Gaming board animations/SFX

[Hammers]

I'll post this here since I am basing this poll on two toy train kits I got in Greece. They are of cheap Chinese make and I plan to use one of them for my NWF table (BoB). The other will most likely become a wreck terrain piece.

To the point: both locomotives comes with little mechanical and electronic SFX features, like an electrical motor, smoke emit item, sound effects and a flashing lights. I am going to salvage these but as I am at it and think about what to use them for (my dormant steamer project, keept them in the locomotive) I realize I am in very much in two minds about such things on the gaming table.

Flashing lighthouses, moving trains, windmills in motion... Does it really at to the milieu or or is it a cheap and childish break of compromise to a static setting where we have agreed that things change only in turn sequences.

(Back to the toy locomotive: I've got to hand it to the Chinese toy makers, the paraffin fed smoke stack made to puff regularly by a mechanical bellows is really intricately engineered in all its cheapness. I just wonder if it is suitable toy? But I suppose we wargamers have reasons to be thankful for unsuitable toys.)

[Westfalia Chris]

Difficult. While I generally like things that move, I agree that some quickly get irritating. I would stay away from noises and flashing (i.e. non-constant) lights. I think Akula built a marvellous Zombie hunt board which I've seen at several shows now, and while it is a grand piece of work, whenever I looked at it, the blinking and flashing lights quickly irked me.

The smoke would be another no-go, unless you can get odourless paraffin. If you really need it for dramatic effect, maybe dry ice would be the better option (I mean, having a Cloud City table with the bottom covered in ACTUAL clouds would be quite the looker, but it would probably get irritating, too).

I think that for our purposes, it would be best to have them either "static" (as in a not-too-bright light, for example for reactors, and have others "at the ready" to switch them on to enhance the game (for example, flashing lights when the players trigger an alert, or a (covered, for gamer finger safety) computer fan which turns on just as the players enter the ventilation shaft.

The rest, like rotating windmills etc., I would leave to the railway modelling crowd. They "need" it because their interaction with the layout is limited, and in that context, it is less of an irritation than a pleasant distraction from the uniformity of trains going round in circles.

Finally, consider that any non-essential electrics/electronics in a house with small kids can spell trouble quickly (unless you have the little Vikings suitably conditioned already).