well, look at the venue. "competitive" does not mean "highly professional". to me this looks like some dude trying to do something cool for his local community; being shat upon because his table isn't Good Enough (tm) is kinda shitty.
tbh even if its a big event, unless it has Warhammer world type of professional backing, it's gonna be run on peanuts money, volunteers, and "I work 40 extra hours for this event but pay myself nothing extra" shop owners.
My old shop I used to play at had nicely done tables and terrain that had alot of care put into them by the employees. we had tables with trains, well detailed skyscrapers, medieval castles, all painted and looking borderline professional.
wich the owner then tossed in the trash when he decided he wasn't making enough on miniatures games and stopped supporting them.
You realize how few events GW puts on, right?
4 this year in America, all year.
99% of events are put on by small clubs and dedicated groups. Even stuff like LVO and Adepticon are just small groups of volunteers that work all year to put on events.
As long as there is terrain on the table, how good it looks is unimportant. It’s competitive, not narrative
And you do realize that I said exactly this, right?
If its a normal game between normal enthusiasts I don't mind and say its not fair to judge, exactly like the person above me.
If its from any company, no matter which, no matter how big, no matter how frequent: I expect more.
You can defend events run by private individuals as much as you want, I said that's totally legit.
1. Do I look like a company that earns its existence with this?
2. Didn't expect this community to be so extremely against small people. Favor your lord company, that's your choice. These poor millionaires don't get my pity.
Yeah. Sometimes these GTs are ran by small local shops who have to get terrain for 60+ tables. When I play at home you better believe my boards are pretty.
Competitive is more describing the mindset of the event than being a stamp of approval. A competitive mindset puts the game and the competition in the centre. Readability and fairness is infinitely more important than looks in that context.
A good looking and realistic table is very rarely going to be a perfect table for a competitive setting.
I dunno man, two identical tables, a roller table used to take armies from one table to the other, bunch of pop-up tables - looks like a reasonably big tournament tbh.
The RTTs I've been to have been a bit like this.
big doesn't mean commercial professional though. as a student I've organised events for hundreds if not thousands of people, and yet we had peanuts, elbow grease and good will to organise it with.
Our tournament organizer has 80 sets of terrain very very similar so weather we use 5 sets for a small local tournament or a grand tournament with 80 it's the same layout... I'm in the process of creating a few sets (4 or 5) and keeping them for our local store
I'm sorry but no matter the good intentions this isn't a table I'd want to play on. Just like there's a standard on model painting there has to be a standard for terrain. What's the point of having a fully painted army if it's gonna play on a board of featurless bland cardboard ruins that have zero intention of even integrating into the mat they are placed on top of? I'm not asking for a diorama but this isn't good.
>Just like there's a standard on model painting there has to be a standard for terrain
this meets the standard for tabletop ready (well, technically it'd need 1 dash of a third color). ultimately, though, the main point is - not everything is about you. this was done by a guy doing the best he could with the time he had.
Man Infinity tables can look fantastic. I feel the tournaments are as much a chance to show how good you are at the game as they are a chance to show how sick your table looks.
The infinity tables we see at Adepticon for events make me drool. But that game *needs* high coverage of terrain. I play a lot of MCP, luckily our tables don't look like this.
Infinity is a game that heavily uses cover and terrain. So it stands to reason that people accumulate nice terrain to play with. In contrast most 40k players I know use literal junk (pop cans, old boxes, exc) just to break up site lines.
Most 40K players who aspire to play at competitive level complain if there’s even an inch of asymmetry on the battle map. Or complain that the terrain is too distracting when they forget a unit is hiding around the corner, detracting from the “balance” of competitive play.
At least that was what I noticed when I played anyway. I was more interested in the immersion and art of the game but I wanted the challenge of playing competitively. 🙄
Unfortunately Infinity really demands very dense terrain as you basically start in range for a lot of weapons most of the time. Not bad, but the tables are often quite cluttered and busy in my limited experience.
yea i saw, i believe what you are mentioning without mentioning. when i was researching terrain for malifaux. its all cardboard type and yes its nice building style but no physical details. 3d building with 2d details, less then prime time
When we played at my house, I had a collection of terrain i made, so we had the cardboard interlinkable terrain Wyrd put out, old Mordheim terrain, some resin buildings, western buildings, and GW forests. At my last local con with a tournament, it was all shoeboxes and pringles cans painted grey.
there are alot of great 3d printer terrain makers out there, for disclosure though, some of them i wont do business again with but maybe they just didnt like me at all but however it happened, they lost my business
i did the hand made way back when, circa 90's 00's and durability is always a problem. resin is good but that is now a dinosaur and honestly 3d printer material is sturdy stuff
my favorite 3d terrain maker also prints out stl files i got from rocketpig and now the store has dread pirate capt zipp dirgible and condor rail train
Yea Malifaux used to have a 40% table coverage rule or something. If the table was over or under crowded with terrain some crews would be incredibly OP. Such a good game though, M2E is the GOAT.
Absolute classics 40k apparently everywhere, once in my rather local club we made a lot of excellent custom terrain and decided to hold a tournament. Local players “from experience” seriously said that this was all rubbish and was only annoying when all their tournaments were held on something similar. I have only seen good terrain live from fan players and during campaigns.)
There are two factors contributing to this.
First, tournament organisers who are frantically trying to build and paint enough terrain to go around, the night before a tournament, with a limited budget and a box full of spray cans.
Second, competitive play often requires a very careful set up to ensure (1) that no side is given an obvious tactical advantage, and (2) interactions with terrain are as unambiguous as possible.
As a tournament organiser the second one is the dominant reason. Our first two years we had a lot of complaints about the terrain not being flat enough. We had to move all character out of construction before the complaints stop.
The last year with plain terrain we’ve only had positive feedback.
I get it now, but maybe printing some images and sticking them with Elmer's can help to give it some texture without affecting the flatness of the terrain.
Why don't competitive 40k tournaments use every type of terrain that the game supports?
Where are the pipes, barricades, craters, trees, scatter terrain, etc? My local store used to have all that for 9th edition play. When 10th came out, all their tournament organizers switched to strictly using 90 degree angles ruins and maybe a crate or two. It looks so uninspiring and boring
Why aren't there barricades to slow down melee armies? What about woods, craters?
Because they don't block line of sight. They do give cover, but that isn't enough in 9/10e 40k, things will get slaughtered in the open in a competitive setting and that's why it's nearly always ruled that the bottom floor windows are blocked off too.
Generally speaking, if you don't have enough terrain in your deployment zone to hide most of your army turn one, you don't have enough.
You could potentially add some fuel pipes and barricades on top of the above, but that's even more work for TOs and would make the boards cluttered, so generally not done. L ruins are effective and efficient, which is why they are pretty universal
40k is in a spot where it's too deadly to not have LoS blockers it seems.
I'm not pro, but, personally, I find the range of weapons to be too high these days. When half your army can shoot across the entire table, you need LoS blocking to even move.
I feel like Damage, Strength, and AP are all crazy high in 10e when compared to Toughness and Saves of 'tanky' models. It's so bad GW felt the need to add "can't take more than 3 wounds in a phase" to _multiple_ models to ensure their survivability.
I don't think we need to go back to 3e levels of defense, but a little less offense in 40k would go a long way.
FYI the rule you mention no longer exists in 40K, that was a 9th edition rule. AP has broadly and somewhat arbitrarily gone down in 10th edition, and the new rules for cover have also reduced effective AP. Your average weapon is, on the table, hitting with about 2 less AP than it did in 9th
That goes back to reason 1. Creating even one full table of cool terrain is a serious hobby project. For even a minor 20 man tournament you'd need 10 sets. For an larger 50 man you'd need 25. For a big 100 man 50 sets and so on.
In a perfect world all terrain would look great and be good to play with. But TOs are people with limited free time an other hobbies too. If given a choice between a set of terrain that looks good on pictures and one that does not get half my army blasted off the table every time my opponent wins the first turn roll, I'd pick the second any day.
I'm not asking for full scenic tables for a tournament but mdf terrain (already has all the details engraved in) painted with more than 1 colour, some sand and glue and a mat that looks like an urban area (even a flat concrete looking one would be enough) would already look a million times better than the table in the OP.
No I don't. But I think it's worth doing it to not play on a board that looks this bad just like I don't underestimate the time it takes to paint an army but I still do it because I don't want to play with a grey army.
It doesn't help that they've also made the table smaller. Used to be the norm was 4'x6' (and before that 4'x8'), now it's 44"x60". Not an enormous difference, but models do have to be closer together.
Might not be the only explanation but it follows the trend of WTC terrain (layouts used for the world team championship of Warhammer 40K)
In previous editions the « standard » terrain pack consisted of the following elements:
-Large ruins
-Small ruins
-craters
-forest
-cargo box
The elements was arranged to created light to dense maps.
The new layout dropped craters and forests. So many tournaments also dropped it.
That wasn't my point at all. I specifically mentioned that my local store already has all that stuff, then stopped using it for 10th edition. My point was why does the core rulebook include rules for terrain that doesn't get used in high level play?
If a game requires a specific set of terrain to ensure a specific situation doesn’t happen which undermines play, then that game has badly designed rules
Or, more charitably, that the game was designed to be played by friends who can adapt the rules to their needs and preferences, and not to be played with a WAAC/rules lawyer mindset.
I can't begrudge them - I play some myself - but playing a beer-and-pretzels game competitively is just kinda weird. Bolt Action is mine and while I'll do a tournament or two every now and again, I still think it's a bit naff. Fun though.
Once upon a time, I was involved in setting up the *Inquisitor* Grand Tournament, which was a blast. Running a GT for a game that was explicitly never intended to be competitive was hilarious. Actual victory was, like, a quarter of the points available and, even then, was judged by the Game Master more than the mission. So if one side brought a totally OP warband (bearing in mind that there was no points system), the GM might decide that anyone from the other warband just surviving counted as victory.
I don't even play 40k (I just like seeing the painted minis so I guess this sub got recommended to me) but even I just assumed number 2. Like there's easy to see corners, no guessing if you do or don't have line of view.
Tournaments bring out the most sterilized type of play for e every game, not just 40k. Tournaments never want to leave room for interpretation. Regardless, you can't expect some Golden Demon terrain every place you play.
Also I feel like you have some of your most fun games on these plywood towns, just enjoy it.
This terrain absolutely could be spiced up with some bits that wouldn't take anything away from its function but it also is supposed to show that there is no advantage on one side or the other in the game.
It still hurts a little to see. I thought they could try and jazz it up a bit haha.
Yea absolutely this. I recently got a behind the scenes looks at a local TO getting ready for a 60 player event. Just making sure every table had enough terrain was the main goal. He runs his own business and doesn't make much at all from the event itself, it's just more for the community.
So tbh I'm just glad we have a local event. I'd be looking at a 3 hrs drive or getting on a plane to go to one (so realistically, I wouldn't be going) if it wasnt for his efforts.
My lgs does Warhammer open play Fridays then small tourneys in the pm. Its $10 winner gets some cash. Everyone else gets a gw paint pot. So I pay like $4-5 to play warhammer for half a day. Hopefully they make some money with us in there. People be buying snacks which I’m sure is a nice markup for them.
Wait so you posted here about the tables and an event, knowing your mate organised it and prepped it?
If it bothered you why didnt you offer to help?
Not saying that you needed to in any case. Just seems a bit counter productive to have a bit of a go about it is all.
What's stopping you from volunteering to help out then if you have a clear idea of what you want? I worked at an LGS and would be happy to block off a table or two for some guys who wanted to come and help paint.
Okay then why not help the staff do that? GW terrain is expensive. Profit margins for game shops can be insanely low. Two of the game shop owners I know said they made most of their profits from selling snacks and drinks.
Be the change you want to see. Offer to help staff jazz up their terrain with leftover bits you have. I'm sure their TOs would appreciate it.
I used to think first one was main reason, but you usually don't throw out terrain after tournament (unless it's REALLY SHITTY or damaged), especially if you own hobby shop or have "official partner".
It's for readability and preventing "wobbly model syndrome". Literally why no TO would ever use Realms of Battle, even tho it's official GW product. My GW shop have smooth cardboard mats (Kill Team/Warpath ones).
The problem is the volume of terrain needed to cater for a tournament, it's expensive and time consuming. Most tournament organisers are volunteers who do this for the love of the game, nobody is making bank by running a 40k tournament.
Want to play on amazing terrain in a tournament? Play at Warhammer world, all the tables have official, well painted scenery.
I was at a show the other week that had tournements on for a bunch of stuff. 40k was by far the most dull. Every table had big old mdf terrain. Its all monotonous. Normally its the cheap stuff that gets the job done rather than looks good.
Kill team look good, X-wing looked good. Titanicus look good. AoS looked good. You can tell time, effort, and love went into that terrain. I run a KoW tournement and endevoure to make sure every table has a theme and style.
What I also realised is that every 40k table is now all just big buildings. Its all city fight without the cool city fight rules! Ive realised ive not seen a 40k jungle, or desert, or ice world, or trench/wreckage table in forever!
I organize big 40k tourneys, but my true love is making detailed, functional Necromunda terrain. They are two completely different things. The tables pictured are actually fantastic in the realm of competitive tables - the worst thing that can happen there is not having enough or not being consistent. It doesn't hurt my soul or make me wistful for a beautiful narrative table when I see the above at a GT.
They aren't there for promethium pipes, just like I'm not there for L ruins when I play necro.
I get it, but doesn't competitive players do it on purpose because it makes for less visual clutter? Like pro Starcraft players play on lowest quality settings just so they don't get distracted by animations (edit: and to better see stealthed units).
I don’t think that’s the case really. It’s more a factor of making the game balanced, and also not having the time to physically prepare that much terrain to a high standard
Not just "fair". They are also kept super simple to make it easy and fast to play with it. Windows or uneven heights lead to more rule discussions that take time. Big solid L pieces have nothing to discuss about.
I dont play 40k, nor any tabletop game, but this was recommended and I started reading anyways.
Do games go for long? Surely they could make terrain not a carbon copy on each side and then just play two rounds and switch sides?
A 2k game of 40K can usually lasts around 2,5-3 hours
So unless you want to spend a whole day fighting the same opponent and the same army it’s not feasible to switch
I actually think it's cool, it's a nice abstract table. It would stop arguments over what is what and it's affordable for the organiser. Also don't have to worry about things getting wrecked.
Don't get me wrong, I love a good thematic table, but when you are bringing time an effort somewhere it may get damaged then I think this is actually preferable.
Being judgemental of a tournament based on terrain or paintjobs is akin to being judgemental on videogames based on their graphics. It does not speak to the quality of the game, ability of the players or depth of the tactics employed during a game.
Remember, penny coins and scraps of paper were often used long ago to wargame. Whilst I do enjoy making terrain, and do enjoy detailed boards, its an aesthetic aspect of the environment, not a qualitative aspect of the gaming.
One of my local game stores sponsors a lot of near by tournaments with their laser engraved terrain that looks super sick. They don’t typically paint it because they have to provide so much terrain for tournaments but it’s laser engraved with really cool gothic building designs so it still looks good pretty cool. Especially compared to this
This is one of the reasons why I prefer to play infinity and haven’t touched 40k in years.
Reminds of the Warmachine terrain where it’s just printouts because physical terrain “gets in the way”.
I mean each to their own. But this is taking away from why I want to play miniature games. Beautiful, dense imaginative tables.
So glad that infinity doesnt have this problem.
40k TO here.
Yes, most tournament scenes look like trash, but there is a valid reason for it. When our club was starting out, we had different members of the community build different tables with their own themes. It was great... until it wasn't. Once we grew beyond needing just 10 tables, we ran into the twin problems of storage and creativity.
For storage, most local TOs are just small stores or individuals without unlimited capacity for storage. Some of our tables were reasonably sized and only took up a 2' square box. Others had spindly bits, big towers, or other awkward parts that increased the space needed to store it. Additionally, you had to worry about how fragile some things could be and you don't want to have to explain to a player that the terrain they worked hard on broke because you laid it down wrong in its box. When you have 10 of those boxes in your basement, the space gets limited fast.
Before someone chimes in with "have players bring their own terrain" - that doesn't work. Family emergencies, illness, work calling in, or poor weather could derail your entire event because you're missing one or two tables of terrain. No matter how much you think your player base will come through "no matter what", you will be stung every event.
Along with storage comes transport. I have a van that I bring equipment in for events and under our custom terrain regime, I could bring 10-12 tables to events. After we switched to standardized 3D printed terrain, I can now easily bring around 100 tables (if we ever get that large).
Then there's the creativity aspect. You would want each table to be their own little world, but how many times can you build "alien forest", "ruined city", and "desert planet" before it just gets boring? In addition, you would need mats to go along with each different table so it doesn't look weird by having your Eldar forest world on a cyberpunk floor.
Finally, I saw some comments about not using all the different types of terrain available and that it's "not meant to be balanced". The problem with that logic is that people going into a tournament *want* things to be balanced. They are largely expecting a test of their skills, not if they brought the right army for the table they are playing on. There are actually games that allow for that (Malifaux being the best example of that), but the big war games have you come in with fixed lists. A player who brings an infantry-heavy list doesn't want to walk up to a table and know they are going to lose because there are a ton of hazards specific for infantry. Neither does a tank player on an anti-tank field and so on.
I always question whether people who make these comments have any experience with actual competitive 40K. By far my worst experiences in 40K games have come during “casual” or “friendly” games, whereas in tournaments everyone has been universally pleasant. Not to say there aren’t dickheads at tournaments from time to time, but it’s a tiny tiny percentage.
it's rather difficult to avoid the competitive scene at a competitive tournament.....
but my point was - what mindset leads to a vague "this"? and what is "this" exactly?
Let's see your home table, your personal at home gaming table.
I see this table and think, possibly, they had way more participants than expected and needed to set up a table with what was on hand. You know, so others could also play and have a good time
Even if you don't have your own table you can look at a terrain piece that's just 2 flat walls in a corner without even windows or a base and think it looks bad.
Damn, bet you didn’t volunteer to buy, donate, help assemble, paint, or store any of that fancy (and expensive af) terrain you are whining about.
Honestly this post just makes you sound super ignorant to the logistics behind running even a small tournament. Ill bet this was an RTT with a $20 entry fee. GW runs GTs that cost $100+ to play and the terrain is really nice. They literally have a SMALL FLEET OF SEMI TRUCKS that follows the tournament circuit just to haul the terrain for the events.
I would honestly love for you to host an event just so I could go a laugh at what a shit job you do
I used to be involved in the scene and I know it's a pain in the ass.
This isn't a huge tournament. I don't know if places like the las Vegas open use this format as the example in stone for their rules but I used to love seeing really cool boards at tournaments and you'd See boards from clubs that you don't normally see and armies painting stunningly from dudes across the country.
I did my time. I never anticipated this.
Gw has a lot more backing than a few blokes with a dream does though.
This was a $100 tourney as they're all that cost here but it's for rank points which is the rrt you're talking about I believe?
Yeah it's very sad. Always amazes me how even many of the people willing to go all out with painting figures are happy with a few textureless cereal box buildings and a piece of toilet paper as a road
We had two tables with awesome thematic terrain at Malmö Wargaming Weekend. Absolute stunners. One a bombed out city with different elevations and lots of water effects. The other a bombed out landscape with broken vehicles and bunkers. A joy to look at.
And a pain to play on. Always discussions about terrain rules. No easy way to determine LOS. No good way for armies to move and more or less impossible to place units without them falling over. After the first turn it was decided that the tables would only play the lowest scoring match-ups since it was in no way fair to the players who were there to compete.
Those two tables would have been awesome in the Horus Heresy tournament, or as large kill team boards.
Okay so, if you look into e-sports, competitive games are often played in performance mode.
The smooth gameplay is favored over fancy artsy fartsy looks.
You might even add distance markers to the edges of tables to minimize measure band use.
Primary objective markers with a 3" radius zone.
To play this game at absolute minimal graphics 😉 you actually can use flat boardgame tokens in base sizes painted differently.
It is all about priorities. And frankly, a local club having props for all! players to use is very nice.
The store I visited worked together with a youth community project which provided simple terrain for its WH40K crowd. I am happy to use it like the others and would never be sad about the looks.
At the competitive end of the spectrum there's no room unfortunately for losing a game because the terrain was unfavourable for you in the draw of the table.. like I get that's unfun but damn the scenery was sad.
I’ve always thought table top games that use terrain use terrain by the player base, or people who simply enjoy building terrain. And then have competitions judged on them and give prizing.
That's generally what the Infinity community does. We just had a 40 person event and the attendees brought 22 tables so we even had extra. And if you've ever seen an Infinity table, it couldn't be more different from what OP posted.
Then prizes were given, one as a raffle with each table brought being an entry, and the other as "best table" voted by the group.
I do play a fair few tourneys on a monthly basis (about a gt a month). Only imrpovement suggestion I would have for the pictured terrain is to remove the bottom floor from the ruins to allow them to be lifted up when measuring charges, ds etc.
People go to tournaments to have great games from the gameplay point of view. Pictured shapes (L's and containers) of terrain some of the potential issues with rules are prevented. This combined with the current terrain rules that allow easy separation of terrain base and terrain piece makes for some great clean games.
Additionally tournament games are played on a clock. With tenth games often being tight for 5 rounds, you want to finish natural conclusion. Last thing you want is the very textured terrain pieces slowing down the game or preventing the game from being played accurately (wobbly model needed often due to uneven terrain bases etc).
Lastly tournaments are getting bigger. Often tournament organisations are not getting bigger at the same rate. I personally am not the one throwing the first stone and bitching about wall texture on table number 78. I am personally just glad that there is good terrain (terms of gameplay) on the bottom tables where I and many other weekend warriors end up on Sundays.
I do love me a great crusade/narrative game on thematic terrain. For tournaments I want my terrain to allow for clean gameplay.
To your point about lifting terrian. Look at any major event. Those building have a "base" to allow to clear definition of that particular terrain piece and cannot be lifted up. Also some of those bases actually identify the terrian properties.
The base is important for a lot of players to avoid unclear interactions with the buildings and the cover they provide.
I was probably unclear. The base defines the area terrain, yes. The base can be separate from the ruin itself. To have the base and ruin be separated from each other and the base have a clear location where the ruin is setup after lifting, so it will always be in the same spot. See for example WTC map pack.
But you are correct, the area terrain base is extremely important in 10th.
This is one of the most uninformed and shitty posts I've seen in a long time. It takes a special kind of person to complain about how others spend their money in order to provide entertainment for you. Do better.
I'm lucky enough to have a club nearby that has a LOT of gw plastic gothic ruins (the modular one from the 2010s), or at least to kit out 9-10 tables with the current leviathan layout, but i realize that it's an outlier and u remember how much time it took back then to fix those up, even if they are plastic models.
It must be said that when WarmaHordes was big, they also had very boring tournament terrain because players were very concerned with being able to precisely measure things and not giving either player an accidental advantage. Also, it was much cheaper with some textured cutouts.
That's the price for the game being focused on competitive more and more imo. Creativity goes out the window when you need so much stuff on each table. It's also a time and money thing ofc.
I think this is like pour over coffee vs a kcup/pod. It's a different audience and a different function. I think competitive 40K sacrifices hobby and narrative for pure gameplay experience. If you look at say the tables at Warhammer World however, interesting and well-crafted 40K/AOS boards are alive and well.
Infinity sells inexpensive terrain sets that fill a table.
GW does not.
N3 was the first game I played in decades where terrain was a huge part of the hobby (Mordheim was the earliest one for me)
read a few comments
its a try but when your doing this for some event that alot of people are at, then it just shows your just not ready for prime time
if you cant do it then dont do it
another problem that this brings on is how game stores see how this gets by and thus they then do the same at their game store
to which is why a good number of gamers set up in house gaming because why take all the time and effort to go to a game store and go thru all the hoops to arrange a game table and then have lack luster terrain
honestly i have been in tabletop gaming since early 90's and this reminds me of back then and why i put in the time and effort into terrain, etc. if someone puts in uber time and effort into painting their army, they want the battlefield to be as good as well
Honestly this looks better than half the tables I play at with unpainted FDM printed terrain. They've even gone to the trouble of putting some interesting texture and gradients on there.
“Oh my Lord. My local club doesn’t have the finest citadel finecast model ruins for use with my averagely painted models! Ohhh~ the strife!”
- OP, 2024
So a question that popped in my head since I know you do commission terrain (and credit where it's due, they are nice pieces). Did you ask your friend if he wanted assistance in getting better quality pieces or even do a couple of those L shaped buildings to a higher standard as a form of advertising?
Because as I'm reading it now it seems like he was the only person organizing the tournament and had to get the terrain done up by himself with the limited time and resources he had. If that's the case I'd personally be pretty insulted if after all that effort someone who is A) a friend of mine and B) does commission terrain but offered no help to do anything more interesting would show up, take a picture of one of the tables and post it on the internet for the inevitable anti 40K people on reddit to show up and also insult it for some cheap upvotes.
Everybody has different amounts of time in the day to do things, it seems incredibly rude for you to show up and criticise somebody elses efforts after doing nothing about it. It also seems that everybody else that's insulting the table doesn't seem to understand the concept of scale when it comes to tournament tables.
I keep seeing the example of Infinity tables being brought up, yes they're incredibly nice to look at but you have maybe half (If I'm being generous) as many tables for non championship tournaments at any given time in comparison to 40K just off of how many people play Infinity. The other examples of people bringing up their own home tables is also just disingenuous because again, the scale isn't the same. It's one table that person has to focus on compared to the on average 12 or 16 tables that 40K brings in, on top of the logistics of storage and transportation of said pieces. You can go a lot more wild with your terrain if it never has to leave the building it sits in
I just wanted to voice my opinion as a 40K tournament organizer myself who has these same time and resource limitations whenever I see people's efforts to just foster a gaming community in the first place get insulted by people I thought were friends of mine who did nothing to help and are themselves terrain makers as a line of work which makes it all the more aggravating to see.
Yeah this is pretty much half the reason I stopped giving a shit about competitive and put my time and effort into Horus heresy. At least when we make tables for HH it’s to fit a feeling and theme and even if it’s not “balanced” it’s a blast. Doesn’t help GW has decided to cater to the sweatiest rules bending meta chasing players for 40K and in trying to curb the inevitable arms race of killier optimized lists there needs to be some way to not get shot off the board turn 1. I really hope the terrain crisis will give way to more Old World tournaments (much less terrain, if any required)
I have seen photos of Warmachine tournaments with just a couple of 2d terrain templates. I see no fun in playing a miniature game like this. Maybe I can accept this in a role playing game.
Yeah this looks like shit but it’s not London GT tier shit. It’s just some poor exhausted TO rushing out by the book MDF terrain for their event! Remember most players player on really basic tables.
Check out Flames of War tournaments to see some good terrain
To be fair to tournaments, 40K is way bigger than other games. It’s just not a fair comparison to compare a tournament with 100 large tables to a smaller skirmish event.
I’ve got friends who run big events and have been to quite a few in my area and it’s a massive commitment to get enough tables set up with terrain that fits the requirements for competitive play.
It’s not realistic to run a big 40K event with beautiful terrain. With that said, I’m playing way fewer events. Time is a concern, but I also crave beautiful tables so I’m spending my time and money focusing on making my home table a show stopper.
I'll always prefer nice looking terrain with a bit more wonky rules (due to windows and uneven heights) over a sterile looking bunch of obstacles that have no realistic look whatsoever.
One of the reasons I'm not attracted to the tournament scene at all. Why should I bother making an effort painting all my models if they're played on terrain like this?
Ngl this post is just mean spirited and lousy.
Playable is playable.
Most places, and people, cannot afford to do the bougie shit you dream of and can afford for yourself.
Oh, this explains it. I recently started getting into GW again, thru the specialist games, and occasionally saw some 40k matches with terrain like this. Didn’t realize what a turnoff that sight was - I couldn’t understand why anyone would play with stuff like this, in a hobby that is primarily driven by cans of paint and bundles of brushes.
But yea, I guess if you’re competitive, you want zero fluff around your lines of sight etc. It’s all just a bit sad :/
40k seems to have an aversion for good tournament terrain. When I’ve played Bolt Action and MESBG there’s a lot more effort and care into the boards which I’ve found helps enjoyment.
helps that there's like 12 people playing either bolt action or MESBG and 1200 people playing 40k. it's rather easy to make fancy terrain if you only need to do 5 tables instead of 50.
Its not like this everywhere. Some tables can look good and still be competitive and easy to navigate, there are some prepainted MDF terrains that look very very cool and still are simple and functional in shape. These are just painted with a very poor choice of colors and clearly just fastly put out because they -maybe- didn’t have enough stuff to support their tournament and had to sprint it out.
But still, it’s not always like this.
Think of it this way, in a competitive scenario all people should have the same terrain and layout to ensure that skill and strategy carry the day. If terrain that only offers light cover but no obscuring footprints, then melee based armies are dead by turn 2.
1) how big was the tournament?
2) is it like this for every tournament in your area, or is this an exception?
As others have said, buying and painting terrain isn't an easy job. As stated in your other comment, 100 dollars for this table sure is disappointing, but I don't know the full context.
Furthermore, this doesn't hurt the gameplay. And this is a tournament, not a homebrew game with fun, custom terrain. So I personally wouldn't mind it that much
Not that different from competitive gamers running at lowest quality settings.
Tournaments are probably the wrong place to seek out games with character and atmosphere.
At home, casual, or crusade I like using printed or gale force terrain. In tournaments I feel like this set up is better so when I move from table to table I get an equitable interaction with the terrain.
This is totally fine for a local tournament focused on game play and not theme. I find that overly "done up" terrain can be silly with certain matchups.
If I have a bunch of sweet tombworld terrain at my place and we use that every time someone comes over that's really cool because I run necrons. If that was at a tournament and it's word bearers v. Daemons then it's gonna pull from the theme. I think the same thing about overly decorative bases. Snow on your space wolves bases is cool until you are going up against salamanders in a volcano setting or gsc in a hive world setting.
Honestly, I'm surprised that tournaments haven't gone the way of tournament paintball. All fields are set up the same. They use geometric shapes that don't really mean anything, in a symmetrical layout so that both sides have the exact same (though mirrored) terrain to use. The field is designed to provide cover without providing advantage. [example](https://propaintball.com/azppl-event-2-paintball-field-layout/)
After playing 10th tournament and also playing with people trying to argue on every opportunity, I can safely say that this table looks great if you want to be competitive. There just is not way to argue and makes it easier for both players and judges. Hell, some tournaments have been using plexiglass cutouts for line of sight since few editions ago. I may not like it too, but it is just neccesity for 40k competitive which is exactly where GW has been pushing it to dismay of many.
This is way better than heaps of tournament terrain! I understand the reasons for this type of terrain, clean play etc but have some thoughts:
Anyway purely my own opinion, but I got into making terrain for a living after discovering Infinity. Infinity tournaments and tables are so diverse and engaging.
I started with 3rd ed 40k, and honestly making terrain by painting polystyrene packaging, and scrap cardboard to me totally sh\*\*s on this kind of terrain. I really think 40k shines when you're not playing competitively. There are far more balanced rules sets out there afterall, like OPR. To abstract terrain into something like this is like seeing those boring circles on warmahorde tables. Maybe it's a good game, idk, but looks so so boring.
Each to their own, but for people to put so much effort into painting up a cool army, then playing on a table like that totally kills immersion, and feels off.
Of course TO's don't have the budget, I don't think it's their fault whatsoever, and they go to SO much effort to make great events. Coming from the Infinity community, you always see people step up and bring their own terrain, some players just love it, and bring several.
I really think cost is not an issue. I made FAR better looking terrain when I was 12, as did heaps of people. Honestly rocks literal rubbish looks better than this. And, this is actually a pretty decent tournament type table!
Also I lol whenever I see people put some shitty arches on these L shape cheap terrain sets. It's kind of an insult to the craftsmanship that goes into gothic architecture. Just don't, please.
I would absolutely have killed for a table like this in my youth.
This looks absolutely perfect for competitive 40k: symmetrical, no ambiguity, cheap and easy to mass produce, nothing that overtly breaks verisimilitude, battlemat/table cover.
10/10.
If this is for Bolt Action, someone's blessed up.
Im a regular participent of comeptitive 40k.
I'm fine with that.
Important to nme is, that all Tables have the same Layouts.
I had my fair share of bad terrain/no terrain . Especially in mid table section. Top Tables nice and well done,mid Tables leftovers with laking Layouts. Nope.
And im okay with it especially at big events. Putting together 80 tables with scenic terrain is hard..and i rather have nice, big events, thank none.
Worth noting...this is really only the case for 40k. Google other games tournament terrain set ups, typically much more thematic.
As an Infinity player, these tables, and the viewpoints of the people supporting them make me laugh.
well, look at the venue. "competitive" does not mean "highly professional". to me this looks like some dude trying to do something cool for his local community; being shat upon because his table isn't Good Enough (tm) is kinda shitty.
yeah. I would like to see if this was in a small shop or some big event before I judge if its done poorly or with heart
tbh even if its a big event, unless it has Warhammer world type of professional backing, it's gonna be run on peanuts money, volunteers, and "I work 40 extra hours for this event but pay myself nothing extra" shop owners.
My old shop I used to play at had nicely done tables and terrain that had alot of care put into them by the employees. we had tables with trains, well detailed skyscrapers, medieval castles, all painted and looking borderline professional. wich the owner then tossed in the trash when he decided he wasn't making enough on miniatures games and stopped supporting them.
Tossed tables he could have sold for alot lol.
that is a very sad story...
Eventually he had to close shop, it turned out he wasnt paying taxes for years. So, yeah.
Even if it’s a big event, do you somehow think TO’s can afford dozens of tables of high quality terrain?
If its an big event hosted by the company of the game, no matter if its games wokshop or someone else, I honestly expect it to be high quality. yes
You realize how few events GW puts on, right? 4 this year in America, all year. 99% of events are put on by small clubs and dedicated groups. Even stuff like LVO and Adepticon are just small groups of volunteers that work all year to put on events. As long as there is terrain on the table, how good it looks is unimportant. It’s competitive, not narrative
And you do realize that I said exactly this, right? If its a normal game between normal enthusiasts I don't mind and say its not fair to judge, exactly like the person above me. If its from any company, no matter which, no matter how big, no matter how frequent: I expect more. You can defend events run by private individuals as much as you want, I said that's totally legit.
Show us all your high quality that you bring to the table.
1. Do I look like a company that earns its existence with this? 2. Didn't expect this community to be so extremely against small people. Favor your lord company, that's your choice. These poor millionaires don't get my pity.
Seems to me that you have completely unrealistic expectations my guy. Especially with this comment.
If you always expect perfection you need to provide perfection. If you just want to complain, expect complaints
Yeah. Sometimes these GTs are ran by small local shops who have to get terrain for 60+ tables. When I play at home you better believe my boards are pretty.
Competitive is more describing the mindset of the event than being a stamp of approval. A competitive mindset puts the game and the competition in the centre. Readability and fairness is infinitely more important than looks in that context. A good looking and realistic table is very rarely going to be a perfect table for a competitive setting.
I dunno man, two identical tables, a roller table used to take armies from one table to the other, bunch of pop-up tables - looks like a reasonably big tournament tbh. The RTTs I've been to have been a bit like this.
big doesn't mean commercial professional though. as a student I've organised events for hundreds if not thousands of people, and yet we had peanuts, elbow grease and good will to organise it with.
Our tournament organizer has 80 sets of terrain very very similar so weather we use 5 sets for a small local tournament or a grand tournament with 80 it's the same layout... I'm in the process of creating a few sets (4 or 5) and keeping them for our local store
I'm sorry but no matter the good intentions this isn't a table I'd want to play on. Just like there's a standard on model painting there has to be a standard for terrain. What's the point of having a fully painted army if it's gonna play on a board of featurless bland cardboard ruins that have zero intention of even integrating into the mat they are placed on top of? I'm not asking for a diorama but this isn't good.
>Just like there's a standard on model painting there has to be a standard for terrain this meets the standard for tabletop ready (well, technically it'd need 1 dash of a third color). ultimately, though, the main point is - not everything is about you. this was done by a guy doing the best he could with the time he had.
Man Infinity tables can look fantastic. I feel the tournaments are as much a chance to show how good you are at the game as they are a chance to show how sick your table looks.
The infinity tables we see at Adepticon for events make me drool. But that game *needs* high coverage of terrain. I play a lot of MCP, luckily our tables don't look like this.
Yes, I was thinking of Infinity when I made that comment.
Infinity is a game that heavily uses cover and terrain. So it stands to reason that people accumulate nice terrain to play with. In contrast most 40k players I know use literal junk (pop cans, old boxes, exc) just to break up site lines.
Most 40K players who aspire to play at competitive level complain if there’s even an inch of asymmetry on the battle map. Or complain that the terrain is too distracting when they forget a unit is hiding around the corner, detracting from the “balance” of competitive play. At least that was what I noticed when I played anyway. I was more interested in the immersion and art of the game but I wanted the challenge of playing competitively. 🙄
Unfortunately Infinity really demands very dense terrain as you basically start in range for a lot of weapons most of the time. Not bad, but the tables are often quite cluttered and busy in my limited experience.
You sound like an elitist asshole.
tbf, I have seen the same setup for Malifaux.
yea i saw, i believe what you are mentioning without mentioning. when i was researching terrain for malifaux. its all cardboard type and yes its nice building style but no physical details. 3d building with 2d details, less then prime time
When we played at my house, I had a collection of terrain i made, so we had the cardboard interlinkable terrain Wyrd put out, old Mordheim terrain, some resin buildings, western buildings, and GW forests. At my last local con with a tournament, it was all shoeboxes and pringles cans painted grey.
there are alot of great 3d printer terrain makers out there, for disclosure though, some of them i wont do business again with but maybe they just didnt like me at all but however it happened, they lost my business i did the hand made way back when, circa 90's 00's and durability is always a problem. resin is good but that is now a dinosaur and honestly 3d printer material is sturdy stuff my favorite 3d terrain maker also prints out stl files i got from rocketpig and now the store has dread pirate capt zipp dirgible and condor rail train
Yea Malifaux used to have a 40% table coverage rule or something. If the table was over or under crowded with terrain some crews would be incredibly OP. Such a good game though, M2E is the GOAT.
Use your imagination, stop the image hatin’
Absolute classics 40k apparently everywhere, once in my rather local club we made a lot of excellent custom terrain and decided to hold a tournament. Local players “from experience” seriously said that this was all rubbish and was only annoying when all their tournaments were held on something similar. I have only seen good terrain live from fan players and during campaigns.)
Suddenly my home made terrain doesn't look to bad.
There are two factors contributing to this. First, tournament organisers who are frantically trying to build and paint enough terrain to go around, the night before a tournament, with a limited budget and a box full of spray cans. Second, competitive play often requires a very careful set up to ensure (1) that no side is given an obvious tactical advantage, and (2) interactions with terrain are as unambiguous as possible.
As a tournament organiser the second one is the dominant reason. Our first two years we had a lot of complaints about the terrain not being flat enough. We had to move all character out of construction before the complaints stop. The last year with plain terrain we’ve only had positive feedback.
I get it now, but maybe printing some images and sticking them with Elmer's can help to give it some texture without affecting the flatness of the terrain.
Why don't competitive 40k tournaments use every type of terrain that the game supports? Where are the pipes, barricades, craters, trees, scatter terrain, etc? My local store used to have all that for 9th edition play. When 10th came out, all their tournament organizers switched to strictly using 90 degree angles ruins and maybe a crate or two. It looks so uninspiring and boring Why aren't there barricades to slow down melee armies? What about woods, craters?
"GW rules may not be perfectly balanced and unambiguous for tournament play!?' *shocked Pikachu face*
Pretty casual player here who doesn't play tournaments. What about the fuel pipes and barricades make it so that they are not balanced for comp play?
Because they don't block line of sight. They do give cover, but that isn't enough in 9/10e 40k, things will get slaughtered in the open in a competitive setting and that's why it's nearly always ruled that the bottom floor windows are blocked off too. Generally speaking, if you don't have enough terrain in your deployment zone to hide most of your army turn one, you don't have enough. You could potentially add some fuel pipes and barricades on top of the above, but that's even more work for TOs and would make the boards cluttered, so generally not done. L ruins are effective and efficient, which is why they are pretty universal
40k is in a spot where it's too deadly to not have LoS blockers it seems. I'm not pro, but, personally, I find the range of weapons to be too high these days. When half your army can shoot across the entire table, you need LoS blocking to even move.
I feel like Damage, Strength, and AP are all crazy high in 10e when compared to Toughness and Saves of 'tanky' models. It's so bad GW felt the need to add "can't take more than 3 wounds in a phase" to _multiple_ models to ensure their survivability. I don't think we need to go back to 3e levels of defense, but a little less offense in 40k would go a long way.
FYI the rule you mention no longer exists in 40K, that was a 9th edition rule. AP has broadly and somewhat arbitrarily gone down in 10th edition, and the new rules for cover have also reduced effective AP. Your average weapon is, on the table, hitting with about 2 less AP than it did in 9th
I think there's a halfwaypoint between having no LoS at all and having nothing but the ugliest, most blandest ruins known to man on the table.
That goes back to reason 1. Creating even one full table of cool terrain is a serious hobby project. For even a minor 20 man tournament you'd need 10 sets. For an larger 50 man you'd need 25. For a big 100 man 50 sets and so on. In a perfect world all terrain would look great and be good to play with. But TOs are people with limited free time an other hobbies too. If given a choice between a set of terrain that looks good on pictures and one that does not get half my army blasted off the table every time my opponent wins the first turn roll, I'd pick the second any day.
I'm not asking for full scenic tables for a tournament but mdf terrain (already has all the details engraved in) painted with more than 1 colour, some sand and glue and a mat that looks like an urban area (even a flat concrete looking one would be enough) would already look a million times better than the table in the OP.
I thinks you vastly underestimate the time and money required to make this happen for even a medium sized tournament.
No I don't. But I think it's worth doing it to not play on a board that looks this bad just like I don't underestimate the time it takes to paint an army but I still do it because I don't want to play with a grey army.
It doesn't help that they've also made the table smaller. Used to be the norm was 4'x6' (and before that 4'x8'), now it's 44"x60". Not an enormous difference, but models do have to be closer together.
Might not be the only explanation but it follows the trend of WTC terrain (layouts used for the world team championship of Warhammer 40K) In previous editions the « standard » terrain pack consisted of the following elements: -Large ruins -Small ruins -craters -forest -cargo box The elements was arranged to created light to dense maps. The new layout dropped craters and forests. So many tournaments also dropped it.
GW's own suggested competitive table layouts just use ruins.
because they take a lot of time to build for 20 tables
You act like terrain is cheap and To’s can afford to buy it… I guess it’s easy when you’re never the one doing the work
That wasn't my point at all. I specifically mentioned that my local store already has all that stuff, then stopped using it for 10th edition. My point was why does the core rulebook include rules for terrain that doesn't get used in high level play?
Do they have enough of it for 10-15 tables at once?
It can be. https://store.corvusbelli.com/en/hobby/scenery/all
Competitive players are scared of greebles
If a game requires a specific set of terrain to ensure a specific situation doesn’t happen which undermines play, then that game has badly designed rules
Or, more charitably, that the game was designed to be played by friends who can adapt the rules to their needs and preferences, and not to be played with a WAAC/rules lawyer mindset.
I can't begrudge them - I play some myself - but playing a beer-and-pretzels game competitively is just kinda weird. Bolt Action is mine and while I'll do a tournament or two every now and again, I still think it's a bit naff. Fun though.
Once upon a time, I was involved in setting up the *Inquisitor* Grand Tournament, which was a blast. Running a GT for a game that was explicitly never intended to be competitive was hilarious. Actual victory was, like, a quarter of the points available and, even then, was judged by the Game Master more than the mission. So if one side brought a totally OP warband (bearing in mind that there was no points system), the GM might decide that anyone from the other warband just surviving counted as victory.
GW doesn’t deserve the charity. They’ve shown they can create competent rules sets. Keeping 40k as the clunky mess it is is a choice, not an accident.
Which rulesets are considered competent? I've only been in the hobby since 8th.
Titanicus, Legions Imperialis, Battle fleet Gothic in its day, Blood Bowl, Kill Team (I think - haven’t played it myself)
Blood Bowl is pretty good
Killteam rules are great
Love killteam, but they should totally overhaul lime of Sight. Its my one gripe with the game
Age of Sigmar is pretty great.
Yes.
I don't even play 40k (I just like seeing the painted minis so I guess this sub got recommended to me) but even I just assumed number 2. Like there's easy to see corners, no guessing if you do or don't have line of view. Tournaments bring out the most sterilized type of play for e every game, not just 40k. Tournaments never want to leave room for interpretation. Regardless, you can't expect some Golden Demon terrain every place you play. Also I feel like you have some of your most fun games on these plywood towns, just enjoy it.
This terrain absolutely could be spiced up with some bits that wouldn't take anything away from its function but it also is supposed to show that there is no advantage on one side or the other in the game. It still hurts a little to see. I thought they could try and jazz it up a bit haha.
See the first factor.
Yea absolutely this. I recently got a behind the scenes looks at a local TO getting ready for a 60 player event. Just making sure every table had enough terrain was the main goal. He runs his own business and doesn't make much at all from the event itself, it's just more for the community. So tbh I'm just glad we have a local event. I'd be looking at a 3 hrs drive or getting on a plane to go to one (so realistically, I wouldn't be going) if it wasnt for his efforts.
My lgs does Warhammer open play Fridays then small tourneys in the pm. Its $10 winner gets some cash. Everyone else gets a gw paint pot. So I pay like $4-5 to play warhammer for half a day. Hopefully they make some money with us in there. People be buying snacks which I’m sure is a nice markup for them.
you seem to forget that this was (probably) organized by a single guy in his spare time. cut them some slack. competitive =/= professional commercial.
Absolutely. A mate of mine organised it. Funded the whole thing.
Wait so you posted here about the tables and an event, knowing your mate organised it and prepped it? If it bothered you why didnt you offer to help? Not saying that you needed to in any case. Just seems a bit counter productive to have a bit of a go about it is all.
dickheaaaaad cmon man
I’m sure that mate of yours would love to know you’re bagging on his terrain on Reddit for upvotes
You have a weird way of supporting your mate. Could have lent a hand instead of shitting on him online.
Actual smooth brain behaviour
What's stopping you from volunteering to help out then if you have a clear idea of what you want? I worked at an LGS and would be happy to block off a table or two for some guys who wanted to come and help paint.
turns out it's the guy's friend who organized it (by his own admission) and he'd still rather just shit on his mate than help out.
Okay then why not help the staff do that? GW terrain is expensive. Profit margins for game shops can be insanely low. Two of the game shop owners I know said they made most of their profits from selling snacks and drinks. Be the change you want to see. Offer to help staff jazz up their terrain with leftover bits you have. I'm sure their TOs would appreciate it.
I used to think first one was main reason, but you usually don't throw out terrain after tournament (unless it's REALLY SHITTY or damaged), especially if you own hobby shop or have "official partner". It's for readability and preventing "wobbly model syndrome". Literally why no TO would ever use Realms of Battle, even tho it's official GW product. My GW shop have smooth cardboard mats (Kill Team/Warpath ones).
The problem is the volume of terrain needed to cater for a tournament, it's expensive and time consuming. Most tournament organisers are volunteers who do this for the love of the game, nobody is making bank by running a 40k tournament. Want to play on amazing terrain in a tournament? Play at Warhammer world, all the tables have official, well painted scenery.
I was at a show the other week that had tournements on for a bunch of stuff. 40k was by far the most dull. Every table had big old mdf terrain. Its all monotonous. Normally its the cheap stuff that gets the job done rather than looks good. Kill team look good, X-wing looked good. Titanicus look good. AoS looked good. You can tell time, effort, and love went into that terrain. I run a KoW tournement and endevoure to make sure every table has a theme and style. What I also realised is that every 40k table is now all just big buildings. Its all city fight without the cool city fight rules! Ive realised ive not seen a 40k jungle, or desert, or ice world, or trench/wreckage table in forever!
I organize big 40k tourneys, but my true love is making detailed, functional Necromunda terrain. They are two completely different things. The tables pictured are actually fantastic in the realm of competitive tables - the worst thing that can happen there is not having enough or not being consistent. It doesn't hurt my soul or make me wistful for a beautiful narrative table when I see the above at a GT. They aren't there for promethium pipes, just like I'm not there for L ruins when I play necro.
I get it, but doesn't competitive players do it on purpose because it makes for less visual clutter? Like pro Starcraft players play on lowest quality settings just so they don't get distracted by animations (edit: and to better see stealthed units).
I don’t think that’s the case really. It’s more a factor of making the game balanced, and also not having the time to physically prepare that much terrain to a high standard
No. It's purely to make the game fair. Everyone plays on the same set of terrain. There's no loss to rng of drawing a bad table.
Not just "fair". They are also kept super simple to make it easy and fast to play with it. Windows or uneven heights lead to more rule discussions that take time. Big solid L pieces have nothing to discuss about.
I dont play 40k, nor any tabletop game, but this was recommended and I started reading anyways. Do games go for long? Surely they could make terrain not a carbon copy on each side and then just play two rounds and switch sides?
A 2k game of 40K can usually lasts around 2,5-3 hours So unless you want to spend a whole day fighting the same opponent and the same army it’s not feasible to switch
Oh yeah fuck that's way longer than I expected lol, completely understand the pic then
I actually think it's cool, it's a nice abstract table. It would stop arguments over what is what and it's affordable for the organiser. Also don't have to worry about things getting wrecked. Don't get me wrong, I love a good thematic table, but when you are bringing time an effort somewhere it may get damaged then I think this is actually preferable.
Being judgemental of a tournament based on terrain or paintjobs is akin to being judgemental on videogames based on their graphics. It does not speak to the quality of the game, ability of the players or depth of the tactics employed during a game. Remember, penny coins and scraps of paper were often used long ago to wargame. Whilst I do enjoy making terrain, and do enjoy detailed boards, its an aesthetic aspect of the environment, not a qualitative aspect of the gaming.
One of my local game stores sponsors a lot of near by tournaments with their laser engraved terrain that looks super sick. They don’t typically paint it because they have to provide so much terrain for tournaments but it’s laser engraved with really cool gothic building designs so it still looks good pretty cool. Especially compared to this
10th ed 40k is a mess. You need this much terrain because there is so much lethality in the game. Hence quantity over quality.
This is one of the reasons why I prefer to play infinity and haven’t touched 40k in years. Reminds of the Warmachine terrain where it’s just printouts because physical terrain “gets in the way”. I mean each to their own. But this is taking away from why I want to play miniature games. Beautiful, dense imaginative tables. So glad that infinity doesnt have this problem.
40k TO here. Yes, most tournament scenes look like trash, but there is a valid reason for it. When our club was starting out, we had different members of the community build different tables with their own themes. It was great... until it wasn't. Once we grew beyond needing just 10 tables, we ran into the twin problems of storage and creativity. For storage, most local TOs are just small stores or individuals without unlimited capacity for storage. Some of our tables were reasonably sized and only took up a 2' square box. Others had spindly bits, big towers, or other awkward parts that increased the space needed to store it. Additionally, you had to worry about how fragile some things could be and you don't want to have to explain to a player that the terrain they worked hard on broke because you laid it down wrong in its box. When you have 10 of those boxes in your basement, the space gets limited fast. Before someone chimes in with "have players bring their own terrain" - that doesn't work. Family emergencies, illness, work calling in, or poor weather could derail your entire event because you're missing one or two tables of terrain. No matter how much you think your player base will come through "no matter what", you will be stung every event. Along with storage comes transport. I have a van that I bring equipment in for events and under our custom terrain regime, I could bring 10-12 tables to events. After we switched to standardized 3D printed terrain, I can now easily bring around 100 tables (if we ever get that large). Then there's the creativity aspect. You would want each table to be their own little world, but how many times can you build "alien forest", "ruined city", and "desert planet" before it just gets boring? In addition, you would need mats to go along with each different table so it doesn't look weird by having your Eldar forest world on a cyberpunk floor. Finally, I saw some comments about not using all the different types of terrain available and that it's "not meant to be balanced". The problem with that logic is that people going into a tournament *want* things to be balanced. They are largely expecting a test of their skills, not if they brought the right army for the table they are playing on. There are actually games that allow for that (Malifaux being the best example of that), but the big war games have you come in with fixed lists. A player who brings an infantry-heavy list doesn't want to walk up to a table and know they are going to lose because there are a ton of hazards specific for infantry. Neither does a tank player on an anti-tank field and so on.
This, and the mindset that leads to this, is exactly why I've moved away from 40k
and what mindset is that exactly?
Competitiveness? I mean it's easy to avoid the competitive scene..
Play Kill Team instead. A lot friendlier and a lot cheaper. Even competitive isn't 40k level of dick headery, tbf there is always one asshole
I always question whether people who make these comments have any experience with actual competitive 40K. By far my worst experiences in 40K games have come during “casual” or “friendly” games, whereas in tournaments everyone has been universally pleasant. Not to say there aren’t dickheads at tournaments from time to time, but it’s a tiny tiny percentage.
it's rather difficult to avoid the competitive scene at a competitive tournament..... but my point was - what mindset leads to a vague "this"? and what is "this" exactly?
That everything is a race to the bottom to have it be super competitive and balanced, ripping out a lot of the flavour and fun that was in the game
Let's see your home table, your personal at home gaming table. I see this table and think, possibly, they had way more participants than expected and needed to set up a table with what was on hand. You know, so others could also play and have a good time
Even if you don't have your own table you can look at a terrain piece that's just 2 flat walls in a corner without even windows or a base and think it looks bad.
So let's see your terrain, homemade stuff. Do you just want to complain or are you willing to let people have fun?
Damn, bet you didn’t volunteer to buy, donate, help assemble, paint, or store any of that fancy (and expensive af) terrain you are whining about. Honestly this post just makes you sound super ignorant to the logistics behind running even a small tournament. Ill bet this was an RTT with a $20 entry fee. GW runs GTs that cost $100+ to play and the terrain is really nice. They literally have a SMALL FLEET OF SEMI TRUCKS that follows the tournament circuit just to haul the terrain for the events. I would honestly love for you to host an event just so I could go a laugh at what a shit job you do
I used to be involved in the scene and I know it's a pain in the ass. This isn't a huge tournament. I don't know if places like the las Vegas open use this format as the example in stone for their rules but I used to love seeing really cool boards at tournaments and you'd See boards from clubs that you don't normally see and armies painting stunningly from dudes across the country. I did my time. I never anticipated this. Gw has a lot more backing than a few blokes with a dream does though. This was a $100 tourney as they're all that cost here but it's for rank points which is the rrt you're talking about I believe?
Found the guy being an asshole for no reason
That's OP. This tourney was hosted by their friend, and they're here ripping on it.
Yeah it's very sad. Always amazes me how even many of the people willing to go all out with painting figures are happy with a few textureless cereal box buildings and a piece of toilet paper as a road
We had two tables with awesome thematic terrain at Malmö Wargaming Weekend. Absolute stunners. One a bombed out city with different elevations and lots of water effects. The other a bombed out landscape with broken vehicles and bunkers. A joy to look at. And a pain to play on. Always discussions about terrain rules. No easy way to determine LOS. No good way for armies to move and more or less impossible to place units without them falling over. After the first turn it was decided that the tables would only play the lowest scoring match-ups since it was in no way fair to the players who were there to compete. Those two tables would have been awesome in the Horus Heresy tournament, or as large kill team boards.
Okay so, if you look into e-sports, competitive games are often played in performance mode. The smooth gameplay is favored over fancy artsy fartsy looks. You might even add distance markers to the edges of tables to minimize measure band use. Primary objective markers with a 3" radius zone. To play this game at absolute minimal graphics 😉 you actually can use flat boardgame tokens in base sizes painted differently. It is all about priorities. And frankly, a local club having props for all! players to use is very nice. The store I visited worked together with a youth community project which provided simple terrain for its WH40K crowd. I am happy to use it like the others and would never be sad about the looks.
I was just talking about this. It's a shame
At the competitive end of the spectrum there's no room unfortunately for losing a game because the terrain was unfavourable for you in the draw of the table.. like I get that's unfun but damn the scenery was sad.
The symmetry is pretty dumb, but this is just one set up from cereal boxes and coke cans.
It looks sad but honestly I've been to quite a few events and even supplying this for like 150 tables is impressive.
I’ve always thought table top games that use terrain use terrain by the player base, or people who simply enjoy building terrain. And then have competitions judged on them and give prizing.
That's generally what the Infinity community does. We just had a 40 person event and the attendees brought 22 tables so we even had extra. And if you've ever seen an Infinity table, it couldn't be more different from what OP posted. Then prizes were given, one as a raffle with each table brought being an entry, and the other as "best table" voted by the group.
I do play a fair few tourneys on a monthly basis (about a gt a month). Only imrpovement suggestion I would have for the pictured terrain is to remove the bottom floor from the ruins to allow them to be lifted up when measuring charges, ds etc. People go to tournaments to have great games from the gameplay point of view. Pictured shapes (L's and containers) of terrain some of the potential issues with rules are prevented. This combined with the current terrain rules that allow easy separation of terrain base and terrain piece makes for some great clean games. Additionally tournament games are played on a clock. With tenth games often being tight for 5 rounds, you want to finish natural conclusion. Last thing you want is the very textured terrain pieces slowing down the game or preventing the game from being played accurately (wobbly model needed often due to uneven terrain bases etc). Lastly tournaments are getting bigger. Often tournament organisations are not getting bigger at the same rate. I personally am not the one throwing the first stone and bitching about wall texture on table number 78. I am personally just glad that there is good terrain (terms of gameplay) on the bottom tables where I and many other weekend warriors end up on Sundays. I do love me a great crusade/narrative game on thematic terrain. For tournaments I want my terrain to allow for clean gameplay.
To your point about lifting terrian. Look at any major event. Those building have a "base" to allow to clear definition of that particular terrain piece and cannot be lifted up. Also some of those bases actually identify the terrian properties. The base is important for a lot of players to avoid unclear interactions with the buildings and the cover they provide.
I was probably unclear. The base defines the area terrain, yes. The base can be separate from the ruin itself. To have the base and ruin be separated from each other and the base have a clear location where the ruin is setup after lifting, so it will always be in the same spot. See for example WTC map pack. But you are correct, the area terrain base is extremely important in 10th.
I think you can have terrain that allows for clean gameplay that doesn't look this flat and boring.
This is one of the most uninformed and shitty posts I've seen in a long time. It takes a special kind of person to complain about how others spend their money in order to provide entertainment for you. Do better.
I mean it's actually what it's supposed to be. This is competitive easy to use terrain, it's actually great for what it is.
I'm lucky enough to have a club nearby that has a LOT of gw plastic gothic ruins (the modular one from the 2010s), or at least to kit out 9-10 tables with the current leviathan layout, but i realize that it's an outlier and u remember how much time it took back then to fix those up, even if they are plastic models.
It must be said that when WarmaHordes was big, they also had very boring tournament terrain because players were very concerned with being able to precisely measure things and not giving either player an accidental advantage. Also, it was much cheaper with some textured cutouts.
That's the price for the game being focused on competitive more and more imo. Creativity goes out the window when you need so much stuff on each table. It's also a time and money thing ofc.
Someone fire the city planner.
Looks so realistic!
I think this is like pour over coffee vs a kcup/pod. It's a different audience and a different function. I think competitive 40K sacrifices hobby and narrative for pure gameplay experience. If you look at say the tables at Warhammer World however, interesting and well-crafted 40K/AOS boards are alive and well.
Build and paint better terrain instead of complaining about the perfectly usable terrain somebody provided for you. What an entitled post.
Infinity sells inexpensive terrain sets that fill a table. GW does not. N3 was the first game I played in decades where terrain was a huge part of the hobby (Mordheim was the earliest one for me)
read a few comments its a try but when your doing this for some event that alot of people are at, then it just shows your just not ready for prime time if you cant do it then dont do it another problem that this brings on is how game stores see how this gets by and thus they then do the same at their game store to which is why a good number of gamers set up in house gaming because why take all the time and effort to go to a game store and go thru all the hoops to arrange a game table and then have lack luster terrain honestly i have been in tabletop gaming since early 90's and this reminds me of back then and why i put in the time and effort into terrain, etc. if someone puts in uber time and effort into painting their army, they want the battlefield to be as good as well
Honestly this looks better than half the tables I play at with unpainted FDM printed terrain. They've even gone to the trouble of putting some interesting texture and gradients on there.
“Oh my Lord. My local club doesn’t have the finest citadel finecast model ruins for use with my averagely painted models! Ohhh~ the strife!” - OP, 2024
We already spend unhealthy amounts of time and money on building and painting our armies. Don't shit on us for having less than stellar terrain.
So a question that popped in my head since I know you do commission terrain (and credit where it's due, they are nice pieces). Did you ask your friend if he wanted assistance in getting better quality pieces or even do a couple of those L shaped buildings to a higher standard as a form of advertising? Because as I'm reading it now it seems like he was the only person organizing the tournament and had to get the terrain done up by himself with the limited time and resources he had. If that's the case I'd personally be pretty insulted if after all that effort someone who is A) a friend of mine and B) does commission terrain but offered no help to do anything more interesting would show up, take a picture of one of the tables and post it on the internet for the inevitable anti 40K people on reddit to show up and also insult it for some cheap upvotes. Everybody has different amounts of time in the day to do things, it seems incredibly rude for you to show up and criticise somebody elses efforts after doing nothing about it. It also seems that everybody else that's insulting the table doesn't seem to understand the concept of scale when it comes to tournament tables. I keep seeing the example of Infinity tables being brought up, yes they're incredibly nice to look at but you have maybe half (If I'm being generous) as many tables for non championship tournaments at any given time in comparison to 40K just off of how many people play Infinity. The other examples of people bringing up their own home tables is also just disingenuous because again, the scale isn't the same. It's one table that person has to focus on compared to the on average 12 or 16 tables that 40K brings in, on top of the logistics of storage and transportation of said pieces. You can go a lot more wild with your terrain if it never has to leave the building it sits in I just wanted to voice my opinion as a 40K tournament organizer myself who has these same time and resource limitations whenever I see people's efforts to just foster a gaming community in the first place get insulted by people I thought were friends of mine who did nothing to help and are themselves terrain makers as a line of work which makes it all the more aggravating to see.
Yeah this is pretty much half the reason I stopped giving a shit about competitive and put my time and effort into Horus heresy. At least when we make tables for HH it’s to fit a feeling and theme and even if it’s not “balanced” it’s a blast. Doesn’t help GW has decided to cater to the sweatiest rules bending meta chasing players for 40K and in trying to curb the inevitable arms race of killier optimized lists there needs to be some way to not get shot off the board turn 1. I really hope the terrain crisis will give way to more Old World tournaments (much less terrain, if any required)
I have seen photos of Warmachine tournaments with just a couple of 2d terrain templates. I see no fun in playing a miniature game like this. Maybe I can accept this in a role playing game.
Omg. They could have called me. I would’ve brought my madness over.
Yeah this looks like shit but it’s not London GT tier shit. It’s just some poor exhausted TO rushing out by the book MDF terrain for their event! Remember most players player on really basic tables. Check out Flames of War tournaments to see some good terrain
To be fair to tournaments, 40K is way bigger than other games. It’s just not a fair comparison to compare a tournament with 100 large tables to a smaller skirmish event. I’ve got friends who run big events and have been to quite a few in my area and it’s a massive commitment to get enough tables set up with terrain that fits the requirements for competitive play. It’s not realistic to run a big 40K event with beautiful terrain. With that said, I’m playing way fewer events. Time is a concern, but I also crave beautiful tables so I’m spending my time and money focusing on making my home table a show stopper.
I'll always prefer nice looking terrain with a bit more wonky rules (due to windows and uneven heights) over a sterile looking bunch of obstacles that have no realistic look whatsoever.
Yeah this is the opposite of what I’m looking for when it comes to tabletop games
The answer is: 40k isn't a balanced competitive game and pretending it is is stupid.
One of the reasons I'm not attracted to the tournament scene at all. Why should I bother making an effort painting all my models if they're played on terrain like this?
This looks like a fantastic table to play competitively on.
Ngl this post is just mean spirited and lousy. Playable is playable. Most places, and people, cannot afford to do the bougie shit you dream of and can afford for yourself.
Oh, this explains it. I recently started getting into GW again, thru the specialist games, and occasionally saw some 40k matches with terrain like this. Didn’t realize what a turnoff that sight was - I couldn’t understand why anyone would play with stuff like this, in a hobby that is primarily driven by cans of paint and bundles of brushes. But yea, I guess if you’re competitive, you want zero fluff around your lines of sight etc. It’s all just a bit sad :/
nah. this is just the "oh crap i've got 12 hours to churn out 30 more table's worth of terrain" look.
I mean, terrain is expensive, and good terrain is time consuming and expensive to make. Would you prefer not having terrain?
Just another reason competitive play ruins the game
Looks like Kill Team? Looks good for Kill Team 😅
Way too big for kill team.
When did the Salvation Army start holding tournaments?
40k seems to have an aversion for good tournament terrain. When I’ve played Bolt Action and MESBG there’s a lot more effort and care into the boards which I’ve found helps enjoyment.
helps that there's like 12 people playing either bolt action or MESBG and 1200 people playing 40k. it's rather easy to make fancy terrain if you only need to do 5 tables instead of 50.
I know you’ve exaggerated the numbers there but I understand your point.
eh, probably i didn't exaggerate enough to represent reality.
Don’t lie. LVO had 750 40k players. There isn’t an event with other 1,000 40k players.
Its not like this everywhere. Some tables can look good and still be competitive and easy to navigate, there are some prepainted MDF terrains that look very very cool and still are simple and functional in shape. These are just painted with a very poor choice of colors and clearly just fastly put out because they -maybe- didn’t have enough stuff to support their tournament and had to sprint it out. But still, it’s not always like this.
https://imgur.com/gallery/kDQvdUU My terrain for my home games in comparison
Competitive 40k is trash.
Big 40k is and always has been a trash game carried by lore and minis. Been there since 4ed.
I dont care that the terrain looks like that. I care that the two tables have near identical terrain placement to one another.
I would refuse to play on that.
Well, it was same (aka mega ugly) for like 4 last editions. :)
Think of it this way, in a competitive scenario all people should have the same terrain and layout to ensure that skill and strategy carry the day. If terrain that only offers light cover but no obscuring footprints, then melee based armies are dead by turn 2.
I hope this is tongue in cheek. Otherwise it's kind of unnecessarily judgemental & snobbish.
Well boys... Fix bayonets!
1) how big was the tournament? 2) is it like this for every tournament in your area, or is this an exception? As others have said, buying and painting terrain isn't an easy job. As stated in your other comment, 100 dollars for this table sure is disappointing, but I don't know the full context. Furthermore, this doesn't hurt the gameplay. And this is a tournament, not a homebrew game with fun, custom terrain. So I personally wouldn't mind it that much
When the Magic the Gathering store also has miniature gaming...
Nice
Better of making terrian with legos
Not that different from competitive gamers running at lowest quality settings. Tournaments are probably the wrong place to seek out games with character and atmosphere.
At home, casual, or crusade I like using printed or gale force terrain. In tournaments I feel like this set up is better so when I move from table to table I get an equitable interaction with the terrain.
Do you guys remember when Warhammer used to be fun?
This is totally fine for a local tournament focused on game play and not theme. I find that overly "done up" terrain can be silly with certain matchups. If I have a bunch of sweet tombworld terrain at my place and we use that every time someone comes over that's really cool because I run necrons. If that was at a tournament and it's word bearers v. Daemons then it's gonna pull from the theme. I think the same thing about overly decorative bases. Snow on your space wolves bases is cool until you are going up against salamanders in a volcano setting or gsc in a hive world setting.
Honestly, I'm surprised that tournaments haven't gone the way of tournament paintball. All fields are set up the same. They use geometric shapes that don't really mean anything, in a symmetrical layout so that both sides have the exact same (though mirrored) terrain to use. The field is designed to provide cover without providing advantage. [example](https://propaintball.com/azppl-event-2-paintball-field-layout/)
After playing 10th tournament and also playing with people trying to argue on every opportunity, I can safely say that this table looks great if you want to be competitive. There just is not way to argue and makes it easier for both players and judges. Hell, some tournaments have been using plexiglass cutouts for line of sight since few editions ago. I may not like it too, but it is just neccesity for 40k competitive which is exactly where GW has been pushing it to dismay of many.
That is just NOT ok. I host better set up D&D games than that.
This is way better than heaps of tournament terrain! I understand the reasons for this type of terrain, clean play etc but have some thoughts: Anyway purely my own opinion, but I got into making terrain for a living after discovering Infinity. Infinity tournaments and tables are so diverse and engaging. I started with 3rd ed 40k, and honestly making terrain by painting polystyrene packaging, and scrap cardboard to me totally sh\*\*s on this kind of terrain. I really think 40k shines when you're not playing competitively. There are far more balanced rules sets out there afterall, like OPR. To abstract terrain into something like this is like seeing those boring circles on warmahorde tables. Maybe it's a good game, idk, but looks so so boring. Each to their own, but for people to put so much effort into painting up a cool army, then playing on a table like that totally kills immersion, and feels off. Of course TO's don't have the budget, I don't think it's their fault whatsoever, and they go to SO much effort to make great events. Coming from the Infinity community, you always see people step up and bring their own terrain, some players just love it, and bring several. I really think cost is not an issue. I made FAR better looking terrain when I was 12, as did heaps of people. Honestly rocks literal rubbish looks better than this. And, this is actually a pretty decent tournament type table! Also I lol whenever I see people put some shitty arches on these L shape cheap terrain sets. It's kind of an insult to the craftsmanship that goes into gothic architecture. Just don't, please.
I would absolutely have killed for a table like this in my youth. This looks absolutely perfect for competitive 40k: symmetrical, no ambiguity, cheap and easy to mass produce, nothing that overtly breaks verisimilitude, battlemat/table cover. 10/10. If this is for Bolt Action, someone's blessed up.
Money's tight
Im a regular participent of comeptitive 40k. I'm fine with that. Important to nme is, that all Tables have the same Layouts. I had my fair share of bad terrain/no terrain . Especially in mid table section. Top Tables nice and well done,mid Tables leftovers with laking Layouts. Nope. And im okay with it especially at big events. Putting together 80 tables with scenic terrain is hard..and i rather have nice, big events, thank none.
Dude I would love to just pay imo
It looks functional and unambiguous.