Chance of GW moving boards away from an urban focus?

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

Just watching ‘this week in warhammer’ and they’re talking about the ash wastes terrain kits going on sale, and I thought to myself ‘man those would make go watch towers, or good 40k versions of the Ewok village’ and I remember back in the day most terrain featured was on green or brown tables often battling around some sort of outpost, with hills and trees and rocky outcrops.

 

Necromunda being a game literally about gangs in a city fighting, I find it interesting they ever decided to have a rural setting of any sort, and nostalgia got the best of me and now I’m hoping for more of a return to the more rural type terrain and battlefields as a focus for GW’s featured stuff.

[Leonaides]

It's a bit harder to make scenery that's natural/vegetation that's still coverable under copyright I'd expect, also needing to give it recognisable 40k-ness such as the wrecked rhino in a small stand of trees. Ruins/buildings are easy in comparison.

[Halandaar]

It's a bit harder to make scenery that's natural/vegetation that's still coverable under copyright I'd expect, also needing to give it recognisable 40k-ness such as the wrecked rhino in a small stand of trees. Ruins/buildings are easy in comparison.

 

Why does it need to be copywritable? Sylvaneth Awakened Wyldwood is just 3 trees that form an enclosed circle, they don't even have fantasy-ish features on them like faces or whatever. They're just trees.

[Joe]

Copyright has nothing to do with it - doing natural terrain is just a massive pain in the backside up and down scale modelling as a whole. It's gotten marginally easier to do hand-made stuff in the last decade now that we've seen more content creators sharing how-to's on Youtube that can reach a larger audience.

[Valkyrion]

I doubt hills will ever make a return as you can't reliably place models on the slopes, which is why the first incarnation of the Realm of Battle boards, whilst nice for display purposes, were a bit hard to game with, especially when trying to rank up WFB. 

 

I think GW will move into more LOS blocking terrain, like the new Frontier set and move away from windowed ruins. 

[Slave to Darkness]

Why make something generic other companies make and sell cheaper? Would be nice to see something different though, I used to be all about Cityfight/Cities of Death but now its getting a bit boring. Same boards, same buildings wherever I go. :/ I know we dont agree on anything really but I feel you on this one, Id love to see something less urban. 

Edited May 23, 2022 by Slave to Darkness

[Slave to Darkness]

 

It's a bit harder to make scenery that's natural/vegetation that's still coverable under copyright I'd expect, also needing to give it recognisable 40k-ness such as the wrecked rhino in a small stand of trees. Ruins/buildings are easy in comparison.

 

Why does it need to be copywritable? Sylvaneth Awakened Wyldwood is just 3 trees that form an enclosed circle, they don't even have fantasy-ish features on them like faces or whatever. They're just trees.

 

 

 

It's a bit harder to make scenery that's natural/vegetation that's still coverable under copyright I'd expect, also needing to give it recognisable 40k-ness such as the wrecked rhino in a small stand of trees. Ruins/buildings are easy in comparison.

 

Why does it need to be copywritable? Sylvaneth Awakened Wyldwood is just 3 trees that form an enclosed circle, they don't even have fantasy-ish features on them like faces or whatever. They're just trees.

 

Skulls, it has the traditional GW skulls. Like everything they do...

[Rik Lightstar]

I think StD has summed it up really.

 

There's plenty of generic scenery out there to cover you for trees, hills, rivers and so on.

 

Pet shops sell a whole load of stuff that works really well on a gaming table too.

 

So for GW they have a fixed amount of design time, SKUs and release slots for terrain, why wouldn't they make sure that it's stuff that's pretty unique to them. 

 

Nobody is saying you have to use GW terrain, and while it would be nice to see some more images of other options in print or online from GW it's easy to see why they keep everything reproducible from a GW store.

 

Rik

[Halandaar]

Skulls, it has the traditional GW skulls. Like everything they do...

 

Well sure, but those aren't exactly a unique GW design so still doesn't support the original "LeGaL sAyS nO" assertion.

[Lord Marshal]

I remember when urban boards were rare and Cities of Death/Cityfight rules ever being used were a novelty. How suddenly times change.

[Hfran Morkai]

I remember when urban boards were rare and Cities of Death/Cityfight rules ever being used were a novelty. How suddenly times change.

I need to pick up Codex City fight and Cities of Death (again) for inspiration as I LOVE the urban theme and Cities of Death really inspired me, the bit about T'au Rappelling out of Devilfish was cool.

 

Then again I'd also love to pick up a set of Planetary Empires too.

[MARK0SIAN]

Urban scenery has a lot of advantages that a more rural scenery set up would struggle to match in terms of modelling and gameplay.

 

Verticality is naturally built into urban scenery and people expect it. It’s harder to do that with more natural scenery without it looking odd or making every battle feel like you’re an ewok.

 

It’s also easier to make urban terrain modular or able to be built in a number of different configurations as opposed to something like rocks due to it essentially being a series of squares and rectangles.

 

The fact that it doesn’t jar in peoples minds that multiple man made structures all look very similar or even the same also makes it easier to shift multiples of the same terrain kit to one player. That’s harder to justify if it’s three rock outcrops or stands of trees that all look identical.

 

I’m not saying they’ll never do more rural terrain but I wouldn’t expect them to shift massively in the near future.

[Tyriks]

I just want more diversity. I don't want city boards to go away again, but I'd love them to bring back the death world stuff, maybe with some more plants growing over ruins so its a bit more functional. Having second floors adds a lot to the game which is why I think ruins are so prevalent. Ruins are also open so you can easily enter and exit because walls are missing.

 

A set of terrain that can be ruined or intact would also be great. Making a city that just started getting hit would be a lot of fun.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Nemesor Tyriks

[Stealth_Hobo]

The upcoming Warcry box set is supposed to be set in a jungle, at least according to every Warhammer Community article so far. Will the terrain be another set of ruins or something else, who knows. But I'd be surprised if it didn't have a jungle or swamp theme. A jungle town would be something refreshingly different and could work as a Kroot village or as something for Necromunda.

[andes]

Gamemat.eu has nice pre-painted resin 'natural' terrain pieces that are surprisingly affordable. I bought their Mesa set and it's fantastic (I use it on my orky table)... would go alongside the new Ash Wastes Hab stuff perfectly. I'm considering their foresty-boulder set for a new table.

Edited May 23, 2022 by andes

[Seahawk]

I just want more diversity. I don't want city boards to go away again, but I'd love them to bring back the death world stuff, maybe with some more plants growing over ruins so its a bit more functional. Having second floors adds a lot to the game which is why I think ruins are so prevalent. Ruins are also open so you can easily enter and exit because walls are missing.

 

A set of terrain that can be ruined or intact would also be great. Making a city that just started getting hit would be a lot of fun.

They'd have to completely revamp the terrain rules to be more functional again, which they absolutely should IMO. Currently they're all terrible.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

My thing, is that you can still have verticality in a rural board without much fuss.

Some hills, a watch tower or a small town/village’s church bell tower, one or two ruined houses/cottages with a second level, rocky areas.

 

I built my best homemade terrain piece that’s a big rocky area, with a rocky ‘bridge’ between two outcrops, you can fit most infantry models under it, a few on the ‘bridge’ and another 1-2 at other parts of the rocks, and of course some store bought trees to help it out.

 

Small out posts or camps, just look at the older codexes and there’s plenty to show how you can have LoS blocking terrain, as well as verticality and scatter terrain on a more rural style table.

 

The closest you get now to rural in official GW materials, is rows of identical trenches or defensive walls.

Edited May 23, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[ThePenitentOne]

What I would like to see is Xenos terrain. Some of the Tau Tidewall stuff is still around (I think?), but a lot of those kits are gone. The loss of the tectonic fragdrill and the CSM Noctolith Crown are steps in the wrong direction. Where is our Craftworld and Commorragh terrain? What's a frater got to do to get a spore chimney and some capillary towers up in here!

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I just hope they move away from all the city fight stuff.

 

Just a green or sandy mat would also help a lot as well

[Antarius]

 

I remember when urban boards were rare and Cities of Death/Cityfight rules ever being used were a novelty. How suddenly times change.

I need to pick up Codex City fight and Cities of Death (again) for inspiration as I LOVE the urban theme and Cities of Death really inspired me, the bit about T'au Rappelling out of Devilfish was cool.

 

Then again I'd also love to pick up a set of Planetary Empires too.

 

I reread Codex: Cityfight a month or so ago and it's legitimately one of the best GW publications ever.

 

I think there's some potential for cross-compatible AoS/40K terrain covering more "natural stuff", like woods, hills, rivers etc. and I hope they start doing something like that again. However, I also recall one of the problems I used to have when setting up terrain was that if you weren't careful it started to look too "fantasy" and not "40K" enough in a somewhat indefinable way, and I think the current scenery range is, in part, a reaction to that problem.

 

As it stands, I have a lot of woods and hills and so on squirrelled away and I'm thinking of making a bunch of jungle terrain. But I'd love to see more terrain from GW that would cover these niches.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

 

 

 

I remember when urban boards were rare and Cities of Death/Cityfight rules ever being used were a novelty. How suddenly times change.

I need to pick up Codex City fight and Cities of Death (again) for inspiration as I LOVE the urban theme and Cities of Death really inspired me, the bit about T'au Rappelling out of Devilfish was cool.

 

Then again I'd also love to pick up a set of Planetary Empires too.

I reread Codex: Cityfight a month or so ago and it's legitimately one of the best GW publications ever.

 

I think there's some potential for cross-compatible AoS/40K terrain covering more "natural stuff", like woods, hills, rivers etc. and I hope they start doing something like that again. However, I also recall one of the problems I used to have when setting up terrain was that if you weren't careful it started to look too "fantasy" and not "40K" enough in a somewhat indefinable way, and I think the current scenery range is, in part, a reaction to that problem.

 

As it stands, I have a lot of woods and hills and so on squirrelled away and I'm thinking of making a bunch of jungle terrain. But I'd love to see more terrain from GW that would cover these niches.

the number of worlds in the imperium and alien worlds all sorts of architecture will be present so I don’t mind tables looking ‘fantasy’

[Slave to Darkness]

A

 

 

 

 

I remember when urban boards were rare and Cities of Death/Cityfight rules ever being used were a novelty. How suddenly times change.

I need to pick up Codex City fight and Cities of Death (again) for inspiration as I LOVE the urban theme and Cities of Death really inspired me, the bit about T'au Rappelling out of Devilfish was cool.

Then again I'd also love to pick up a set of Planetary Empires too.

I reread Codex: Cityfight a month or so ago and it's legitimately one of the best GW publications ever.

I think there's some potential for cross-compatible AoS/40K terrain covering more "natural stuff", like woods, hills, rivers etc. and I hope they start doing something like that again. However, I also recall one of the problems I used to have when setting up terrain was that if you weren't careful it started to look too "fantasy" and not "40K" enough in a somewhat indefinable way, and I think the current scenery range is, in part, a reaction to that problem.

As it stands, I have a lot of woods and hills and so on squirrelled away and I'm thinking of making a bunch of jungle terrain. But I'd love to see more terrain from GW that would cover these niches.

the number of worlds in the imperium and alien worlds all sorts of architecture will be present so I don’t mind tables looking ‘fantasy’

 

Aye, the homeworld my not Templars is a medieval world, bonus of that is I can run games in the current post rift setting using 1st ed and I can mix in Fantasy Bretonnians so I can play games with the planet being attacked. :tu: Then I can get away from the Urban tables all the time.

[Inquisitor_Lensoven]

I also think the killteam morloch box is another good example of how more rural style terrain can be used for 40k

 

I actually love it.

 

On a side/somewhat related note I think objective markers should be dropped and terrain features should be designated as the objectives themselves.

Edited May 28, 2022 by Inquisitor_Lensoven

[MegaVolt87]

They ditched those Eldar forest tree set for KT a while back I think. Those were cool. Eldar forest with that new outpost(s), some rock formations on a flat board to get that 3rd ed terrain layout inspiration would be nice.