15mm WW2 - Why So Ugly?

[Bowman]

I'm primarily a 28mm war gamer, so please bear with me, as I make a counter argument. I never use terrain tables as shown in the wonderful work from the link above.

I'm interested in many different eras and have many different armies. I'll simply use an appropriate looking mat for sandy or grassy fields and simply add forests, roads, hills and dwellings on top of the mat. That may require a little more suspension of disbelief than a dedicated terrain table, but it has some advantages.

The biggest disadvantage to 28mm Wargaming is storage of terrain elements. Therefore, most of my houses, roads and others have to do multiple duties, say from the ECW all the way to WW2. Plus, a static terrain table will always have the same features, in exactly the same places. That's fine for a beautiful "one off" game at a convention but it is rather impractical for home. I have no place to put a terrain table like that one Redzed linked to, even if it is for 6mm.

I'm afraid practicality, versatility and storage considerations will always trump a beautiful dedicated terrain table for me. It's a compromise I can live with.

[V]

Practicality doesnt have to be a compromise... None of my tables are 'static' all are just built from a mat over the table upwards;











The only game I have done recently that didnt use a mat was our demo at Bovvy that use some basic green flocked tiles...




I think all scales can be made to look good, its just about making the best use of what you have and investing some time and effort into your scenery.

[Elbows]

I'd say it's down to the same reason most Warhammer 40K and War Machine tables look like complete ass: tournament play.

I have some pictures of my buddy's 15mm table from Battle Group Kursk here:





Simple felt with nice terrain laid out.  Quite nice looking table, though I didn't get enough pictures of it.

I think with the FOW crowd you're going to have more people who are worried about points values, performance per point, and the actual objective of winning the game.  This is one reason I do my best to keep far away from any game which has "points values".  I'll take a historical objective or an out-numbered last stand scenario any day.

You should see the "tournament" tables at some conventions, littered with tree bark and aquarium plants etc.  It would drive me absolutely batty to game on something like that.  So, I'd argue it's likely an end result of tournament gaming.  I know I've played FOW on some beautiful tables, but we always just created a scenario and played it as opposed to competing armies which were calculated out before hand.

[Landsknecht]

Here's some of the 15mm scale terrain I've built.

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=48131.0

[fastolfrus]

Our 15mm terrain tends to be very plain and functional, but can be quite extensive:

http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=11923.0

Playing PBI rather than FoW we use green cloths for a 4' x 4' table, but the Arnhem layout featured 10 tables in a row. Stalingrad features 15 in a sort of square layout.