On page 6 of the tournament rules, there are rules for using existing 3D terrain. Our locals love this, and the store has plenty of suitable terrain, so we've been using these rules.

Many of the coolest terrain pieces we have are buildings. Unfortunately, I've found them very difficult to make appropriate rules for. The tournament rules are very vague on this subject: "The organizer should also assign each piece of terrain no more than two keywords based on its physical appearance, clearly labeling the terrain for the tournament. (Terrain keywords can be found in the “Terrain” section of the Runewars Miniatures Game Rules Reference.) The organizer may also need to set X values for these keywords." Looking at what keywords are available, it seems like a building should provide protection against both ranged and melee attacks; it should provide more cover than trees and at least as much fortification as a wall. So my first instinct is to set it at Cover 2, Fortified 1.

Unfortunately, this makes it really overpowered. We've tested buildings in that range, and if someone like a high-armor Hawthorne build with a Shield of Margath gets in there, there's no way to do anything to him. In a scenario like Bounty, where all the scenario points are on one model, this feels really bad for a tournament setting.

If I could make up a new terrain keyword for buildings, one that would be both flavorful and help with balance would be something along the lines of "Cavalry and Siege units cannot occupy this terrain, nor can units with a Heavy upgrade." This would represent only being able to get in through doors (as riding a horse into someone's house isn't happening, not to mention trying to get your Rune Golem in with you) but also disallow every powerful unit I can think of from ever entering and gaining the powerful advantage.

However, the tournament rules do not allow for this. For one thing, you can only use keywords from the book (so you can't even grant abilities that aren't keywords, like on many of the terrain pieces that have come out since the core set) and for another, even if this keyword existed, it would bring this terrain up to 3 keywords. Obviously if the locals are all cool with it, I could bend these rules for small tournaments here, but when we host store championships and (hopefully) regionals, I'll need to stick to the rules in the tournament pack.

So we're left with this; what keywords should we use for buildings? Or should we just avoid using them, even though they look great? Any thoughts?

You could just do "Cover 2" The rationale for dropping fortified would be that unlike a wall, doors and windows actually grant access to the building for enemies to storm and maybe some enemies are sneaking around the back or through the cellar... it's hard to watch all of the approaches to a building at once.

This solves the shield of Margath problem and provides an incentive to move melee troops up the board.

Alternatively, is there a negative keyword you could assign? Maybe the building is haunted by malevolent spirits? so you give it cover 1, fortified 1, and taxing 1 or 2? Or give it a new negative keyword altogether to represent the evil hauntedness, like Poltergeist 1: the occupying unit suffers 1 wound (not damage) every turn it occupies the building. That would also keep Hawthorne, cavalry, and siege units out of it, but still keep it attractive to infantry.

One other thought... maybe just make them so they can't be occupied, i.e., give them no capacity. Rationale could be because they are condemned or ruins or something. They still look great on the table and provide at least the same utility as a rock outcrop.

Cover 2 alone does make some sense, so I could probably get behind that. It takes a bit of suspension of disbelief to assume that being inside a building with only a few points of entry doesn't grant you a bonus to fight off people entering, but not so much to rule it out.

I like the negative keyword idea, but unfortunately it doesn't work, since the tournament rules say " no more than two keywords." Same with the new keyword idea, it specifically calls out the Rules Reference. Again, if I could do that, I'd just make them infantry-only with no heavy upgrades allowed.

The 0 capacity works for some (anything that looks sufficiently run-down to be called dangerous to enter) but many of the buildings we have look like they should be possible to enter.

Good points... maybe you need another keyword:

Garrisoned 1: A unit in Garrisoned terrain has + x armor

Then you can do Taxing or Haunted as a negative key word and stay within the two key word limit.

I also think that if you're hosting the tournament and just make people aware that there may be a 3rd key word for buildings, that will always be negative, they'll be able to cope with that without resorting to serious rules lawyering.

I think both making up keywords and playing with more than 2 keywords might work for a local tournament, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it at a regionals. And many of the locals here will likely want to use local tournaments as practice for regionals, so it's better to just stick with the rules as written for tournaments in general, at least for my crowd.

54 minutes ago, Zetan said:

I think both making up keywords and playing with more than 2 keywords might work for a local tournament, but I wouldn't feel comfortable doing it at a regionals. And many of the locals here will likely want to use local tournaments as practice for regionals, so it's better to just stick with the rules as written for tournaments in general, at least for my crowd.

Or hold special rules tournaments that are advertised as such.

There are some small format Armada tournaments that have interesting rules around.

I'd be not worried at all about making it beyond tested terrain (as we know those values work), and just roll with stuff we know. Terrain is just flavour anyway, so who cares if the house is analogous to a forest, it just looks different. Then you don't need to worry at all.