Here are the Legions Imperialis terrain rules, which are vital to how the game will actually play out on the tabletop!
If you’ve patiently waited for Epic Warhammer 40k to return, it’s being rebranded in the Horus Heresy era as Legions Imperialis. While we’ve seen plenty of the miniatures in the starter box, it’s always nice to get more details of how the game will play out on the tabletop.
GW announced the game will be pushed back some, but this gives us some more time to decide on the game by looking at the rules! If you want to see some of the core rules, you can check those out here. Let’s jump into the new terrain rules.
Master Your Battlefield With These Terrain Rules for Legions Imperialis
The new terrain rules for Legions Imperialis come from Warhammer Community.
The most obvious benefit of parking your Legions in areas of terrain is to protect them from enemy attack, as concrete walls and manufactorum pipes resist boltgun rounds a good deal better than your average Solar Auxilia trooper. Even scattered debris and craters offer some measure of protection in the form of a Cover Save – a special kind of save that isn’t modified by a weapon’s Armour Penetration value, so even Titan-killing super lasers might fail to vaporise their target.
Well, like all their games, terrain will play a big role on the tabletop. There are several different types for cover, but some can even hurt your units for going through it.
Of course, not all terrain is created equal. Difficult terrain, for example, imparts a 6+ cover save and -1 to hit modifier to those inside, but it also obliges all detachments besides Infantry and Walkers to move at half speed. Obstructing terrain – often composed of larger ruins and forests – instead grants a 5+ cover save and the same hit modifier, and even affects Titans, but it hampers visibility even more. If you’re hoping to shoot through it at something on the other side, think again.
Difficult Terrain will help your units stay alive. Plus, walkers and infantry don’t get any movement penalties, so it’s perfect to protect them. Obstructing terrain gives you a 5+ save and blocks line of sight, so be sure to use plenty of this to actually cut out some firing lanes.
Dangerous terrain is a tricky prospect, as detachments can take damage just by attempting to move through it. Each 1” of movement through these xenos-infested hives, burning promethium pools, and treacherous minefield deals an automatic hit to troopers and Titans alike. That damage can quickly rack up.
Enemy units still get a -1 to hit modifier when shooting at you, so it’s not all doom and gloom, but the terrain itself might end up doing more damage to you anyway. Just watch your step, and consider bypassing it entirely with your aerial assets.
You don’t want to go through Dangerous Terrain unless you have to, as it doesn’t do much for cover and gives you a bunch of potential damage.
Structure Rules
Outside of area terrain, structures also play a big part in the epic-scale battles of Legions Imperialis. These are particularly large and durable buildings that can be garrisoned by Infantry to protect them from incoming fire, with excellent Cover Saves sometimes reaching 3+. They also grant even stronger penalties to hit when shooting at detachments inside, and help their occupants fight off enemies in close assaults.
Unlike regular terrain, however, these structures can themselves be attacked and brought tumbling down, and being inside a collapsing building is perilous indeed. The entire area becomes difficult terrain and everyone inside takes an automatic AP -1 hit, with any model that fails their save destroyed instantly. Hard luck.
The structures grant incredible saves and debuffs for shooting at units inside; however, they can be destroyed and damage the units inside.
GW also released more information about terrain a while ago, which you can check out below.
Games Workshop Reveals New Tiny Terrain For Legions Imperialis
The latest details on Epic-scale terrain for Legions Imperialis come from Warhammer Community.
Let’s start with the new. The Civitas Imperialis City Road Tiles are fully sculpted, finely detailed plastic tiles that will transform a bare table into an immersive urban environment. These 12×12″ squares fit together neatly to build Legions Imperialis battlefields for any game size.
Each pack contains two straight roads, two T-junctions, and two crossroads, giving you plenty of different ways to arrange diverse road layouts. Combined with your other urban terrain, you can set up whole cities packed with deadly intersections, exposed highways, and very literal dead-end turns.
Plastic tiles can be cool to play on, as they can help build an immersive table. If you want to play on a mat, you still could, but this looks to add some real depth to your games.
Naturally, you’ll need some buildings to populate these boards, starting with the new plastic Civitas Imperialis Ruins. These impressively modular pieces can be combined in loads of different ways, allowing you to adorn your city with piles of scattered rubble, the broken husks of entire wrecked buildings, or lonely crumbling walls now used as barricades. What’s more, they make for some great basing detail for your Titans.
Ruins are a staple in every Warhammer game, so why would LI be different? All Games Workshop’s ruin sets are generally modular, and it looks like these ones will be too!
Of course, to get ruins you first need buildings – and the ultra-modular Civitas Imperialis terrain is perfect for the job of creating a battlefield that has yet to be smashed by Titan-scale munitions. These beautiful gothic domiciles (rereleased from Adeptus Titanicus) can be assembled however you wish, with thousands of different configurations, building anything from modest urban sprawl to cloud-breaking towers.
These come in two kits – structures and spires – so you can tailor the architecture to your exact tastes.
It’s not all just ruins, though; you can build some pretty immaculate cities to fight over as well!
When battles rage around more industrial locales, a box or two of the rereleased Manufactorum Imperialis terrain will add a wide assortment of pipes, storage tanks, machinery, and all sorts of hazardous extras to your table. The legendary Munitorum Armoured Container even makes an appearance, and loses none of its pizzazz in the miniaturisation process.
The industrial terrain pieces within are just as modular as their civilian counterparts, allowing you to stack, divide, arrange, and combine structures in so many different ways you’d need a Tech-Priest to keep track.
With such wide-ranging battles, you can also fight over some great-looking industrial areas ported over from AT.
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About the Author: Travis Pasch
Travis Pasch
Job Title: Head Writer & Editor
Socials: @paschbass
About Travis Pasch: Travis has been a Warhammer 40k hobbyist since the 1990s, playing the game since Third Edition. Through extensive traveling, he’s seen a lot of the miniatures hobby from across the world, giving him a unique perspective on the latest gaming topics and trends.
Travis’s brother even owns a commission painting studio, where he’s picked up a lot of good advice and techniques for painting Warhammer and tabletop miniatures over the years, as well. Travis joined the Spikey Bits team in 2019 and has been the lead writer since 2020.
Currently, he’s working on converting all his 40k Adeptus Mechanicus models and becoming a true tech enjoyer, complete with both sad and happy robot noises!
