Are you playing with enough terrain?

[DerBaer 1,223]

Cover 2 Barricades favor troopers, Rebels and Empire alike. Cover 1 Fences favor troopers, especially commandos and scouts, i.e. Rebels and Empire alike. Etc. And everyone has Troopers. That's good.

Terrain, that hinders movement but is clear for LOS, like a swamp, favors the Empire more than Rebels. That's not good.

[Ravncat 1,989]

1 hour ago, DerBaer said:

Cover 2 Barricades favor troopers, Rebels and Empire alike. Cover 1 Fences favor troopers, especially commandos and scouts, i.e. Rebels and Empire alike. Etc. And everyone has Troopers. That's good.

Terrain, that hinders movement but is clear for LOS, like a swamp, favors the Empire more than Rebels. That's not good.

Wouldnt that depend on how much there was?  As the rebels can just deploy around it if it's not a major portion of the board.

[DerBaer 1,223]

In Legion you need terrain that blocks or obscures LoS. Terrain, that doesn't do that is more or less like no terrain at all.

Edited June 28, 2018 by DerBaer

[DerBaer 1,223]

7 minutes ago, Ravncat said:

Wouldnt that depend on how much there was?  As the rebels can just deploy around it if it's not a major portion of the board.

So it is just a little bit unfair and not totally unfair?

[Ravncat 1,989]

26 minutes ago, DerBaer said:

So it is just a little bit unfair and not totally unfair?

But No terrain is "fair" right?  Rebel player could be running 2 speeders - the empire could be almost all ground troops, such terrain doesn't favor the empire here.   The advantage is list dependent, and either player can bring any list...  Now  I'll concede that in the current metagame rebels are less likely to be bringing t47s, and in a tournament world that relies on the metagame, an abundance of such terrain could have a detrimental effect on list building and metagame variety, which that could change with future releases...  

Nevertheless, The positioning of your starting troops in relation to the disadvantageous terrain can impact whether or not that terrain even matters - and that's true of LOS blocking terrain as well right?   I'm not sure that "fair or unfair" are particularly meaningful words here. What does a little bit unfair even mean?  I'm guessing totally unfair is per an extreme case, as there's likely a threshold for which certain types and amounts of terrain push the likelyhood of victory for one list over another far enough that the match is not worth playing, rendering the outcome is known in advance, and no  player decisions will affect that outcome.  Players generally dislike that kind of game.

But, all terrain will favor one kind of list over another, and, so long as such terrain can be mitigated with positioning, strategy and in game choices, bringing that terrain does not seem problematic to me. If the amount of any given terrain is in relation to that threshold, than as long as you bring less than the threshold amount - it should be an enjoyable game.  To me, it feels like you are suggesting that the threshold for that kind of terrain in legion is 0%.  (measured in %area of the board covered by said terrain)   I doubt that it's 0%, but I'd agree that 100% of such difficult but not LOS blocking terrain would be above the threshold,  but I don't have enough experience to suggest what percentage it would be.   Subjectively it's going to be different accounting for play-styles.  

For me - as i'm a casual legion player (perhaps even casual wargame player), I think variety in battlefields is a good thing to explore - and it doesn't make sense to entirely discount one form of terrain from play. Of course, i'm the kind of player that will bash my head in in magic vs a blue control deck over and over till I figure out how to outplay it, so i'm more likely than others to have fun with Sisyphean tasks.

Edited June 28, 2018 by Ravncat

[DerBaer 1,223]

1 hour ago, Ravncat said:

To me, it feels like you are suggesting that the threshold for that kind of terrain in legion is 0%.  (measured in %area of the board covered by said terrain) 

To make myself more clear, I was suggesting in an earlier post, that the 25% terrain suggested by the rules should be about an equal amount of blocking AND covering terrain. Only blocking terrain is not good, only covering terrain is not good. Terrain, that neither blocks nor covers LoS, should not be a part of these 25%.

[DerBaer 1,223]

1 hour ago, Ravncat said:

But No terrain is "fair" right? 

In my opinion terrain is fair, if you know what to expect. E.g. If you expect a mixture of terrain, take Environmental Gear on all of your troops and then there is only blocking terrain, that's not fair.

[Ravncat 1,989]

2 hours ago, DerBaer said:

To make myself more clear, I was suggesting in an earlier post, that the 25% terrain suggested by the rules should be about an equal amount of blocking AND covering terrain. Only blocking terrain is not good, only covering terrain is not good. Terrain, that neither blocks nor covers LoS, should not be a part of these 25%.

Then we are pretty much on the same page perhaps:)

 

[CaptainRocket 527]

15 hours ago, DerBaer said:

Terrain, that hinders movement but is clear for LOS, like a swamp, favors the Empire more than Rebels. That's not good.

I don't follow why you think so?

Also consider that terrain can be difficult for troopers but not vehicles, or even for classes of vehicles:

- Burning toxic waste swamp - Impassable for troopers, difficult for ground vehicles, no effect for repulsors

- Light crystal forest - no effect for troopers or ground vehicles, difficult for repulsors

12 hours ago, DerBaer said:

To make myself more clear, I was suggesting in an earlier post, that the 25% terrain suggested by the rules should be about an equal amount of blocking AND covering terrain. Only blocking terrain is not good, only covering terrain is not good. Terrain, that neither blocks nor covers LoS, should not be a part of these 25%.

If you are suggesting that difficult or impassable terrain should be in addition to the 25% of blocking and cover terrain, then we agree.

If you are suggesting that it should not be used, and only blocking and cover terrain should be used then we disagree. The majority of area terrain examples given in the rule book that indicate such terrain is desirable.

11 hours ago, DerBaer said:

In my opinion terrain is fair, if you know what to expect. E.g. If you expect a mixture of terrain, take Environmental Gear on all of your troops and then there is only blocking terrain, that's not fair.

What if you know to expect the unexpected?

That sounds flippant but I'm serious. If part of list building is considering that there is a non-zero chance you will encounter difficult terrain, or tall terrain, then you should consider how much you want to put in environmental gear or grappling hooks.

[DerBaer 1,223]

8 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

I don't follow why you think so?

Swamp or lake is usually difficult for troopers, difficult for ground vehicles, no effect for repulsors.

Snowtroopers ignore difficult terrain, Speeder Bikes are far more common than T47s, Vader ignores difficult terrain.

Edited June 29, 2018 by DerBaer

[TauntaunScout 4,276]

Publisher sanctioned tournament rules tend to encourage, or even require, the purchasing of expansions. So they would not be written to assume that core set models are the most common, with the faction-favoritism that would possibly be implied, by different types of terrain.

You still have to use your experience and judgement though. Real strict rules won't cover every situation to ensure fairness. Only counting LOS blocking/cover towards the 25% might be all well and good, but where you place it can matter an awful lot.

As others pointed out, in SW, there can be clear terrain that slows repulsorcraft, if you want there to be. Make a bunch of vaguely futuristic looking "mines". Scatter them around to describe a rough 12" circle. They project a force field that trips people and messes with repulsors. Half-movement. Or something like that.

Edited June 30, 2018 by TauntaunScout

[Albertese 159]

I played in my Legion league last night and set up the table with 25% terrain. I determined it by marking off one quarter of the board and filling that quarter up. In fact I didn't quite fill it up, I feel the total was closer to 20%.

An onlooker said "whoa, that's a lot of terrain" but after I explained my methodology he agreed it was correct, but was surprised at how dense 25% really is. 

The game itself  was awesome.  I had Vader with 3 units of speeder bikes and 4 units of stormtroopers (3 of which with DLT) and my opponent played a list with Veers, an AT-ST with Weiss, 1 speeder bike units and some trooper units.  The highlight became the destruction of the AT-ST. He kept the thing still and kept refreshing Weiss and hitting me with suppression spam.  A straffing run with my speeder bikes (heavily damaged in the process) softened it up, and then a few lightsaber throws  and plinking at it from long range behind cover with a DLT. He killed my Vader after having just one point left on the AT-ST which was taken by my DLT trooper the next activation. It was a thing of beauty. Of course the mission was recover supplies, which my opponent was not focused on and I  won 3 points to 1. Gotta play the mission, guys!