Warhammer 40K: Walls Over 2” Tall Are a Hot Mess
Goatboy here talking about the Warhammer 40K rules for Walls over 2″ tall and how they are being used and abused. Help GW!
We all know I love to play vehicles and monsters. I also do genuinely enjoy how the 40K events have really pushed in a locked set of terrain. What I don’t enjoy is how this new locked in terrain is making it really hard to move your giant plastic kits around the tabletop.
GW has done a good job with building out the terrain rules as of late. There could always be some updates but overall we know how those buildings work, we understand what ruins are supposed to do, and for the most part infantry work great on these crumbling foundations of a grimdark tabletop. What doesn’t work though is how we have some Giant things deal with the crumbling infrastructure of your ruined battlescape.
Do you really think a CSM dreadnought – who we have seen in video games Kool-Aid manning through a wall – care about that flimsy piece of MDF? Does a Tyranid Carnifex give any care about a weirdly gothic looking wall covered in skulls? Do you think any tank couldn’t just run that corner over and cover you in fire?
The Current 40K Wall Rules Have Problems
The current rules does allow some leeway in games where things can ignore up to 2” of terrain height. This lets you say ok this ruined section of wall can at least pretend cover your guys behind it but your giant gibbering mound of flesh can saunter over it and still get to you. This is great and works fine. But with the push for a lot of terrain out there having walls that “go to” the imaginary edge of their tabletop influence we start to have issues maneuvering these giants of the tabletop around.
How many times do you see a burnt out building who somehow has a wall that is fully set up right to the edge of your little plastic terrain deployment area? How about those games where the center is basically a slightly blown out section of 4 buildings that creates a nice little safe spot in the middle for your enemy to hide in? What about those other tables that have giant sections touching the end of the board and eliminating any chance for something big to just “move” through it to get to the other side.
Monstrous Creatures Need Some Knightly Love with Walls
I do like how Knights have a rule where they can take a Battleshock test in order to ignore the terrain and wonder if we should have something like that too for other big monsters. Just a method that lets them go hog through a wall and touch those on the other side. Would this make this too powerful? Would it just make the tabletop a bunch of “theoretical terrain” pieces instead of trying to make it immersive?
Am I just complaining in vacuum and should just learn to play more Infantry? I don’t know. It just feels like there is a lot of area for kinda annoying, tricksy gameplay just due to the fact we want cooler looking terrain pieces to play on. I know I have changed my army load out just due to the fact terrain was going to be rough at an event. I love the idea that we can hide, plan, and move things around but still wonder if we need some things that just lets us move however we want.
What do you think? Are these walls just a pain in the butt when you have to roll your model around the wall, pivot, and lose movement that they shouldn’t even care about? Would it help solve some of this “fortified” wall nonsense where you put your infantry 1.1” outside the wall edge and thus – magically create the box you can’t interact with.
As I sit here and look at all the terrain pieces I have to build and paint I wonder: do I really try to make the edges usable or say screw it – make all walls tall?
