Terrain is such an important element of table top gaming.
When we first started Objective Secured we said that we wanted to raise the bar as far as tables, terrain and boards at events. Unlike me, I’m going to digress slightly. The first event that I helped out with was an Outpost 6030 South event in probably 2003 when Mike was Chairperson of the club. The boards were heavy chip board so they were strong and sturdy and we painted them with cheap green fence paint and rollers in his driveway and splayed a paintbrush with a darker green to add ‘texture and interest’. The terrain wasn’t quite made out of toilet rolls but it wasn’t too far off. We thought we had done an amazing job. So the 2003 bar we had set was pretty low for us to lift in 2015 for our first event.
I wasn’t involved in creating terrain for the 2015 event because that was back in the days when this was Mike’s thing and I was having little to no involvement. Oh how things have changed! We now buy the thin boards so they don’t break our backs to carry, there isn’t a rollered green board in sight and our terrain still isn’t made from toilet roll holders but I am well and truly involved in making/building/painting/repairing it!
Early terrain before we started Objective Secured
The purpose of terrain
I should probably admit now that up until VERY recently I didn’t really know the purpose of terrain other than line of sight blocking and to make the board look interesting. Looking at a bare green table does not add a ‘wow’ factor to any game. I think when I talked about raising the bar I was thinking of it more from a wow factor than the actual purpose of the terrain in the game.
What I am realising is that I am not sure that a lot of the gamers (ok, maybe not a lot, but definitely some) who come to our events understand the impact that terrain can have on a game either.
How a board is put together, how much terrain is on the board, the density of the terrain, the layout etc all impacts and influences how a game is played.
Strategy
I talk quite a lot about the strategy that goes into gaming and (sweeping generalisation) what I see is that newer players tend to be barge and charge style players. They push in and try and shoot as many of their opponents models as possible with very little thought to the nuances of the game. More experienced players tend to think about the strategy a little more. When that comes to terrain they are looking at how they can use the terrain to make best decisions. Can they cut their opponent off, can they force them to split up to defeat and conquer, how can they make sense of the board and use it to their advantage.
How does terrain impact a game.
The short answer to that question is ‘drastically’. The long answer is really long and I’m not adequately qualified to answer that question, nor do I have enough time to write a decent article about it in the lead up to Southern Hemisphere Open.
So if I’m not going to answer the question, why did I start the article. Well, I saw that Georg from This Way Madness Lays post about the panel he, Steve from Onyx Workshop and Mike from Objective Secured will be running at Southern Hemisphere Open on Saturday afternoon and it made me think about terrain. I thought I would share a couple of bits of information that they shared with me when they were planning the panel that made me think about terrain differently. While it would be great if you could come and hear what they have to say, maybe these points will give you something to think about when you are building terrain or setting up the board next time.
Georg
Georg will be looking at how to make sense of terrain. How does it impact the game. If you have long stretches of open board how does that impact the movement of an army vs how kill boxes can be created with terrain and how they can be used by gamers when you recognise one on a table. How scatter terrain can interrupt the flow of a units movement. Georg likes boards with dense terrain. I’m not sure if I can emphasise that enough dense terrain. There is lots of it. How does the density of terrain impact a game. For example how do you overcome it if the board is so densely packed that your knights or tanks physically can’t move? What impact does this have on a game?
Steve
Steve will be talking about how you can use terrain to make sense of the story. How the terrain and the models work together to create that story. Steve will talk about the importance of theme. When I set up boards for events I create whole back stories for the boards. I set them up to ‘make sense’ i.e. if I have 6 ruins of buildings then I will put them together because in cities that is what happens, buildings are grouped together. If there is a broken water pipe I will place it so that it runs in a line that makes sense. If I am putting terrain on a city board and there are roads marked then the buildings go on right angles to the road. How many cities have you been in where the buildings are on a 40 degree angle? It has to make sense to me. I’ll use scatter terrain to create blockages in the roads so there aren’t clear paths for units but I put the buildings where it makes sense that there would be a building.
One of the other things that Steve talked about was whether or not the terrain should be symmetrical. One of the advantages of getting to choose which side of the board you want to start from is that you get to assess the terrain and decide which side of the board is most advantageous to you. If you are working on a board and the terrain is symmetrical then what advantage are you getting by choosing which side you start from?
Mike
Mike will be talking about terrain from a TO perspective. How does the terrain impact play if you are playing corner to corner, long edge to long, short edge to short. Having 33% of the board covered, 50% of that being line of sight blocking. How does the terrain placement impact event play?
Making terrain
I think that when it comes to gaming there are some systems where terrain is a thing of pride and there are some systems where gamers would rather spend their money on models than terrain. Regardless of your view on terrain, I have never once met anyone that didn’t think that terrain played a big part in the game.
At the risk of sounding like a nanna and getting on a soap box, years ago, when you wanted terrain you needed to make it yourself. It is amazing what you can do with a pringles can, baby formula tin and a cereal box! I also took one for the team and ate a tray or two (or many) of custard tarts so we could make bunkers and blast crater terrain from the foil pie holders (honestly the lengths I go to for this hobby!). Now with many game system designers coming out with their own terrain and with 3d printed terrain from places like OTP terrain or MDF terrain from places like Amazing Forge (both of who will be at SHO and Tactics will have a range of terrain on sale as well) we aren’t having to make terrain. I have a real issue with skills not being passed down. These amazing new options are great for terrain but people aren’t learning how to make terrain any more.
Workshops
Terrain is an aspect of the hobby that I really enjoy and I am really happy that we have Georg running two workshops on Sunday at SHO on DIY terrain making as well. The two workshops can be stand alone or you can do both and if you do both you will effectively have a full table of terrain. It’s a great way to get yourself not only the skills to make terrain but also get yourself an affordable table of terrain that can be used for just about any gaming system! We will also have Ghislaine running a workshop on painting terrain which is another great one to attend.
