Games Workshop have talked about how they believe a table should be set up to make a fair and interesting game of 40k. And now that their tournaments are running in the US we can see them putting it into practice.

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There are a few things that I note:

• There’s a lot of LOS blocking terrain, both in terms of “obscuring” and genuine solid walls, on the table. They do not want you shooting from one side to the other.
• They’ve put their ruins on bases, lots of people do this anyway but it’s nice to see that they also see the advantages. It’s much easier to judge when a LOS runs over the ruin or a model is within it. The base defines all of that.
• The four large “Terrain 1″ pieces are indeed large, they seem to be mounted on 12” bases.
• Ruins have their walls facing “inwards”, I think they’re doing this to try and not be a d**k to players who want to run a lot of armour. That sort of thing can still make it close to the centre of the table. + They note that objectives can’t normally be placed on top of scenery, however the Chapter Approved mission packs have an unless “otherwise noted” rule that they’re invoking to allow you to do it.
• Following one of the FAQs fortifications “cannot be setup within 3“ of other terrain features“. There’s a lot of terrain on those tables, will some of the bigger fortifications fit? I also don’t know if the Death Guard’s Miasmic Malignifier “set up anywhere” rule overrides the 3″ FAQ limitation.

What do I think the effects of all of this would be:

• The days of getting effectively tabled in turn one by things like Knights deleting vital components of your entire army with long range fire seem to be over. There’s an awful lot of LOS blocking terrain to take cover behind.
• Close combat armies appear to have much better stab (see what I did there?) at the game than they used to. GW have said that “Terrain 1” pieces have solid walls so they will literally block LOS, that means that there’s a decent chance that those armies can avoid facing overwatch as they charge into combat.
• Manoeuvring is going to become even more important, both for those who want to overcome the LOS blocking and for those who want to benefit from it.

How does this affect my Death Guard? That might be interesting. We’re not a long range gun line army and we’re not a fast moving melee army either, we’re an up close shooting force. A lot of of stuff is also pretty slow moving and so manoeuvring is a challenge. Might I want to take more Rhinos? Or lean on fast moving drones?

All told I think that these are good developments for the game and I’m looking forward to getting some more game in.