> At 5:52 AM -0800 2/22/99, Christopher Pratt wrote:
It's been my experience that terrain is a Good Thing in miniatures games. More
terrain = better gameplay. This particular epiphany came about after a few
Space Marine games with sparse terrain; I then played an Advanced Squad Leader
game and was struck by the dense nature of the terrain on the ASL maps. Our
next SM game (there's an apropro acronym) featured about three times as many
terrain features and was a lot more fun to play.
Maserati's first rule of wargaming: when in doubt, you don't have enough
terrain set out.
Heck, we had a good game of 40K with nothing more than cardboard cutouts for
walls (a lightbulb box broken down) and my bottles of paint for equipment and
such all representing a factory. No lines of sight longer than about 6",
worked great.
Even a simple game like De Bellis Antiquitatis benefits greatly from
terrain. An average game takes 60-90 minutes (100 Year's War usually
runs shorter). I ran a demo game at Games of Berkeley. I set two experienced
players at each other on a complex array of hills and streams that took over
two hours to play and left both players nearly exhausted from the mental
strain of maneuvering in my maze.
> Michael Carter Llaneza
ROFL!
> Michael Llaneza <maserati@centurion.flash.net> wrote:
Yes. I found the same thing happens in DSII. I've played one battle with WRG
rules, and then over the same terrain using DSII some time ago. The DSII game
seemed to need far more terrain than the WRG one did to make it more
interesting. So now we cover the table with dozens of bits of terrain, using
at least four roads, 1 or 2 rivers, bridges as appropriate, 2-3
villages,
4-6 forests, 1-2 swamps, lots of hills, and so one in every game.
So if your game is boring, put more terrain on the table!
> On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Michael Llaneza wrote:
> It's been my experience that terrain is a Good Thing in miniatures
i'm not so sure. for small-scale games like SG2 and 40k, that's probably
true - cover is central to tactics in infantry actions, and especially
at that scale.
however, when you're fighting with massed armoured forces, a cluttered
table is just a pain, because it becomes very hard to get line-of-sight
over a decent range, and so tactics become very simple - basically,
they're a lot like close assault because you have to be so close to your
target. you lose the interplay of long-ranged soft-hitting weapons and
short-ranged hard-hitting ones. that sort of thing.
not that i'm advocating a billiard table. the sort of terrain i don't mind is
roads and rivers, as they don't block LOS, plus one or two woods, an urban
block and a hill or three. but no more! give the crunchies somewhere to play
at close range, but keep the field open for sweeping armoured maneuevers.
> This particular epiphany came
space marine doesn't work that well with sparse terrain because of the big
split between supercharged firepower units and close-range units. try
fighting a battle with only tactical infantry and medium tanks (leman russ
etc) and you'll see a different effect, i think.
> I then played
again, ASL is a small-scale game, where terrain is far more important.
> Even a simple game like De Bellis Antiquitatis benefits greatly from
and this is a *good* thing? :-)
Tom
All things in moderation, especially moderation...
> At 5:43 AM -0800 2/23/99, Thomas Anderson wrote:
According to both players and a half-dozen spectators, yes.