I think it's more of a case of evolving than anything else. Along with a preference (by most) for scatter terrain instead of fixed for ease of play.

In early tournaments (especially at Warhammer World ) there was a lot of so called "pretty terrain". Nice looking but very impractical when moving,placing and measuring toy soldiers.
From personal experience there where too many times when stands had slipped or fell out of position because they were balanced on an unmovable tree or sloping/jagged terrain feature and on some occasions when players needed to move terrain to get an accurate measurement . I've even had models damaged by Titans tumbling onto them and had 2 FW warhounds seriously damaged rolling off table and one being trod on.

With most of the terrain pieces Epic-UK now have it's much easier (and safer for my models more importantly for me) to have stands flat to the base board and not getting damaged or ending up out of position, at least nowhere near as often. This usually means being able to move individual pieces about on the base board (trees/ruins/buildings and so forth) to fit models where they need to be safely. If playing TLOS you cannot keep moving terrain pieces about without causing problems.
I and I think most who go to Epic-UK tournaments have found it much quicker and easier to class all terrain features as high enough (don't like to call it infinitely high) to block LOS to and from other models.

Also I've personally had a few odd situations in the past, one was where I could not shoot at a large titan BTS model that I could see but was just over 10cm into a piece of terrain but I could shoot past it and 30cm of the same terrain piece and hit another model behind it in another piece of terrain that had 1 or 2 infantry models sticking out from behind the edge of a building.
TLOS can cause problems with how models are based, especially flyers. As an example Steve54 has his Falcons based directly onto bases, I have mine with 1 or 2 cm high clear poles on bases, Skulric has his Valks and Vultures on 5cm and higher poles on his bases, I've even seen some models on 30cm and higher stands.

With all the various proxies and forum ware out there too a lot of models come in wide ranging sizes and we would get players with same units but using different models where one player would be at a disadvantage or advantage depending on the situation.

As I said earlier, I think it's more a case of evolving over the 10 years or so of tournaments to what we have now. I believe everyone who comes to events here in the UK prefer how terrain is played, at least I've not heard anyone say they prefer not to use it, even those who usually play different at home.
It just seems to be much easier,quicker and we have no disputes about if a weapon can or cannot see a target especially as the rules partially contradict themselves with shooting through a pieces of terrain.

It does not make Hull Down defunct either as you can still move to get partial sightings of targets.

Thank dptdexys, that's kind of what I figured and I can see it's merit. One last thing about hills though. I take it you basically can't see over them but what if you're on top of them? You can be seen regardless of if you're more than 10cm from the edge right? And with regards to hull down being defunct, I suppose I was referring to the example picture from the rule book, you can't get hull down over the top of a ridge, just around the side of it.

Hills are classed as open ground, unless they have other terrain on them, so no need for 10cm rule.



Re-Reading this section I wonder if this is where the seeing over other terrain features is intended to be meant.
For most if not all it makes perfect sense to gain a better LOS when higher up on a hill and would also make sense of the "cannot shoot through a terrain piece" rule coupled with "weapons higher up can shoot over a terrain piece with LOS to it's target" rule.
Thank you Alf O'Mega, if nothing else comes from this thread I personally think we may have found what was intended by the rule book and will try to get opponents to try TLOS when on a hill coupled with no shooting through a terrain piece when not on a hill.

Jimmy, what I'd like to see is at least a play testing consensus for terrain etc where testing is perhaps on a more level pegging around the world, so we can remove some of the "I'm not seeing this" in discussion or "why does the process take so long? = see reason #1" etc.

I think it might have some benefit in approving lists more expediently as the issue of differing set ups between groups effecting results would be minimised or removed thus debate would be too. People can play whatever they want in their own tournaments but testing results would hopefully be more even.

Personally, I'd like to see everyone doing the same thing but I know that's not going to happen.

If formations on hills can ignore intervening terrain to shoot we now have infinitely high hills to replace the infinitely high pop up that caused such issues six or seven years ago!

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

@dptexys - well that's something at least! So basically you can't see over hills (or "through" them to keep the terms the same) unless you're on them or shooting at something on them, in which case hull down over the ridge of a hill would work as intended..

If you've been playing that being on a hill doesn't allow you to see over terrain then that seems a shame to me - almost throwing out the baby with the bath water. It would be good to come up with a system that would allow it whilst maintaining all of the good bits of uniform height area terrain - which I can completely see the benefit of and need for in tournament play. Perhaps it could essentially work as a kind of "overwatch popped-up lite" so shadow zones would come into play but obviously you'd be visible to the enemy. The various pieces of area terrain could then be marked as being as high as their highest feature the way the Ozzies do it and that way you'd get more view over say, woodland than you would a clump of tall buildings. Not sure exactly how you'd normalise for a titan stood on a hill versus an infantry stand but I'm sure you could come up with something.

I do understand Dobbsy's concern that it would be good to at least have an agreed set of terrain rules that could be used for the purposes of balancing lists. Considering the amount of talk that goes on over balance it is sort of ironic that we appear to regularly be changing more than one variable between playtests. Essentially, we need to be balancing lists in an environment of all other things being equal, and quite obviously, sometimes they're just not. I'd say we do need to normalise the meta to some degree, at least in the first instance, after that people can do what they want - well, people can always do what they want, but you know what I mean.

If this hill mechanic is popular it might serve as a compromise that everyone would be happy to use, at least for the purposes of testing?

For some reason, this discussion has put this little gem from the otherwise idiot of the web, Stelek, in my mind:

http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2012/02/ste ... t-terrain/

From the dirty world of 40k - at least it concerns an older edition...

The following pics are shared to show the issue with infinite height terrain and hills.

So as I understand it, this is a very simplified depiction of how terrain is played in some parts of the world.

If players only play TLoS when a unit is on a hill we could end up with this sort of thing:


As I state on the pics, this is an extreme example of the simplifying of the terrain rules.
Whilst it sounds logical and easy (which it is), it can also be completely illogical and silly (see above for example).

I'm not here to change minds or win internet points...
I'm just pointing out that the rules expressly state that we are to look from a weapons point of view to see if it can fire at a target. Intervening terrain can block LoS if it's big/high enough.
The rules for seeing 10cm into terrain are there to aid in area terrain (like woods/jungles ruins etc) to give some realism and clarification and to allow us to use a piece of felt with a tree on it to represent a forest.

Everything I read in the rules leads to TLoS being the original intention of the writers:

Weapons higher up, for example weapons on a titan.



The last part of the Design Concept pretty much says it all.

I have no problem with playing terrain by any rules that a considered best if I'm playing anywhere else around the world.
However, it does seem that there have been a few assumptions made about terrain that are not strictly speaking, part of the Epic Armageddon rule book.

_________________
Just call me Steve.

NetEA Rules Chair
NetEA FAQ

Want to play Iron Warriors in Epic Armageddon? Click HERE
Some of my Armies.
My Hobby site.

Wow, you do indeed seem correct that JJ intended TLOS for epic... sad days for me then, as I think that's ludicrous for a game with a sliding ground scale!

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

In my gaming group, we have a house rule for this, that's intended to alleviate some of this silliness. Would people be interested in reading a short writeup?

_________________
Let there be code.

Yes please

_________________
_________________
www.epic-uk.co.uk - home of the UK Epic tournament scene
NetEA NetERC Xenos Lists Chair
NetEA Ork + Feral Ork + Speed Freak Champion

Please be aware that these rules have never been formalized in text before; up to this point, we've always come to agreements in cases of doubt. On top of this, they're formalized in Danish; this is just a quick writeup from memory.

These rules are intended to make long range fire Possible, but not overwhelming, on a table with a Lot of terrain on it; we usually cover 60-80% of the table in terrain bases.
Our local game club's terrain collection has been created specifically to fit these rules, but I think most people's collections would be adaptable.

We use terrain mounted on bases. Terrain bases range between A4 and CD in size, but most of our pieces are A5.

These rules modify the original LOS and cover rules.

- Shooting LOS: Nothing blocks LOS. Exceptionally huge structures may overrule this.
- Shooting along a line that crosses one or more bases of terrain get -1 to hit per terrain base crossed. Indirect Fire weapons are excempt from this rule.
- Tau Guided Missile: Shots using this rule calculate the to hit modifier from the location of the marking unit, not the shooting unit.

_________________
Let there be code.

So you can be shot if your hiding behind a hill?

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

Yup; hills are no different than a base of buildings. Or a base of trees.

_________________
Let there be code.

Hmm, sucks to be a guant then!

_________________
@MephistonAG for all sorts of twitter madness

In practice, no. Our 'Nid player wins about half his games.

As long as theres' a couple of terrain bases between the shooter and the target, your average Gaunt is fairly safe. On the far side of the table? -4 or -5 to hit means they will get a blast marker or two, no real damage.

_________________
Let there be code.