The new edition of Warhammer Age of Sigmar reworks, tweaks, and updates all sorts of rules. Everything from how warscrolls look, to how you fight battles, and how wizards and priests conjure magic and invoke their deities has changed. The terrain that decorates your battlefields has also changed, making them easier to include and play around in your games.
You’ll find conditions for visibility and moving over terrain in the core rules, and it’s all simple and intuitive: models can clamber and vault over terrain features that are 1" or less in height with no penalty at all. Any move over terrain taller than 1" must count the vertical distance as part of their move. Units and models can no longer finish a move mid-climb, but they can now choose to jump down from terrain instead of climbing, landing on a lower level or on the floor. This ends the move.
Any model, from the lowest Clanrat to the most imposing Reclusian, can hide from another’s line of sight by hunkering down behind terrain. This is important for combat range because you’re only in combat if you’re both within combat range and visible to an opponent – you cannot charge units lurking behind solid walls.
The Terrain Advanced Rules module features more in-depth rules, including a table with the five universal abilities that define what your scenery pieces do in games.
This is greatly simplified from the previous system, and focuses on clear codification that’s fair for both players. Cover offers your units a modicum of protection unless they’re fresh off a charge or flapping around in the air – and there’s no restriction on how far behind a piece of intervening terrain a unit needs to be to benefit.
Impassable and Obscuring terrain presents challenges for movement and visibility on the battlefield, while Unstable terrain is commonly applied to anything from ruins to debris. You may clamber over it to reposition – but you can’t end a move on it, so you don’t need to worry about trying to balance your miniatures on irregular terrain. You may however end your move on sections of the terrain that are under 1” tall.
Places of Power provide an action that lets your HEROES tap into arcane energies, unlocking their casting, chanting, dispelling, and banishing potential – at the risk of being overwhelmed by energy and suffering mortal damage.
The Core Rules and General’s Handbook both contain a Citadel Terrain List, which includes a list of terrain features old and new, with associated terrain type, size, and the number of pieces each feature should consist of.
Combined with the optional terrain maps on each battleplan, these rules ensure that you know exactly what your warriors are standing on and fighting over in each battle.
Unlike Faction Terrain, which can be targeted and destroyed, regular scenery pieces are indestructible, so you will always have to factor them in as you manoeuvre around the battlefield while you contend for objectives.
There may be some cases where a unit has barricaded themselves upon a terrain feature to secure line of sight with their ranged weapons, or simply to provoke the enemy with taunts (we’re looking at the Gloomspite Gitz here). Even if there is no room for your unit to get up there too, you’ll still be able to charge them so long as you end with ½" of the terrain feature instead.*
Tomorrow we’ll be taking a brief detour into the Mortal Realms themselves with a fantastic primer on how the regular folk in the Age of Sigmar understand the bizarre cosmology they live within, and next week we’ll be revealing absolutely everything that comes in the launch box at the Mortal Realms Reforged event broadcast from the US Open at Dallas, TX.
* Keep in mind that in these edge-case scenarios you still need to finish a charge in combat with that enemy unit (within 3").