridiculous fort on both sides of the map then castle up around it.

Eg Last game he rolled 2x two story buildings , which he placed against the back edge of the table on both sides. Then a blazing barricade which he placed in line past one edge of one of the buildings. He then deployed right in this little section of the field with all his units. Which basically meant that to get to him and his warmachines I have to charge through fire.

Another game he placed a hill in the back edge, surrounded it with a river with a ford just wide enough for one unit 5 wide to pass through. Then he deployed all his units on the hill or between the hill and water. So if I charge him I get no rank bonuses because I'm standing in the water.


It is getting slightly frustrating to start every game at a disadvantage just due to terrain. Just wondering how you guys handle terrain drops in games. Is there a rule that stops some of these ridiculous terrain setups? Like maybe "cannot have one piece of terrain within x amount of inches to another" ? Or does everyone play house rules?

 

[Alabaster427]

You could play different scenarios other than battleline. I used to play against a guy who did that then we ended up with battle for the pass. He was royally screwed. Watchtower and morning assault are also really good scenarios. do you roll for random terrain? That might also help.

 

[Mad 'At]

Sad to hear that, really takes a lot of fun out of the game =/

I think most people use house rules. When we play in our club both players usually set up the terrain in agreement, or we have a third, independent member set up the terrain for us. We seldom have any problems since almost all our member are experience tournament player, so we often try to mimic the typical terrain setups seen there.

If those options are out of the question I would advise to take a look at the terrain setup methods described in the 6th edition BRB, those were pretty nice. If you don't have the book available it should be pretty easy to find online. Page 218 anyways. Another option would be to take a look at the standard tables used at ETC (European Team Championship), you got the maps for 2014 here and the ones for 2015 here. You could just use them as inspiration or randomize a table straight out of the list for each game.

 

[Alabaster427]

We have also used the third party option for casual games and is generally a rule in local tournaments. Everyone seems to like it.

 

[LordTobiothan]

There's rules for generation of terrain in the brb. None of them say place whatever you want on your side of the board.

In fact, you place terrain before rolling to see who picks sides. So even if it did work that way (and it doesn't) there is a 50% chance he won't get it anyway.

Find the terrain section of the rulebook. It will likely point you to other sections but take the time to find how it is supposed to work.

 

[heldantes]

Yeah what these guys said. I don't understand how this problem has arisen: does he place ALL the terrain, then choose the side he wants?

My friends and I now set up terrain to fit a story line.

Before that, however, it would be equally stupid competition taking it in turns to put scenery down:
He'd put a hill in one deployment zone
I'd put a big building to block line of sight in the middle somewhere

And so on like that hehe. Worked out in the end.

 

[Scarsnik]

We are rolling for random terrain. So I don't have a problem with that.

On average D6+4 we will have 7-8 pieces of terrain. If he rolls a building a fence and a river for example, he will place perhaps the building on one side of the terrain with the fence like I described, then the river on the opposite border edge in a semi circle with one ford. The semi circle will be large enough to deploy all his troops and allow a bit of movement but if I charge through it I lose my ranks.

So no matter which side I play I'm already starting heavily disadvantaged. I was just wondering if there was a rule in the book that forbids this kind of terrain manipulation. Something like scatter the placement so the river might be from a side board edge or the building and fence end up 6" from each other. I can come up with house rules but don't want to upset the other player. If there is a rule, at least I can point to it rather than say "I don't like how you deploy, do it my way".

 

[Alabaster427]

There aren't any rules saying that terrain has to be a certain distance from each other. Another thing you might do is magic attrition. You could raise some units in his area. Purple Sun and Wind if Death are good. Another you could try is anticipating what he will deploy and place it elsewhere. I think the third person will be your best option

 

[LordTobiothan]

We are rolling for random terrain. So I don't have a problem with that.

On average D6+4 we will have 7-8 pieces of terrain. If he rolls a building a fence and a river for example, he will place perhaps the building on one side of the terrain with the fence like I described, then the river on the opposite border edge in a semi circle with one ford. The semi circle will be large enough to deploy all his troops and allow a bit of movement but if I charge through it I lose my ranks.

So no matter which side I play I'm already starting heavily disadvantaged. I was just wondering if there was a rule in the book that forbids this kind of terrain manipulation. Something like scatter the placement so the river might be from a side board edge or the building and fence end up 6" from each other. I can come up with house rules but don't want to upset the other player. If there is a rule, at least I can point to it rather than say "I don't like how you deploy, do it my way".

First. Yes they scatter. Second he doesn't just place all of his stuff down. I can't do much more than point you to the book, outside of quoting the whole terrain placement section, but at worst it still should be fairly random.

 

[heldantes]

Actually, what do you mean by "he rolls a building a fence and a river "? Don't you roll your d6 plus 4 pieces then take turns placing pieces of terrain? The phrasing of your sentence suggests he chooses half, instead of it being turn by turn.

 

[Blutsauger]

Do you play random scenarios? Some of them will really hurt his ability to castle up like that. The other option is to counter-deploy his castle, by including some large buildings and things that you can use to block line of sight. If he makes a little castle with his river, put a big building in front of it so his warmachines can't see anything.

First. Yes they scatter. Second he doesn't just place all of his stuff down. I can't do much more than point you to the book, outside of quoting the whole terrain placement section, but at worst it still should be fairly random.

There's no rules about terrain placement, just numbers. The rulebook only says that players take it in turn placing the terrain, not that it scatters at all.

 

[Scarsnik]

Actually, what do you mean by "he rolls a building a fence and a river "? Don't you roll your d6 plus 4 pieces then take turns placing pieces of terrain? The phrasing of your sentence suggests he chooses half, instead of it being turn by turn.

We roll D6+4. then we roll a D6 each and the highest roll gets to place a piece of terrain first. Then each of us roll random in the book to see what terrain we get. First person drops terrain then second person roll random terrain then drops it and so on. So that process is fairly random and there have been games where he didn't roll up enough terrain to castle up, unfortunately it doesn't happen that often.

More often than not I'm facing a Dwarven hill with fences or rivers on the back edge of the map around it . Or watch tower with Thunders shooting 360 degrees at the back of the map with a fence or river in front of it with all his infantry behind the fence. I've been trying to place my terrain in ways to block LoS to his hill but I can't reliably do this. While he has probably a 75% chance to places his terrain on both board edges to create easily places to castle so no matter which side he is deploying on he is at an advantage. To be fair I recognize that this is an issue for battlelines mainly. I'm not too fazed by having to attack a well defended army once in a while. But to have 75% of our games like this is slightly irritating. With Dwarven leadership and his BSB, he practically never breaks.

At least when I played 6th edition all I have to do is win combat once and outnumber him and he flees off the board. But with 8th edition I'm finding it very hard to win. Especially if he fields hammers with GW, which he always does. I can't sit back and blast him with magic since in 8th edition you no longer have to guess range. Multiple war machines with runes of accuracy having pot shot at my lord really sucks. Even with Look out sir I'm statistically likely to fail it during the game and cop D6 strength 9s from a Grudge thrower. I can't get to them with wolves or hex wraiths as he never allows enough room to manoeuvre. I've used flying units or Carn Wraiths to take out his Warmachines but it is hard to field these units and have enough points to field decent infantry when we mostly play 800 - 1000 pts.

 

[Blutsauger]

Sounds like your best bet is to start using the other scenarios out of the book. He'll be hard pressed to win a Watchtower scenario with all his forces castled up behind a fence, and dawn attack will really ruin his day. Sure, a battle for the mountain pass will be a struggle for you, and battle line and meeting engagement will be largely the same, but at least it gives you a bit of variety. Also, if you manage to get any of the terrain pieces that he typically uses to castle, deploy them somewhere useless. On a flank or something so that he has to make do with less pieces of terrain.

 

[LordTobiothan]

There's no rules about terrain placement, just numbers. The rulebook only says that players take it in turn placing the terrain, not that it scatters at all.

Hmm I could a sworn that second d6+4 was for scatter. Guess not. Well plan B then.

Dwarves can't shoot through buildings or impassable terrain. Put up as many walls of that as you can with a giant zombie bunker behind it and 2 level 4 undeath caster's. Fight him with nothing but summoned units.

It will only take one game of that for him to a. Quit b. Change armies or c. Not be a dick.

This should work vs any dwarf list so don't be afraid of him changing tactics only until you stop. Fight fire with fire as they say.

 

[Atrophus]

Hmm I could a sworn that second d6+4 was for scatter. Guess not. Well plan B then.

Dwarves can't shoot through buildings or impassable terrain. Put up as many walls of that as you can with a giant zombie bunker behind it and 2 level 4 undeath caster's. Fight him with nothing but summoned units.

It will only take one game of that for him to a. Quit b. Change armies or c. Not be a dick.

This should work vs any dwarf list so don't be afraid of him changing tactics only until you stop. Fight fire with fire as they say.

Got to agree here.
Alternatively take two level 4's one on vamps for healing and one on undeath, two or three massive zombie units and as many banshees in those units as possible, then just sit next to his units screaming.
If he charges out, summon a new unit where his unit charged from and eat his warmachines If not, just keep screaming.

 

[owain_b]

Well firstly I'd take the brb and hit some sense into him!
We tend to have one person set up all the terrain and the other gets to choose the side. And we roll off to see who does what. At least that way 50% of the time you would set up all the scenery, but the other 50% he would do just as you described above.
Taking it in turns to place scenery would help to some extent as you could grab a building and not put it in a deployment zone, but to be honest you best bet is just to tell your friend that your not enjoying the games with him trying to grab an unfair advantage all the time, my friend plays dwarves and by not doing things like that he is always coming up with different army styles or finding the scenery isn't up well for his army trying different tactics to overcome issues and he quite often plays with no shooting at and surprises the pants off you when a big unit of hammers and a unit of longbeards vanguard 12" at you! You might find he enjoys the games better to with a bit of variety

 

[Eternal Salvation]

You could just plop a piece of terrain right in the spot that he wants to castle in. Like a small pond or river or something? If he makes a pretty little box, just put a ruins in it, or a forest or something. And yea, put all the LOS blocking terrain in the middle of the board.

Good luck!

 

[Sessioni]

Me and my friends completely randomize how the terrain goes. So first we divide the 6'x4' table in to six sections (1-6). We usually have 6-7 terrain pieces, so it's easy to roll a D6 for each terrain and place it in the correct table section. Lastly the 7th terran piece would go to the middle. Then we scatter every piece of terrain with a scatter dice+D6. After all this you anyway have to roll which side you get, so I think this is the best possible way to make fair battlegrounds

 

[Mr. Cthulhu]

Or decide to not play with them if they're going to be a jerk with terrain every time you play...

 

[Fodderboy]

One fellow I used to play with would D6 for a table setup from a tourney he'd played in. 6 presets, no messing around.

You can always roll for mysterious terrain as needed.