One of the changes in 5th ed 40K was the inclusion of actual solid buildings. They had existed in some form earlier in scenarios with bunkers, but 5th ed presented them as a regular part of the battlefield, along with the ruins, barricades, jungles and hills.
But I don't actually see them used (outside of Planetstrike), either locally or on tables I see across the web. Even intact or relatively intact buildings are normally treated either as ruins or as something impassible.
Why is that? Part of it is probably just people not knowing the building rules, but I think a lot of it is that it ends up just being easier to do without them. Since the buildings can be wrecked, ideally you'd want to either have buildings that can be disassembled to some degree to represent being wrecked, or extra ruins to sub in once the building gets destroyed. At a lot of places you're already struggling for everyone to have enough terrain to start with, much less having significant leftover pieces to substitute in.
For my own part, I have some intact things that could be used as buildings, but they tend to just get used as ruins or impassible. I have an actual bunker I made, but it never gets used. One of the buildings on my city board really should be an AV building, possibly even with two sections, but we almost never use it as such since it's attached to the section of table, making "ruining" it inconvenient to impossible.
I would like to see more actual buildings used, if nothing else because I think it would add some extra levels to the game. A few solid buildings on the table let an infantry force "mech up", gaining the protection benefits that tank armies already enjoy, and creates some places that vehicles simply cannot go. It also introduces the element of a potentially partly changeable battlefield - like a video game with a "destructible environment", it opens up opportunities and tactics by being able to remove or alter a piece of terrain and opening up new lanes of fire, etc.
Howabout on your tables/local tables? Do you see many AV type buildings, or is it all just ruins? For those who use AV buildings, how do you handle them when they get wrecked?
The only intact structure I have on my table is an Imperial Bastion. The FLGS has a modified Shrine of the Aquila that's intact though. There are two connecting doors that would theoretically allow access through it, however the fear of having to pick up & shake the building to get a painted model out of it means that no one has ever tried that. We just go around/over it.
ReplyDeleteI'll use intact buildings if I'm playing with someone who isn't new to the game. If they're new then we treat them impassable just to make things easier for them, one less rule to deal with.
ReplyDeleteRemember though, a wreck is still the exact same profile, it just becomes difficult and dangerous terrain, so no need to do anything with it other than mark it as a wreck. Explodes, well yeah, you want a crater or something then. At the shop we just have these cardboard cutouts that we use to represent craters. Eventually they'll look pretty but they function.
@Da Masta Cheef - Do you actually use the bastion as a bastion? If so, do you find that it's affected games more than a ruin would?
ReplyDelete@Thor - Good point, you don't *need* a ruin to replace it with. I just think it would be much more satisfying! Maybe that will be another project to add to the list...some "before" and "after" buildings...
I've never used an intact building, but you make a good point. Mech for my foot army....hmm.
ReplyDeleteI've never used it as an actual bastion (or played planet strike for that matter), its just a terrain piece. We have had fighting inside of it once or twice, and on the top deck several times. It makes for a good objective as its the last intact building in an otherwise devastated environment. I've never played where if could be destroyed, may have to try that out sometime.
ReplyDelete@DMC - so you basically use it as a ruin?
ReplyDeleteNope... I almost never play with AV building rules
ReplyDeleteMy group uses buildings all the time. We mostly have some paper bunkers that we count as av 12 or 13. You can only fit 10 in a building and only 2 can shoot out per window/fire point.
ReplyDelete@Max - cool! Do you find that they change how the game flows? Do you find yourself sticking a squad in them just to keep the other guy from doing so?
ReplyDeleteEssentially.
ReplyDeleteWe use the bastions as terrain piece, they are decent line of sight blockers. Actually, in our next battle report, you will see them put a serious hamper on my army.....stupid bastion.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, I am looking for buildings to include in our games that I can either block out the windows for TLOS blocking or leave window as a nice area terrain piece.
ReplyDeleteI hardly ever play games that use intact buildings, not out of preference but just because I haven't seen many available. That's actually one of the main reasons why I'm including a so many of them in my current terrain project. Right now I'm at about a 50-50 split of ruined and intact structures. It just looks to me like a lot of fun and an interesting way of changing things up.
ReplyDelete@Mags, Papa - look forward to hearing how those work out for you.
ReplyDeleteI suppose the problem is once you use intact buildings you need to apply the rules for AV and building damage to really make it worthwhile. Experiments with lego/duplo may be in order...
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