Bloggers are a strange creature. Inevitably, we're only interested in the new... what's the newest post? What's the latest thing? Admit it, how often do you jump into a blog and dig around the older material?
Not often, I'll wager. It's why I've taken to recycling old posts. I chose this one since I'm considering an article for Bell that looks at terrain in detail, both in private and tournament games. I've touched on it briefly before...
Original Article: Terrain, Too Much or Too Little, December 2009 (link)
When I'm surfing the net, checking out the various sites on the ol' blogosphere, I'm often surprised by the terrain I see in the pictures. It runs the gamut, of course, but I have to say I think most people play with less than 25% terrain. Too me, this is the most cogent argument for the lack of a national meta-game: bottom line, the game plays much differently if you're rewarding gunlines with stadium-style setups or melee-shock with dense, large buildings.
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| So what's an adequate amount of terrain? Here's the board I set up two Fridays ago; if you're curious, it's two 4x4 boards, which is our standard at 1000pts. This is my 'We-Need-Trees-Damn-It' terrain. |
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| The other side. The trees are movable, allowing us to use the piece as area terrain without inhibiting model movement. |
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| Here's Gauthic setting up his Dark Eldar Pirates. He's converting the entire army, creating a nautical theme that I really enjoy. What's coolest is his magnet work - everything is done up, including the troops that ride the sideboard. |
As an aside, if you have any pictures representative of the terrain in your area handy, shoot them to me in an email brent@strictlyaverage.com - keep in mind, I plan to use whatever I get.
25% terrain is a very good amount. Based on what is considered terrain, you can have some thematic battlefields. One thing i have noticed is the use on of BIG piece then tiny pieces to fill in the board. One annoyance though is the lack of hills and los-altering pieces of terrain are used. Currently is seems 40k is the world of ruins.
ReplyDeleteI personally like the battlefield posted.
You can pretty much attribute the "world of ruins" to GWs Cities of Death terrain. They are great kits that are extremely easy to use. That allows almost anyone to make some good looking terrain for what is really not a ton of money. For those who don't want to spend on that or prefer to make their own, ruins offer an easy out to accomplish that.
ReplyDeletePlus the CoD supplement was awesome! Tons of fun to play and pretty much required ruined buildings.
ReplyDeleteCoD was awesome and I was pleased at how many of its rulings made it into 5th edition.
ReplyDeleteI think another issue with hills is the scale thing; it always bothers me to see a hill that's shorter than most trees, and so I've consciously avoided making any for my tables until fairly recently. Even now, mine are all built to sit on corners - the lower edges of off-table features.
I have some pictures. You want them emailed?
ReplyDeletePlease!
ReplyDeleteI would like better pictures of that Dark Eldar Brent. They look pretty cool from far away.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty lucky really, terrain around here is superb. Finding a good balance for terrain is something I've found quite hard I always seem to try to make everything symmetrical (OCD much?). Theming a board, making it pretty AND making if fair is tough.
ReplyDelete