WFB: Time to Play Part 8 -Terrain Tactics

The last part is, in my opinion, the reason for the fear. What Fantasy player in his right mind wants to plunge  into a forest, roll and a chart only to have what might have been his best unit suddenly subject to Stupidity or take damage. Or want their enemy to ford a river and suddenly gain +3 Initiative or Poisoned attacks or gain a Light spell. 

And so it is common to see people skirt around terrain and use it as if it is invisible.

In games at home we always use mysterious terrain rules and I find they play such a big roll in making our games less predictable (a hazard of always playing against one person). Even with buildings we will decide if they are Mystical Monuments, a standard building or an Arcane Architecture.

Some games I hate it and lose full units of knights to some arbitrary, random rule that pops up mid-stride. Other times–like the game where I walked through a Light River and could cast a Light spell–because I might suddenly have Fear or Stubborn and that bonus balances me a little more so that I am not at such a disadvantage to a unit of Khorne Juggernauts that I am in the process of charging.

This is the favored terrain for Pete, one of the hosts on Chumphammer, after being brutally beaten by him because I didn’t see him lure me in to this vicious trap he snared me in until it was too late I punished him at the next tournament I ran and did not provide a single piece of impassable terrain on any of the tables. He won Best Overall that year–including beating me again–so obviously my tactic did not work.

Pete is often discussing the uses of impassable terrain on the podcast, but I remember my game against him quite well even though it was more than a year ago now. He was playing his Lizardmen and I was playing my Bretonnians. I had everything well in hand, I was killing things that I expected to survive and my trebuchets were spot on and then everything changed. He had manipulated our combats so that I got stuck, literally, between a rock and a hard place: a massive pyramid of rock that had been declared impassable and a block of Saurus Warriors with a Slann on one corner and a pair of those Scar Vets he uses a lot stopping me from going anywhere else successfully. Unfortunately for me that mistake cost me the game. 

• Units can flee through it and must complete a dangerous terrain test to do so (your pursuer does not go through it, they go around it by the shortest path)
• units cannot voluntarily enter it, they must go around it (except when fleeing)
• there are a few magic items/banners out there that can throw a wrench in your plans by ignoring terrain effects (Brettonnians Twilight Banner, though one use only has come in handy a few times)
• it does not stop you from being shot at using indirect methods

Suggestions for using Impassable Terrain:

• Use it to hide behind – artillery can still shoot indirectly from behind it and, yes, that means enemy artillery can still shoot indirectly at you there but less likely to be very accurate that way.
• You can’t be charged through it
• if it happens to be in your deployment zone you can limit your opponent’s ease of access to you with it
• use it to funnel your opponent so they can’t hit all sides of you

Hills

Most often people still think of Hills as we did in 7th Edition, but they’re a little more than that now. 

As if forests weren’t challenging enough to deal with having to figure out how to actually get your models through–especially if the trees are glued to the base–now we have these rules to worry about too. In 7th Edition there was a rule that I miss in 8th Edition, that you couldn’t be seen if you were 2″ away from the footplate of the terrain piece. With line of site and “forests” so sparsely populated this is no longer the hiding place it once was, however now there are some other things forests do for us:

• Cavalry, Monstrous Cavalry, or Chariots that do anything other than walk through a forest have to take Dangerous Terrain tests
• anything with the Flyer rule has to take a Dangerous Terrain test if it starts or ends its phase in a forest
• Units within or behind a forest count as having soft cover (-1 shooting modifier)
• units in the forest are never Steadfast (unless they are Stubborn)
• Skirmish and lone infantry characters are always Stubborn

Water: I thought water terrain would be the worst but they don’t seem all that bad to me.

• you cannot march through a river
• you cannot be Steadfast (unless they are Stubborn)
• you cannot claim ranks
• Marshes and Swamps are different from Rivers

Suggestions for using Rivers:

• if you’re playing against a Skaven army having them caught in battle where they are in a river is a huge benefit since they cannot claim ranks
• if you’re playing anything infantry heavy with multiple ranks the loss of steadfast if they are stuck in the water can win you a combat (and a game).

It was nice to see GW tell us the best use for this type of terrain: “Marshes are…best employed as traps to suck your enemy into….”

• it is Dangerous Terrain for all units other than those with Skirmish rule
• Cavalry, Monstrous Cavalry and chariots fail Dangerous Terrain on a 1 or 2

Suggestions for using Marshland:

• Sucker your opponent into following you or fleeing into and see if they survive:
• Earthblood Mere – gives Regeneration
• Khemrian Quicksand – some models that fail a Dangerous Terrain test are removed as a casualty with no saves of any kind
• Mist-wreathed Swamp – units must pass Initiative test or D6 models die

Obstacles

I was quite disappointed going in to 8th Edition when the stakes that come with my Bretonnian Archers lost their ability to negate my opponent’s charge bonuses, and then I realized that “fences” still have some uses.

• Dangerous Terrain test must be taken by any cavalry, monstrous cavalry or chariot models that do anything other than walk over  them
• they offer cover against shooting attacks
• if you are a unit that has been charged and is touching an obstacle it provides defensive bonuses depending on type of obstacles

Suggestions for using Obstacles:

Things to remember about Mystical Monuments

Things to remember about Buildings

• some can be impassable
• very large buildings can be broken in sections and counted as several buildings
• you can enter and exit buildings during the movement phase only
• you cannot march and enter a building
• Cavalry of any kind cannot enter buildings
• only one unit can be in a building at a time
• characters can join units that are garrisoned
• a unit that is cannot charge if it is in a building but must exit a building as close as possible to the enemy instead
• template weapons do D6 models worth of damage
• Wizards cast spells as normal
• Shooting: given 360 degree line of sight, 5 shooters per floor of the building can shoot (in the picture here I would say that is a 4 or 5 floor building so 20-25 shooters)
• You can still shoot at a unit in a building they gain Hard Cover
• only one unit can assault a building each phase 
• unit in the building can only Hold or Stand and Shoot
• If you assault a building and don’t break the unit garrisoning it your combat ends, you are pushed an 1″ back from the building

Suggestions for Using Buildings

• Use them 

I played against my 7 year old son tonight, he plays Skaven and has only played about 9 games at all of Warhammer. The first thing he did when we were getting ready to deploy (this was without any instruction from me at all) was to measure the distance between two buildings that were within his deployment zone. He deployed a unit of clanrats in each, one with his Warplock Engineer and one with his Warlord. It was a brilliant tactic. My halberdiers got torn apart by his Warp Lightning before I could get close enough to assault the building. It was horribly embarrassing to be beaten by my 7 year old outplaying me like that but I was a proud momma to see him use the terrain so well. I would love to suggest that more people take a page out of his book.

Using Terrain

It is very difficult to describe in words how to use terrain. I am a very visual person so I keep wanting to stage it and then I realized I don’t need to. YouTube has a great service and there are dozens if not hundreds of people out there doing battle report videos and tactica videos that can be loaded and watched. One of my favorites is (if you know of other good ones shout them out please!):

• The Sustainable Center

If you’ve been a non-believer of using terrain make a commitment to use some. Try it not once but three or four or a dozen times and actually see how it works with various situations, builds and games. Start with a building, or something impassable. If you are a 40K player who also plays fantasy you already know how well terrain can work for you, teach the fantasy players to use it to their advantage instead of shying away from it.