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Author Topic: Examples of tables/terrain setups?  (Read 1439 times)

Offline StreetBushido

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 62
Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« on: March 05, 2018, 08:03:34 AM »
My (limited) understanding of a lot of skirmish games like Frostgrave, Malifaux, Infinity and Necromunda is that they work best with fairly dense terrain setups. You want a lot of stuff going on to break up line of sight; offer different approaches; offer cover; and to include some verticality.

And yet, from my (again, limited) reading of a few skirmish rulesets, I find that the reader is offered quite limited advice on how to set up their tables. You're often just given some kind of percentage of coverage: "at least 70% of the table should be covered by some kind of terrain" for example.

I've tried googling the topic with fairly limited results. But I haven't really dug into it yet.

Are there any good resources for examples of good and playable terrain setups for various skirmish games out there?

Offline kuba

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 72
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #1 on: March 05, 2018, 11:49:45 AM »
Infinity rules provide a section with rules about how the terrain should be placed and what ammount of terrain should be on the table.
Also from what I've heard a fan made version of Warhammer Fantasy Battles -the 9th age- has some strict terrain rules with allowed dimensions of each terrain piece and set number of pieces for each scenario.
Those are only two examples I know about, I guess if the rules are written for a game that is suited for competitve tournament play then terrain rules should be written in more strict way, but it's not the case of every miniature game -as with role playing games, there is different approach to writing rules in, let's say D&D with it's combat centric mechanics and different in more narrative rulesets like Call of Cthulhu, where while still possible for players to fight, rules don't specifiy as much combat details.

Also, some rulestes don't specify strictly what terrain should be used in what way, as for one player it's enough to buy ready MDF building, while others will scratchbuild terrain in various degrees of playability, from realistic dioramas to simple yet practical models.

Offline LeadAsbestos

  • Scatterbrained Genius
  • Posts: 3041
    • When the Hurlyburly's Done...
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #2 on: March 05, 2018, 11:33:46 PM »
Depends on what you are playing, really.  Use your imagination, and set up a scene, and the details should dictate how it plays, ie Frostgrave, a ruined city, covered in snow, collapsed walls, some trees, statues, a tower or a partially collapsed building. Mines of Moria, walls, shafts, a precarious bridge, a burial chamber. Storm the beach at Troy, some dunes, an outcrop of rocks, a pallisade, maybe a Temple...


Offline Randell

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 66
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #3 on: March 06, 2018, 12:02:23 AM »
just google Frostgrave AAR's/Batreps including youtube, plenty of blogs and video's with examples.  As teh rules suggest on a standard 3x3 table, break up any LoS that is more than 24" long.

Offline Bloggard

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  • Posts: 3458
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #4 on: March 06, 2018, 08:43:04 AM »
I think it would be nice if these rule-sets came with some sample scenarios extensively illustrated, but in practice one imagines a balance would need to be struck:

a) with something like Ghost Archipelago, the author explicitly doesn't want his rule-set to be prescriptive and with a very well illustrated set of scenarios the likelihood is that many players would go no further than replicating those examples scatter-stand for scatter-stand.
I suppose there's nothing wrong with that tho'.

b) by the same token, if the illustrations were done to diorama standard (something which on one hand I'd quite like, going back to the peter gilder helmed osprey books of the 1970s) there's the possibility it would put people 'off', thinking they couldn't manage the same standard, but 'needed' to in order to be playing the game correctly...

ultimately I imagine there's no subsitute for experimentation with one's own table and available terrain.
« Last Edit: March 06, 2018, 08:55:16 AM by Bloggard »

Offline StreetBushido

  • Bookworm
  • Posts: 62
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #5 on: March 06, 2018, 11:53:58 AM »
Thanks for the replies!

It simply seems that at the end of the day, this is the type of thing that you can only figure out in practice.

Offline Jerekin

  • Assistant
  • Posts: 45
Re: Examples of tables/terrain setups?
« Reply #6 on: March 06, 2018, 12:15:45 PM »
Quote
It simply seems that at the end of the day, this is the type of thing that you can only figure out in practice.


I didn't read the rules (yet), but I'd say it depends on how literal they mean it with their percentage (if they should have one). I can remember from my GW Days, in some books was a two step how to. They stuffed a fracture of the table according the  recommended percentage with a good mix of different types of terrain in the first pic and then in the second they spread it out distributing it evenly over all the table. That used to be my approach and so far I was able to find some percental density recommendation from fans online for every system I played.

Maybe just playin' captain obvious here.