Every Warhammer 40K Terrain Piece EXPLAINED - Ruins, Cover + More in 10th Edition 

Full How to Play Warhammer 40K 10th Edition Playlist here - ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-JnFFyll0kn4.html

The only benefit of having a terrible sleep schedule in the states is being here right on time for an auspex video

The cover things in 10th were confusing my play group so much and it was so difficult to try and explain it easily. Your infographics are amazing and o greatly appreciate it

My group just plays everything is a ruin. They set up templates and place terrain on the footprints and go with what takes the least brainpower to decide.

I haven't been playing very much for several years now, but I believe that there was a time when GW literally sold their own custom laser pointers with a little sort of hook to "mount" over the shoulders of models when checking for true LoS if that makes sense. Furthermore, if the laser could be seen through big enough gaps in terrain sometimes you could shoot at otherwise invisible targets, which to me makes sense at least, and maybe that should be brought back to help clear up ambiguities. Also back in the template days there was the whole benefit of firing flame weapons within areas full of airborne promethium or plumes of it because of the pipes getting rusted and shot at and they'd start to leak. This would subsequently double the range of flamers, maybe they gained some other benefits too but at the very least range was one of them. Going further back even chimera tanks were fully amphibious which was another cool little feature if there were any rivers or lakes to traverse with them. Also, back in the day whenever vehicles popped smoke lots of people made actual smokescreens out of cotton and paint (I've even seen some that incorporated tea lights into them for a surprisingly effective flickering fire base effect) and those same smokescreens were also used for destroyed vehicles who you'd leave as wreckages that blocked LoS and such (besides the rules for individual weapons destroyed or immobilized vehicles etc.) Another element i miss is night fighting, GW even used to make a counter that would more or less shift from night to day over the 5-6 turns of a game's length because your ranges would be affected by the darkness unless you had searchlights equipped or maybe certain specialized units could see in the dark just fine or had scanners etc. Another really cool set of rules for forests and such was codex deathworld veterans from 3rd edition, wherein the table required an actual grid because there would be things like elevations or traps or even wild animals or plants that could attack, while the deathworld veterans (i.e. catachans) could see further than enemy units might, and often they'd be so much more deadly with heavy flamers or mortars and could only use sentinels because they'd be the only vehicles versatile enough to traverse such difficult terrain. I know those are several examples already but i do genuinely kinda miss these sorts of more direct interactions with terrain and LoS with the laser pointer because it just made it that much more immersive, but i suppose if something like templates which were previously essential to the game enough to be included in every starter box have been wholly removed and their rules overhauled, then that's just part and parcel of the way the game is to be played now as per GW. I think this is a long way of saying that I can definitely see the appeal of house-ruling a number of terrain rules if you're from a time when GW encouraged you to rifle through your recycling bin like a raccoon for stuff to fill out your 6x4 table with rather than sell you said terrain themselves along with its rules and everything that doing so entails (3D printed terrain and MDF being more like parallel developments of this trend of course). Personally at least, I'm inclined to at least try to keep some of these around if not just stick to playing older editions of the game period. Great video auspex, thank you so much for giving us a really comprehensive look at terrain, cheers!

I love that you still make videos addressing all the various rules. It shocks me that I still learn things I was doing wrong or didn't know it was a rule!

The video we all needed regardless of faction… praise to the Auspex!

OH MY GOD THANK YOU

That's bizarre, I was literally just reading about this in the core rules last night. They don't call him Auspex for nothing!

I do find it strange that GW is focusing on the competitive side for balance, yet don’t sell the terrain for competitive. (Cities of death and similar would have been perfect for this)

The cover rules in 40K have got to be the most convoluted and difficult rules I’ve ever read. When we play 40K, we just combine the ideas of Legion and Warcry. Does part of your shot cross cover? Groovy, your toughness is plus one. Takes 10 seconds and works great. 😊

Can you make a video going over the legends terrain pieces? I know they aren’t balanced, but they contain the most iconic pieces GW has made

"I am Cmdr Shepard and this is my favorite video on the citadel"

Here’s one DIY terrain piece for narrative purposes, take 3 toilet paper cores, some glue, some paint and you got yourself a sewer pipe stockpile.

Wish they'd being back rules for "Liquid" terrain pieces; I have lots of pools of water, lava, and acid from previous editions. Usually just play them as craters at the moment and houserule back in some Difficult/Dangerous terrain tests.

I've been very slow at getting back to the table. But my MDF gothic ruins just arrived in the mail and this is my next step I'm trying to comprehend, so this is helpful, thank you.

A massive beginner tip is to use all ruins, they can be made out of cardboard so easy. In our local group we homebrew that all ruins, the ground floor is line of site blocking regardless in units are inside the footprint or not.... Makes games much simpler and balanced vs the shooting and melee armies

Wow……… that is, um…….. well it definitely explains what I’ve been told by many of the people I play other mini games with for reasons why they stopped playing this game!?! Now I don’t want the person running this channel to miss understand me!?! I’m not attacking him, I’m not blaming him and I’m not saying this is in any way a reflection of him or this channel!!! Actually this is one of the best channels to get the information we need for the actual game!!! And it’s definitely one of my favorite channels I follow!!! But when it comes to GW and how complex they choose to make the rules right off the bat, that explains why they have had to constantly update and change the rules (yes, there has been 10 full overhauls! Hence “10th edition”! But this video has even said, some of the rules that were changed for 10th edition was already changed again!!! And in the short time span that I’ve been into this game, it has happened a lot)! I know it can’t be as simple as a lot of games! I get that! But there are other games out there that are the same concept of a game with not even half of the amount of rules this game has!!! And it does perfectly fine without all these issues! And yes, they also have new things coming up throughout the year!!! It’s a great game, the models are beyond what most games out there could ever do with how they look! I just wished it wasn’t overly complicated where not even terrain is simple!

Really good video. This is probably one of the better videos i have watched about how Terrain works. Thanks 👍

Excellent content. Basic concepts still easily confused well addressed.

great explanation, love the pics, thx

👍👍 extremely useful, I really appreciate this one!

Great Work, thanks !

A very useful video I can use this for my own games

I needed this video! Thanks.

I love terrain! It really makes or brakes a game of Warhammer

Very helpful, thank you.

My favorite part of the hobby! I'm a terrain-collecting fanatic. :)

I lament the convergance n the L/T shaped ruins for all tables

Yes! More terrain tactics would be nice! Like I'd really like to know especially what kind of terrain centered tactics actually get used in tournaments these days.

It's only now that I realise just how house ruled my group's terrain system is. We play by true line of sight (anything visible can be shot at) and cover is granted if half or more of the unit is obscured to the shooting models. In that case, the whole unit gets cover rather than individual models. If a model in a unit isn't shooting, then it's not counted towards how visible the target is. This means for example devastators often leave their sgts behind walls while the big guns shoot. Infantry can move through ruins freely, and shoot across them fine, however the ground floor of a ruin is always a solid wall that blocks LoS (because otherwise we wouldn't have enough solid wall terrain). We don't use ruin footprints, we just say a wall stops when it touches the ground. Our main controversy is about which models can shoot: if only half an attacking unit can see the defenders, do only the LoS models shoot, or do all

If there is anything that can get through a wall with holes in it a swarm should be it

Cool terrain layouts are what matter most to me. I don’t care if they are balanced or all, I want the terrain to tell a good story. Give me a city, with terrain on every piece of the battlefield that’s not a road or a park. Or an empty no man lands with two trench lines on either side of the battlefield.

Thanks for the video! I hope GW makes some new woods terrains sets someday. Maybe some Tyranid infested trees and some Catachan jungle trees!

Kinda happy that i can use Blender, tinkercad, and co to make my own Designs and print them super cheap with a Resin Printer :D If the Prices of the GW and Co Buildings wouldnt be that crazy high, i would recomend them, but with those price Tags it makes absolutly no sense to me to buy them.

Terrain in 40K, in the grim dark of the 41st millennium there is nothing but perfectly symmetrical cities that then get blown up by perfectly symmetrical artillery and before any fighting can get started the entire battle field is cleared of any rubble by servitors as we cant have any trip hazards. Terrain in 40k is a pitiful thing the community needs to have a word with its self allowing WTC and other to house rule out a lot of the terrain types and more varied mission rules.

the #1 thing I don't like is a table where the terrain feels like it doesn't belong... not sure if my meaning is communicated. But there are ways to design terrain placement that account for lots of mechanics and look cool/right at the same time. And there is ways to place terrain where it looks so dumpy might as well use DVD cases and random stuff from around the house, it can look so bad its less offensive if its random stuff.

We use big forest blocks and make it -1 to shoot through it rather than benefit of cover so there is some variety

Auspex gets paid to make powerpoint presentations like in school

very good video, thank you very much. I have just one question: If I have an infantry unit wholly within a ruin and shoot at an target that is out of this ruin, does this unit I am shooting at get the benefit of cover?

As I was saying in my last game, the rules change every game depending on what my opponent thinks is correct and I ask every time. The game prior, going over baricades cost am extra 3 inches of movement, but this last game, of course infantry can walk through it. In a game before that, ruins were technically hills, so every unit had old fly and vertical movement didn't matter.

so what if you have a intact structure that you can have models enter? like removable roofs with clear doors on the terrain piece like a bunker. Are this considered sealed structures or ruins for rule purposes?

This should be good!

So, infantry with jump pack (fly keyword) can go through the wall of the ruins, even if the 1st level doesn't have windows or cracks? But if you are a flying vehicle have to go above or around? Am I getting it correctly?

The only question I still have is a weird case that came up in a game I played recently where both my opponent's unit of Infantry and my unit of Infantry were wholly within ruins, but two separate ruins. Would they be able to fire on each other and just both have the benefit of cover? Or would they be unable to draw line of sight? It doesn't make much sense to me to draw line of sight through two sets of walls...

Ugh I miss the simplicity of 8th edition. Never played a game of 9th thanks mostly to covid, now I have no desire to learn all the rules for 10th. Probably gonna drift over to One Page Rules.

I’m so sad I got into this too late to get the sisters battle sanctum. Man that was a cool looking kit

I had to go check on the rules for splitting fire too, as it seemed like that could be used to avoid the situation at 13:05 - split the unit's fire so the Havocs can shoot at the marines in the open while the Warpsmith shoots at something else / doesn't shoot. But no, if that were the case then the targets still get cover because the whole attacking unit checks visibility, even though each individual model has a completely clear line to its target! Which is really unintuitive and wonky, but also neatly sidesteps a whole bunch of 'clever' rules lawyering tactics.

what if the shooting unit and target unit are both wholly within the same building and are fully visible to each other. Would they still get the benefit of cover on each other?

Great video thank you for the clarification. Just one question: when you are NOT wholly within a ruin and you shoot out of it... You can see through the wall normally as well? Just to be sure because in the description of the ruin it specifically states "Wholly within".

Wait am i missing something? I thought vehicles couldnt go into ruins so why are they using a vehicle in the pictured examples for lines of sight?

Question about ruins. A unit is wholly within the footprint of the ruin, and trying to shoot a unit wholly outside of the ruin (or any terrain). There is a wall within the ruins totally blocking LoS from the unit within the ruin to the unit outside of the ruin. As units wholly within can "see normally", does this mean the wall blocks LoS, or that the unit within the ruin would be able to see through the wall and shoot normally?

I think flying units should work like other units but but with a few exception instead of moving diagonally: for example, they always ignore any piece of terrain with a heigh of 3" (maybe 4") or less while moving horizontally, and moving verttically they ignore the first 3" and count the remaining distance as half; at least I think that would make it a little less awkward, especially when moving multiple miniatures.

What happens if 2 infantry units are shooting each other sitting in same building? Do they have cover?

I’m in the middle of an episode of insomnia, this is a blessing!

the only thing is missing in the video is "fight to models close to walls in ruins" i see many battles in my club saying different things about that

My local non gw store pretty much considers everything ruins and uses acrylic plates to show the area of the terrain and I hate it. Sure it makes things more streamlined, but kinda makes the actual terrain less important because the plate is what generally determines things. I also find it very dumb that I can't shoot at a model that's fully visible, but it's technically not because the empty 2-4" of plate it's standing behind counts as Ruin even though the terrain on the plate is a single wall nowhere near the model.

Wait there is more terrain then mdf ruins? I thought that stuff was only used in Horus Heresy

Sometimes it is good to take the attack on the one guy that doesn't get cover, if it means the rest of the squad gets out of LOS for other units for example.

I haven't watched the video yet but The fortress of redemption is the best terrain kit GW made for 40k and nothing has come even close ever since

Hello! About cover (debris). For me: Fully visible means model(defence) is fully visible for every model=all models=attacking unit. And we don't have cover. BUT: NOT fully visible means model(defence) is NOT fully visible for every model=all models=attacking unit. We have Cover, if attacking unit doesn't see model (defence). Why do we have cover? If one model (attack) has not LOS? Rule is cover very ridiculous. We have cover in open field, due to one model (attack) doesn't see. Funny:)

Someone, somewhere, has played Auspex at a tournament. Why have no face reveals ever been leaked? 😅

Now this is the real shit.

I think every terrain type should have a "Plunging Fire" type rule to give them a little more flavor than just providing BoC.

In years to come, every model will probably have a tiny camera built in to their eyes just to be certain they can see what the player thinks they can.

Soo...every video about cover on RU-vid interprets it differently. I thought I knew how it worked. But after several tutorials I have no fucking idea

In short: everything everywhere somehow has a cover save, unless it's a plane.

Shouldn't a FLY unit be able to measure any distance horizontally regardless of how high an obstacle is? That's the entire point of flying, that you're in the air and not blocked by ground obstacles.

20:03- What?!? How is the “front tip” the “furthest” part to get around that wall (or how you said it, “the longest distance” to the wall)?!? I agree with “what side” is the furthest! But I’m pretty sure that last section that would pass that wall would be the “back corner”!!! Not the front!!! But also with how complicated WH40k rules are, they actually allow a tank (that we can clearly see that it can’t do this) to be able to drive “sideways”??? You would literally have to turn around first! Because if that thing drove forward, it’s taking down that wall!!!

Sucks that plunging fire requires 6"+ off the ground and all GW ruins have their second level at 5" lol

Does this amazing person sleep?

I don't like "this ruin is obscuring everything and you big knight cannot shot over it (acastus)

A shame they removed the HOLD THE LINE and STAND READY. I miss my 5+ to hit overwatch...

*reads title with brain going* "Every Terran Piece EXPLAINED" ... ... *confused thoughts* *quick realization*

If you haven’t already. Can you do a video on how missions, vp, and “winning the game” works?

The only thing that interests me...can it be misused for Necromunda? 😂

At 13min, you can appreciate why people like to house rule; it feels very wonky.

I would like to see more down in the comments

why GW never sells layouts where everything goes for each deployment and key words on the terrain layouts with deployment layouts is beyond me. Like I would gladly pay 60 bucks or more for templates/ layouts of the deployments and terrain shapes.

Ergh, the visibility rule in particular really bothers me. If only one unit of five is visible behind obscuring cover, then surely only one of five can shoot and only one of five can be shot. Right? So why in the seven hells can the other four inexplicably shoot and be shot too??? And speaking of terrain, I can't help but hate that the generic catch-all terrain is only made to order from the store while most readily available things are mostly niche as hell. They haven't even brought the pipes back into production, the things that made all those old terrain pieces super modular and way cooler than they'd be on their own. I know it's just a drop of water in the ocean of screwups GW is responsible for, but it really does highlight how absolutely clueless they are with even the simpler things.

Vehicles need to go around ruins and the GW example shows a tank moving into ruins..?

Third...

Cover and shooting gets really dumb in this game. This is why I'm just developing my own damn game lol

26:53- Lmao Hahahaha WOW!!! And that’s why you don’t make your rules sooooooo complicated!!! Because then you run into issues like this! Unless you are pretending the walls are still there (which then you wouldn’t be able to see them at all) or you’re pretending that there is a force field around the building, then I see a “clear shot with ZERO COVER”!!!

First

Biggest issue with terrain is the terrain rules r crap compared to pre 8th

just dont play with ruins that are confusing in the ways you described, that solves about 90% of all issues with terrain

10th Ed's cover rules are nonsense, and something I think has been a casualty of the shift towards competitive play. The idea that a Warlord Titan can get cover because one of its toes is obscured by a barrel is ludicrous. The problem is that once you start to apply what seem to be reasonable thresholds (eg 50% obscured for a Vehicle or Monster to get cover, 75% obscured for a Titanic unit) then you immediately hit the problem of trying to work out when a model crosses that threshold, which is usually fine in casual play but pretty much guaranteed to cause issues in tournaments and slow the game down. The thing with getting cover because a model in the attacking unit that can't shoot at you (and may even not have a gun) can't see you is another one of these issues. Sure, it possibly cuts out some sneaky tricks, but when you try to explain it to someone you can literally see the light die in their eyes.

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It's a shame half this video will be ignored because so many people just want to play with the tournament house rule of first floor magic walls

0:51- I’m sorry but you know when even something as simple as “TERRAIN” is soooooooo complicated that it’s “tripping up players and needs its own video explaining it, then you are 100% doing something wrong!!! That or you really hate your customers and are trying to piss them off!!!

Why bother, you only need to know the rules for ruins

My guy, get some sleep

Terrain is just basic terrain to me. These rules imo just bloat the game

Brother is out of ideas 😔