So I don't usually get sucked into blog wars, but this one really irked me today.
It started here, with Stelek taking shots at the terrain at NOVA 2011:
http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2011/09/nova-open-the-laundry-list/
The gist of it is NOVA 2011 actually had BLoS terrain where it didn't in 2010. In my opinion, he was butt-hurt over having to play his 85% shooting army differently, but I didn't come out and say it like that. My comment is #32 in the list. I said:
"hyv3mynd says:
Nothing I’ve seen in any of your NOVA reports looks like more than 25% terrain with a mix of types including BLoS pieces, just like the rulebook recommends. Every table looked balanced to me and fun to play on.Looking back, just about every report that shows your deployment shows 3 units of long fangs deployed right next to each other. This means if one unit can’t see what they want to shoot, none of them could. Is it the BLoS terrain’s fault that it’s blocking LoS, or the guy who deployed all his missile launchers in one place? That indeed seems to me like a playstyle issue and not a terrain issue.
Didn’t something like 93% of those surveyed respond favorably to the terrain?"
Stelek takes that comment and starts this thread, based on my comment and MVB's response:
http://yesthetruthhurts.com/2011/09/special-attention-terrain/
My thoughts after all of that was: #1 He's not actually used to playing on tables with BLoS terrain, his play style was hampered and suffered, and he blamed it on the terrain. I put my thoughts together, replied, he called me an idiot, then deleted my post. Note in the original article, he said:
"Note if you ‘jump’ on Mike, I’ll just delete your comments. I don’t give a shit if you jump on me, I’m used to it. But if you can’t be adults, I’ll empower myself to remove stupidity."
Did I jump on Mike? Did I sound immature and deserve my "stupidity removed"? You be the judge.
Here's the original article I was able to cut and paste before he deleted my comment. I know there's a lot of mixed feelings about his blog. I read it for the lists and tactics, but being disingenuous about your intentions and actions make his blog useless to me now.
*copy and pasted from the article before deletions*
As requested, special attention must be paid to terrain.
First, time for a tune, cause it’s how I feel after writing all of this. So click play, and enjoy. Or don’t. Whatever.
Second, a bit of amusement:
Nothing I’ve seen in any of your NOVA reports looks like more than 25% terrain with a mix of types including BLoS pieces, just like the rulebook recommends. Every table looked balanced to me and fun to play on.
Looking back, just about every report that shows your deployment shows 3 units of long fangs deployed right next to each other. This means if one unit can’t see what they want to shoot, none of them could. Is it the BLoS terrain’s fault that it’s blocking LoS, or the guy who deployed all his missile launchers in one place? That indeed seems to me like a playstyle issue and not a terrain issue.
Didn’t something like 93% of those surveyed respond favorably to the terrain?
Mike said:
Hyvmynd, that is accurate. 93% of respondents would like to play with the same amount of LOS blocking terrain again. This doesn’t INVALIDATE the 7%, but it tempers our analysis.
Reply:
Aside from the fact you are wrong about what it looks like, which I will gladly explain in picture format so you can ‘understand’: You don’t see terrain like that in local stores, at GW stores, at most GT’s, or in most games.
Barring the playstyle issue, which it isn’t–it’s a terrain issue. Your understanding of good terrain placement is poor, at best. Which is understandable, most people think slapping terrain down is just fine.
Wow, 93%! Statistics are awesome. You can finesse them any way you want. How many people actually responded? Oh, was it 93% of 300, or 93% of 100? Ah, the latter? Then probably those who had a favorable view of your event, actually responded. You know that’s how surveys work, right? It’s very difficult to get negative feedback, because the very first feedback someone gives you is…that’s right, they don’t respond. Like I didn’t. What was the question? Was it a simple one? Did you like the terrain? Hey, I liked the terrain plenty. I thought there was too much of it and it was placed wrong, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the campaign terrain. Which is what that terrain is. Or was it, did you like the terrain in comparison to last year? Or was there a meaningful breakdown of questions? I don’t know the answers to any of these, but thinking your terrain was awesome because 93% of respondents played on good boards and 7% of respondents played on the shitty ones, isn’t actually worth a hill of beans. If everyone but me responded, then you have my apologies. I sincerely doubt they did, but hey I’m often wrong.
Time to add another comment, and see how factual it is, frankly I think it’s also not worth a hill of beans, but we’ll let the pictures do the talking:
Mike said:
Every board had 3 LOS blockers – 1 large one in center, 2 md-large ones in opposing corners. Then there were 2 large ruins/area pieces in the other 2 corners, that only partially blocked LOS as a general rule. Then there were 2 large ish area pieces in the middle along the long edges.
Let’s review those boards, shall we?
Note I did this quickly, but if you want more CONSTRUCTIVE and ACCURATE feedback, you let me know I’ll do the other half dozen.
What you THINK is very often NOT what actually happens.
So let’s take a look:
Hmmm, lots of space between terrain pieces. Sadly, with only one LOS blocking piece of terrain I can hide ONE razorback behind it. The rest of my army just has to take it on the chin. This is improperly deployed terrain. Don’t think so? Well, let’s see.
Hmmm. So, again, it’s a shooting field. I thought we weren’t going for shooty open fields here? Note the red arrows indicates places where either a Rhino won’t fit, or you can’t drive 2 abreast. In this case, even 2 speeders won’t fit in the gap on the right, and in the middle, not even a Rhino can pass.
What…the…? All of the terrain is in this 4 foot by 4 foot box. There’s a huge gap on the left side (the right too, but it’s out of the picture, so it’s a DAMN LIE). Again, lots of places vehicles cannot pass. Note the completely unplayable ‘house’ without a roof, and no LOS out of it’s lower floors. Sure I guess I could stick my Fangs up there so they can be boltered to death on turn 1, but I try to be a ‘great’ player and not merely a mediocre one.
Note that due to my range and how he deployed his Long Fangs, even if he krak missiled me out in the open, because the only place HE could deploy his fangs would be more than 2″ inside terrain, I’d get cover saves standing in front of him, mooning his troops. Because the big ass terrain piece is area terrain, and not just a hill. Btw, this was the game where less than 15 Marines survived on every match, my vehicles had constant cover but I still lost every last one of them. He also had cover, but I only managed to kill that one on top of the hill (and I fired meltas/missiles from everywhere) early. I killed another on turn 4. Not because of the shoddy terrain placement, but I couldn’t stop a Rhino with 4 meltas and 9 missiles. Hey, I suck, what can I say. =P Spearhead, absolutely horrible on terrain setup this way.
Hey my Fangs can actually see things (blue lines).
The yellow areas are unplayable to infantry. No, I’m not going to imagine my Fangs on top of the tower and then draw imaginary LOS to his carefully balanced tanks on top of the buildings across the way. This is not a very good shooting board as very little LOS is blocked, but what is blocked is completely blocked and you can’t go over it unless your army begins with an E. Yes, I know what the rules say, but I have zero interest in breaking my models or using hordes of dice to ‘represent’ where I say my shit is. Playable terrain please, not unplayable. So Kudos on using Warhammer Fantasy terrain. Again, mentioned last year, and used again this year. Do you hear me? STOP USING FANTASY TERRAIN, IT IS INAPPROPRIATE FOR 40K. Note the ‘buildings’ are so far forward, I can either deploy my Fangs in the open, or I can deploy them in the middle. See hive, I can’t alter my ‘playstyle’ and ‘cheat’ by ‘deploying’ inside buildings (not allowed) or my favorite cheat, ‘outside of my deployment zone’. This is more bad terrain placement. Note that barring game 1 of friday/saturday/sunday, I had a judge verify the terrain was ok in every game I played. Why the hell is it placed so freaking randomly then? No?
So, I can’t deploy in the building on the right, because it’s not (A) a building, and (B) it’s not IN my deployment zone! So it’s the trees, or the hill on the left. Thankfully, my opponent decided to hide in the building on the far right, which is handy as it completely blocks LOS.
He could have easily hid himself behind the piece of terrain in the middle. I could barely see Belial standing 2 inches away from that building due to the middle piece. Note the terrain pieces in the middle are set too far forward, especially the one on my side. Why is the hill on the left so far from center? Again, a judge setup the terrain. This clusterf— of terrain being on top of each other is an assault armies favorite thing to see. You can literally bunny hop from terrain piece to terrain piece. Except the first couple of boards, where you can’t.
Here are the rest. No lines drawn, I’ll just comment on them:
Spearhead, again. With terrain not setup in any way that makes sense. The terrain piece in the upper left isn’t on an objective. The piece in the lower right is barely on it, on it’s left side. The piece in the bottom left is not centered on it. The piece in the upper right is. That big ass hill? Yeah, that’s two hills, and it’s too big. Look at how many vehicles I have hiding behind it. Dude, it’s my whole army. Ok 7 Razorbacks, all but one of which is getting 3+ cover. That’s NOT normal.
Hey my game against Blackmoor. How can I shoot those guys in the back left? How about the guys hiding behind Draigo? Yes, Draigo kills TWC, in case you were wondering. How can I shoot any of them? This is, again, Spearhead deployment. If it was a normal setup, where do I setup? On the left? So I can’t SEE anything? I can’t deploy on the hill on the right because it’s not IN my deployment zone. I can barely fit some guys in the little emplacement in the middle of the board. Again, the terrain is just setup so incredibly poorly. Note how the 3 hills make a line. If only mother nature could be so kind. Note I can’t see ANYTHING behind those hills. From anywhere in my deployment zone, in the upper right quarter I would have to get ass raped by Paladins to get shots, and in the bottom left there’s a narrow field of fire. Which I can’t setup in, because it’s SPEARHEAD.
Instead of offsetting the hills, they are in a straight line. Note how I have terrain that clogs my deployment zone (center, bottom) but my opponent has clear paths out and around. The center hill wasn’t g-d awful this time, as the yellow hills on my side of the board were tall enough I could get some shots off (but not past the other hills in upper left, which is fine).
This is the game of two games. I split my force, he split his, and I crushed his center while he fucked up my left and my fangs (bottom left corner, hiding from Venoms, in, you guessed it, spearhead) until I broke that part of his army too.
Note the huge ass terrain pieces. I have literally no place i can drive Rhinos 2 abreast. Except on the far left, because there is no terrain on the board edge (and there should be some on the sides). Do I need to go over how the terrain pieces, despite some uniformity, aren’t placed correctly? Look at the objectives. Look at how the terrain is one movement phase from the next. This isn’t a good thing to be able to hide behind a hill and then assault into the next terrain piece. That’s some 4th edition crap right there.
Hmmm. I see 3 LOS blocking pieces of terrain, and despite a judge ‘fixing’ the terrain, they aren’t placed properly. Note how far apart they are. So where did the Tyranid player aim? The center of my line, the only piece of terrain he could ‘cross the gap’ into in a single movement phase. Where could his MC’s even GET cover? Only behind the hill. This is a board improperly setup. Do I want assault (or skimmer) armies to be able to leap across terrain to the other side while completely hiding? No thanks. That big ass hill is a DE players dream (as you can see on the previous board, he hid everything with ease). This guy was almost able to completely hide Tervigons from me. Thankfully they were a little taller than the huge piece in the middle, but if that parapet had extended all the way across, trust me, I would have been unable to shoot him. And hey, I split my long fangs. Hurr, I’m bad, oh…is that a Mawloc? =|
Er, that’s 4 pieces of LOS blocking terrain. Sorry, one window for 1 tactical marine to stick his missile launcher out of is not worth a hill of beans. The hill on my right is OUTSIDE of my deployment zone. So I can deploy, again, where? Right, my TACTICS are being decided by BAD TERRAIN. Sorry, should I deploy in the building with 2 windows I can see out of with 1 guy? Clever. Note my TWC are deployed far forward, because by now I’ve figured out if I go first, I can run them to the other side of the hill and play hide-n-seek.
These boards look nice, but were not fun to play on. It has nothing to do with playing a shooting army, or a belief that assault is an effective method of destruction (it isn’t, compared to shooting, anyway). Terrain laid out wrong, on every single board. Forced to deploy foot elements in the same spot on every board, because half the LOS blocking terrain was unplayable (is there a roof on that building? No? oh, well, let me deploy infantry BEHIND my Razorbacks because that’s smart) and the other half you were either denied shots, or they had 3+ cover saves every day of the week.
First, time for a tune, cause it’s how I feel after writing all of this. So click play, and enjoy. Or don’t. Whatever.
Second, a bit of amusement:
Nothing I’ve seen in any of your NOVA reports looks like more than 25% terrain with a mix of types including BLoS pieces, just like the rulebook recommends. Every table looked balanced to me and fun to play on.
Looking back, just about every report that shows your deployment shows 3 units of long fangs deployed right next to each other. This means if one unit can’t see what they want to shoot, none of them could. Is it the BLoS terrain’s fault that it’s blocking LoS, or the guy who deployed all his missile launchers in one place? That indeed seems to me like a playstyle issue and not a terrain issue.
Didn’t something like 93% of those surveyed respond favorably to the terrain?
Mike said:
Hyvmynd, that is accurate. 93% of respondents would like to play with the same amount of LOS blocking terrain again. This doesn’t INVALIDATE the 7%, but it tempers our analysis.
Reply:
Aside from the fact you are wrong about what it looks like, which I will gladly explain in picture format so you can ‘understand’: You don’t see terrain like that in local stores, at GW stores, at most GT’s, or in most games.
Barring the playstyle issue, which it isn’t–it’s a terrain issue. Your understanding of good terrain placement is poor, at best. Which is understandable, most people think slapping terrain down is just fine.
Wow, 93%! Statistics are awesome. You can finesse them any way you want. How many people actually responded? Oh, was it 93% of 300, or 93% of 100? Ah, the latter? Then probably those who had a favorable view of your event, actually responded. You know that’s how surveys work, right? It’s very difficult to get negative feedback, because the very first feedback someone gives you is…that’s right, they don’t respond. Like I didn’t. What was the question? Was it a simple one? Did you like the terrain? Hey, I liked the terrain plenty. I thought there was too much of it and it was placed wrong, but that doesn’t mean I didn’t like the campaign terrain. Which is what that terrain is. Or was it, did you like the terrain in comparison to last year? Or was there a meaningful breakdown of questions? I don’t know the answers to any of these, but thinking your terrain was awesome because 93% of respondents played on good boards and 7% of respondents played on the shitty ones, isn’t actually worth a hill of beans. If everyone but me responded, then you have my apologies. I sincerely doubt they did, but hey I’m often wrong.
Time to add another comment, and see how factual it is, frankly I think it’s also not worth a hill of beans, but we’ll let the pictures do the talking:
Mike said:
Every board had 3 LOS blockers – 1 large one in center, 2 md-large ones in opposing corners. Then there were 2 large ruins/area pieces in the other 2 corners, that only partially blocked LOS as a general rule. Then there were 2 large ish area pieces in the middle along the long edges.
Let’s review those boards, shall we?
Note I did this quickly, but if you want more CONSTRUCTIVE and ACCURATE feedback, you let me know I’ll do the other half dozen.
What you THINK is very often NOT what actually happens.
So let’s take a look:
Hmmm, lots of space between terrain pieces. Sadly, with only one LOS blocking piece of terrain I can hide ONE razorback behind it. The rest of my army just has to take it on the chin. This is improperly deployed terrain. Don’t think so? Well, let’s see.
Hmmm. So, again, it’s a shooting field. I thought we weren’t going for shooty open fields here? Note the red arrows indicates places where either a Rhino won’t fit, or you can’t drive 2 abreast. In this case, even 2 speeders won’t fit in the gap on the right, and in the middle, not even a Rhino can pass.
What…the…? All of the terrain is in this 4 foot by 4 foot box. There’s a huge gap on the left side (the right too, but it’s out of the picture, so it’s a DAMN LIE). Again, lots of places vehicles cannot pass. Note the completely unplayable ‘house’ without a roof, and no LOS out of it’s lower floors. Sure I guess I could stick my Fangs up there so they can be boltered to death on turn 1, but I try to be a ‘great’ player and not merely a mediocre one.
Note that due to my range and how he deployed his Long Fangs, even if he krak missiled me out in the open, because the only place HE could deploy his fangs would be more than 2″ inside terrain, I’d get cover saves standing in front of him, mooning his troops. Because the big ass terrain piece is area terrain, and not just a hill. Btw, this was the game where less than 15 Marines survived on every match, my vehicles had constant cover but I still lost every last one of them. He also had cover, but I only managed to kill that one on top of the hill (and I fired meltas/missiles from everywhere) early. I killed another on turn 4. Not because of the shoddy terrain placement, but I couldn’t stop a Rhino with 4 meltas and 9 missiles. Hey, I suck, what can I say. =P Spearhead, absolutely horrible on terrain setup this way.
Hey my Fangs can actually see things (blue lines).
The yellow areas are unplayable to infantry. No, I’m not going to imagine my Fangs on top of the tower and then draw imaginary LOS to his carefully balanced tanks on top of the buildings across the way. This is not a very good shooting board as very little LOS is blocked, but what is blocked is completely blocked and you can’t go over it unless your army begins with an E. Yes, I know what the rules say, but I have zero interest in breaking my models or using hordes of dice to ‘represent’ where I say my shit is. Playable terrain please, not unplayable. So Kudos on using Warhammer Fantasy terrain. Again, mentioned last year, and used again this year. Do you hear me? STOP USING FANTASY TERRAIN, IT IS INAPPROPRIATE FOR 40K. Note the ‘buildings’ are so far forward, I can either deploy my Fangs in the open, or I can deploy them in the middle. See hive, I can’t alter my ‘playstyle’ and ‘cheat’ by ‘deploying’ inside buildings (not allowed) or my favorite cheat, ‘outside of my deployment zone’. This is more bad terrain placement. Note that barring game 1 of friday/saturday/sunday, I had a judge verify the terrain was ok in every game I played. Why the hell is it placed so freaking randomly then? No?
So, I can’t deploy in the building on the right, because it’s not (A) a building, and (B) it’s not IN my deployment zone! So it’s the trees, or the hill on the left. Thankfully, my opponent decided to hide in the building on the far right, which is handy as it completely blocks LOS.
He could have easily hid himself behind the piece of terrain in the middle. I could barely see Belial standing 2 inches away from that building due to the middle piece. Note the terrain pieces in the middle are set too far forward, especially the one on my side. Why is the hill on the left so far from center? Again, a judge setup the terrain. This clusterf— of terrain being on top of each other is an assault armies favorite thing to see. You can literally bunny hop from terrain piece to terrain piece. Except the first couple of boards, where you can’t.
Here are the rest. No lines drawn, I’ll just comment on them:
Spearhead, again. With terrain not setup in any way that makes sense. The terrain piece in the upper left isn’t on an objective. The piece in the lower right is barely on it, on it’s left side. The piece in the bottom left is not centered on it. The piece in the upper right is. That big ass hill? Yeah, that’s two hills, and it’s too big. Look at how many vehicles I have hiding behind it. Dude, it’s my whole army. Ok 7 Razorbacks, all but one of which is getting 3+ cover. That’s NOT normal.
Hey my game against Blackmoor. How can I shoot those guys in the back left? How about the guys hiding behind Draigo? Yes, Draigo kills TWC, in case you were wondering. How can I shoot any of them? This is, again, Spearhead deployment. If it was a normal setup, where do I setup? On the left? So I can’t SEE anything? I can’t deploy on the hill on the right because it’s not IN my deployment zone. I can barely fit some guys in the little emplacement in the middle of the board. Again, the terrain is just setup so incredibly poorly. Note how the 3 hills make a line. If only mother nature could be so kind. Note I can’t see ANYTHING behind those hills. From anywhere in my deployment zone, in the upper right quarter I would have to get ass raped by Paladins to get shots, and in the bottom left there’s a narrow field of fire. Which I can’t setup in, because it’s SPEARHEAD.
Instead of offsetting the hills, they are in a straight line. Note how I have terrain that clogs my deployment zone (center, bottom) but my opponent has clear paths out and around. The center hill wasn’t g-d awful this time, as the yellow hills on my side of the board were tall enough I could get some shots off (but not past the other hills in upper left, which is fine).
This is the game of two games. I split my force, he split his, and I crushed his center while he fucked up my left and my fangs (bottom left corner, hiding from Venoms, in, you guessed it, spearhead) until I broke that part of his army too.
Note the huge ass terrain pieces. I have literally no place i can drive Rhinos 2 abreast. Except on the far left, because there is no terrain on the board edge (and there should be some on the sides). Do I need to go over how the terrain pieces, despite some uniformity, aren’t placed correctly? Look at the objectives. Look at how the terrain is one movement phase from the next. This isn’t a good thing to be able to hide behind a hill and then assault into the next terrain piece. That’s some 4th edition crap right there.
Hmmm. I see 3 LOS blocking pieces of terrain, and despite a judge ‘fixing’ the terrain, they aren’t placed properly. Note how far apart they are. So where did the Tyranid player aim? The center of my line, the only piece of terrain he could ‘cross the gap’ into in a single movement phase. Where could his MC’s even GET cover? Only behind the hill. This is a board improperly setup. Do I want assault (or skimmer) armies to be able to leap across terrain to the other side while completely hiding? No thanks. That big ass hill is a DE players dream (as you can see on the previous board, he hid everything with ease). This guy was almost able to completely hide Tervigons from me. Thankfully they were a little taller than the huge piece in the middle, but if that parapet had extended all the way across, trust me, I would have been unable to shoot him. And hey, I split my long fangs. Hurr, I’m bad, oh…is that a Mawloc? =|
Er, that’s 4 pieces of LOS blocking terrain. Sorry, one window for 1 tactical marine to stick his missile launcher out of is not worth a hill of beans. The hill on my right is OUTSIDE of my deployment zone. So I can deploy, again, where? Right, my TACTICS are being decided by BAD TERRAIN. Sorry, should I deploy in the building with 2 windows I can see out of with 1 guy? Clever. Note my TWC are deployed far forward, because by now I’ve figured out if I go first, I can run them to the other side of the hill and play hide-n-seek.
These boards look nice, but were not fun to play on. It has nothing to do with playing a shooting army, or a belief that assault is an effective method of destruction (it isn’t, compared to shooting, anyway). Terrain laid out wrong, on every single board. Forced to deploy foot elements in the same spot on every board, because half the LOS blocking terrain was unplayable (is there a roof on that building? No? oh, well, let me deploy infantry BEHIND my Razorbacks because that’s smart) and the other half you were either denied shots, or they had 3+ cover saves every day of the week.
Does the rulebook say somewhere that there should be clear driving paths for vehicles so they don’t have to roll dangerous terrain? I thought that’s why skimmers are good as long as they don’t end up in terrain, and why you have the option to buy dozer blades, siege shields, reinforced rams, etc.
Only the 3rd picture looks like an issue with terrain placement. To me, that table looks like 1-2 previous players moved some terrain over so they could fit their display boards somewhere. I remember reading that space for display boards was an issue on Jawaball’s blog and others.
Only the final picture has potentially more than 3 BLoS pieces depending on how you played them. Still, units don’t block LoS for other models in their own unit, so you could put one long fang in the window and line up the other 5 behind him for clear shots through one window.
Nothing forces you to deploy long fangs in cover when you have 10 razorbacks. You can use your /\ formation to create a firing window for the missiles, still move the razorbacks <6" each turn to shift the window and create a new firing lane.
Different spacing between terrain pieces isn't bad, it gives value to actually winning the initial roll and choosing a DZ that has some benefit to your army and build. If everything was static and perfectly symmetrical, winning the roll would only be valuable for alpha strike abilities.
What's wrong with BLoS on a tervigon? The book doesn't say BLoS terrain should apply to infantry only, not MC's and vehicles. It just sounds like personal preferences that some units should be blocked and not others. God forbid you actually have to move one of your 3 long fang units and give up a round of firing for better shots next turn.
Like I said, it all still looks like great terrain and placement to me and I'd be fine playing on it. It's some of the most true-to-book terrain I've seen from a large tournament and MVB should be praised for it IMO. Just like 93% of his responders said. 93% of 100 or 200 doesn't matter. Constructive criticism helps improve events and people shouldn't be afraid to offer it with the intent of improving a future event. If only 100 out of 200 responded with the other half afraid to because of negativity, the silent ones aren't helping improve next year at all. As it stands now, you are still a vocal minority Stelek.
My opinions are just as subjective as yours, but nothing I've seen here has come close to looking like "bad tournament terrain".