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Had a discusssion on the message forum of another popular game company in which people stated they wanted said company to start producing terrain items.

The discussion turned to the fact that some feel that it is better if said companies DON"T produce terrain kits.

The arguement being that It forces people to create their own and be creative.

One example cited and noted was that the Privateer press scene right now is like the GW scene in the late eighties to the mid-nineties in terms of terrain: lots of cool custom tables and terrain pieces are being built with blood, sweat and tears because there are no official kits to buy.

Reports/pics from a recent west coast warmachine con for example showed no two WM scenario tables looked alike, and had some awesome themes and builds, etc., etc. Pics of the GW events at same con showed the vast majority of tables to be covered with the GW kits and little else.

GW books, Games Days and so forth used to have this same spirit when it came to terrain.

Flash forward to today: GW makes a ton of pre-fab terrain and as a result you often see 40K tables that are carbon copies of each other due to being covered in these pre-made pieces and little else.

As much as I love the pre-fab plastic terrain kits GW produces I am torn because I miss the creative era of 40K terrain before GW saturated the market with all their snazzy new plastic kits.

Did we sort of swap creativity for convenience?

Thoughts?

Ready built terrain has been around for decades.

It is only that GW have fairly recently started to make "official" sets for their own games.

It takes a fair bit of skill and practice to make terrain, especially urban type sets

Ready made stuff, or easily adaptable stuff, is a good solution for people who don't have the time/skills to do it themselves.

It doesn't have to stop you from making your own.

A little from column A, a little from Column B. In some respects, it is a little disconcerting to see umpteen games being played on cloned realm of battle boards with the same cities of death terrain etc etc. And it is all too easy to wistfully hark back to a golden age when creativity was king and every game table was a gloriously sculpted and modelled delight. I remember the flipside; where tables where bodged and mangled horrors of polystyrene and flock, whose owners possessed neither the creative, artisitic or mechanical aptitude to craft such items. In my case - I suck badly at making terrain; I have a wallet and my personal choice is to buy such items because they are infinitely better than anything I could ever manage.

I like some pre-made terrain. It would be good if they made them more adaptable (in some cases), so that they can be put together in lots of different ways, meaning that one table will vary more from another.

For example, I would love to see a move towards making plastic necromunda/gorkamorka style modular buildings, with plastic bulkheads to lock together plastic walls and walkways.

You could paint it all up as individual pieces, seal it, and then build pretty much anything you wanted out of it every game

filbert wrote:A little from column A, a little from Column B. In some respects, it is a little disconcerting to see umpteen games being played on cloned realm of battle boards with the same cities of death terrain etc etc. And it is all too easy to wistfully hark back to a golden age when creativity was king and every game table was a gloriously sculpted and modelled delight. I remember the flipside; where tables where bodged and mangled horrors of polystyrene and flock, whose owners possessed neither the creative, artisitic or mechanical aptitude to craft such items. In my case - I suck badly at making terrain; I have a wallet and my personal choice is to buy such items because they are infinitely better than anything I could ever manage.

This, very very much this.

I remember one person's idea of a "masterfully built table" that he wanted to photograph people playing on to send it to GW.

For all intents and purposes? It was nothing more than random bits of cardboard with styrofoam spraypainted grey.

I'd FAR rather play on a "stock" table of a Realm of Battle board with the Aegis Defense Lines and Cities of Death ruins scattered about than even consider playing on one of the monstrosities of a poorly built "custom" table again.

filbert wrote:A little from column A, a little from Column B. In some respects, it is a little disconcerting to see umpteen games being played on cloned realm of battle boards with the same cities of death terrain etc etc. And it is all too easy to wistfully hark back to a golden age when creativity was king and every game table was a gloriously sculpted and modelled delight. I remember the flipside; where tables where bodged and mangled horrors of polystyrene and flock, whose owners possessed neither the creative, artisitic or mechanical aptitude to craft such items. In my case - I suck badly at making terrain; I have a wallet and my personal choice is to buy such items because they are infinitely better than anything I could ever manage.

This.

Also, there are plenty of people who *do* make terrain boards and terrain as a hobby and put it up for sale on commission, e-bay, elsewhere.

My terrain for my board at home:

1. Zuzzymat (http://www.zuzzy.com/) A 6x4 textured surface that you can dry-brush and have a fantastic gaming surface without wear and tear from hands, knuckles, models, terrain falling....the things that ding up a sculpted board made from insulation. Best $60 I ever spent.

2. A bunch of pieces of felt of different shapes and sizes. In a pinch, these serve as area terrain. Drop a tree on it and its forest. Explode a vehicle and a brown piece of felt goes where my vehicle was.

3. A hardened bunker that I bought from a guy who makes terrain, quite an assortment of trees (to put on my felt), a few homebuilt barriers, and a gunpit entrenchment type thing that I try keeping off the board because it looks awful. I don't have any buildings yet, but that's a case of painted foamboard with windows cut into it, some chopped up sprue serving as rubble...

I'd have to say I'm 100% happy with the fact that GW is making terrain kits.

Now, they could have fewer skulls on some of them, but other than that, I think it is great.

More terrain = a better game.

Anything that encourages having more terrain is a good thing.

I think it's great in that it opens up options.

The people want to scratch build still will, and those that either don't have the aptitude, or time, or for whatever reason, can now buy attractive looking terrain to fight over.

I can remember playing over some horrible terrain in the past, a lot of it my own attempts with foamcard and polystyrene, and I much prefer playing on a good looking table.

I'm kinda in the middle, in that I'm not hugely creative, but if I see something for inspiration I can generally get something looking the way I want, hence a lot of my foamcard stuff now is similar to the GW cities of death style stuff, which suits me perfectly, because I like urban battlefields. I suspect my collection will eventually be made up partly of both my own, and GW terrain, and that in itself is the best part of it, the fact that we can pick and choose how much, or how little, effort to put into it.

GW sell a book on how to make terrain.

SilverMK2 wrote:It would be good if they made them more adaptable (in some cases), so that they can be put together in lots of different ways, meaning that one table will vary more from another.

You gotta be joking, right?
The complete imperial sector box is customizable, the problem is that most people will blindly follow the assembly instructions regardless.

nostromo wrote:You gotta be joking, right?
The complete imperial sector box is customizable, the problem is that most people will blindly follow the assembly instructions regardless.

You might care to notice that I said "in some cases"

And I was also referring to inter-kit compatability and interchangable parts. Some of their kits are essentially single piece terrain.

SilverMK2 wrote:
Some of their kits are essentially single piece terrain.

Depends on your creativity. Some kits are a greater challenge in compatibility ( planetstrike terrain, Fortress of R. ).
Multipart kits tend to allow some changes to make them fit.

An able modeller may use a lot of different pieces from a wide range of sources for his terrain.
But some may follow the "manual" always to the letter and you'll see standard 08/15 builds.
At least, the amount of premade / pre-painted terrain is low enough to keep the unimaginative in the minority.

If the pre-fab parts didn't exist, I would never,EVER have gotten my Imperator started, let alone finished.

CT GAMER wrote:Did we sort of swap creativity for convenience?

It's a bit of both.

For a number of GW kits - the Cities of Death stuff chief among them - there has been no real loss of creativity. The things we've all seen done with those kits is simply breathtaking in some areas, and they are a joy to put together. Given their highly modular nature, they're all about creativity, and you can go as wild or as inside the box as you like when creating things from them. The Planetstrike stuff less so, but even that has a bit of leeway as to what's possible with it. For the more mundane items - trees, hills, etc. - well a trees a tree and a hills a hill. Whether you make it buy hand or buy it in a bag, at no point are you losing all that much creativity because what's creative about a hill? Furthermore it's not like GW are the only people who make pre-flocked hills (in fact, a lot of companies make better hills).

Where we have sacrificed creativity for convenience is with the single greatest terrain tragedy to ever be released by GW - the Realm of Battle Board. This thing is the opposite of creativity because it actually limits what you can do. Those hills are always stuck in the same spot. There are only ever going to be so many combinations of tiles. Nothing can be done with that kit to make it creative beyond how you paint it - and if you're converting it, then why did you buy it in the first place? For the same price you could have made 2-3 boards of better quality and been more creative.

I love making terrain - I once spent 3 days building a city out of thick card-stock, PVA glue and a lot of paint for a 6X8 table that we used in one game. I didn't mind because I had loads of fun making the buildings. And now with the CoD stuff, it's even more fun. But the Realm of Lack of Imagination is an anathema to me. And, worse, it's appearing everywhere - hardly a shot in WD doesn't include it these days, and so many BatReps here are being ruined by its presence. With the ROBB we have sacrificed creativity for convenience (and even then, what's convenient about paying a stupidly high price for a not-so-modular board?).

Terrain Kits = Profit

That is all.

Like many others, I'm split on the issue. On the one hand, I think that the availability of GW kits has put good terrain in reach of everyone. It has raised the general standard for what tabletop terrain should aspire to. Also, the GW kits are goldmines for those who like to kitbash, and in GW's defense, I have both editions of GW's "How to Build Wargames Terrain" and they definitley encourage a DIY asthetic.

On the other hand, it has definitley made for alot of nearly identical pieces of terrain. Also, I have no doubt that it has encouraged many folks who otherwise would have tried something unique to simply buy GW buildings for the ease of assembly.

Lastly, as relates to battlefield diversity, the Realm of Battle board is an atrocity. No doubt it looks good, but no single product has ever done so much to make so many battlefields so similar.

I think pre made terrain is great, personnaly with a wife, kids, dogs and a job I don't have time to make terrain as well as paint my minatures and play with them so pre made terrain is awesome all I have to do is paint it.

For those that still want to be creative there is absolutely nothing stopping you. But for those of us that don't have the time it is not that easy.

GW terrain has been a godsend.

Yes, its overpriced for what it is, but that's hardly new to anyone (its GW after all). What it does mean is that every battlefield is now becoming passable. Its very rare today that you see the abominations that used to pass for terrain - and I should know, I created a few...

Great boards will still be made by those with the time and inclination to do so and that will always be true, no matter what the various gaming companies produce. At least now even the least talented can have something that doesn't look like the dog chewed it up and left it on the table before you played...

Commenting about the Realm of Battle Board:

While yes, it's a very easily recognizable and standard piece of equipment, it's also very understandable why it's gone into so many battle reports and the like.

Easy storage, modular design, etc means that GW's design studio and break room can support(and store) multiples of them.

I see no real issue with that, even if they don't fill in the skull pits.

I love the GW forests, I have to say. Removable trees, looks nice, winter or summer foliage...awesome. I also like the premade walls and so on.
Cities of Death is good, could have been better with less skulls. It's certainly good to have a rough standard for gaming.
That's my favourite thing about both of those: They're designed with gaming in mind! The planetstrike stuff looks cool, a little bit less gaming friendly but still good.
I didn't like the Fantasy buildings when they came out, but they've grown on me.
PP do terrain too, you know!
I would never buy a RoB, but I don't detest it's existance, either.

Pegasus stuff is just as nice, and in most cases cheaper than the Gothic stuff GW makes now. Also I think GW is about 10 years to late with all this terrain they're making now days. Fact is, most gaming enthusiasts know how to make thier own terrain now, from years of being forced to make it, instead of buying it.

The stuff GW, Pegasus, and others make are more ideal for the gamer who wants a nice table for in the house to play on, that they can take apart and put away when thier done playing with ease. That aside, I don't think it's worth buying.

I think the GW terrain does look cool, though I don't liek the ROB board, as it seems overly restrictive. I don't really have any terrain at the moment, but I intend to ransack home depot for various bits that would make nice domed cities and Tau themed buildings, as all the GW terrain is very much Imperial in nature*, or Imperial with spiky bits. A game between xenos armies such as Tau vs. Tyranids wouldn't take place on such a backdrop. Once I finally get enough of my armies painted to gaming standard, I fully intend to fabricate a winter-themed Tau equivaent of most of the official GW terrain (I'll likely crib the measurements from somewhere...)



* Yes, yes, aside from the Ork barricades

Keep in mind that the range will expand. While at the moment there may be a lot of very similar tables, as the terrain range expands with time, the variety will creep back in.

And frankly, I don't think it kills of the creativity. Those who enjoy and are good at building terrain will still do so... but maybe this trend will result in a few less tables of random spray-painted foam shapes.

Plus, there's a great fluff-based reason that they started with Imperial kits.

Humanity has settled(at least once--even if it didn't last) on the vast majority of planets. So there's a fantastic reason to have the potential for ruins all over the 40k universe.

I like the kits, they give me something to work with in creating a board. I'm not, nor do I have the time, to be a great terrain builder.

For example I have an Earthshaker emplacement from FW: I removed the Earthshaker, put up some antennas and used bits from the Rhino and Land Raider interiors for computer monitors as the basis of a comm center. I'll be working in cables wired everywhere, including to the portable power generator that runs it. It's a nice piece of terrain I'd not have had the time or skill to start from scratch. It'll become part of a Vietnam style firebase for my Imperial Guard when I get out of the barracks.

As always with GW they have taken some ideas from other people (modular buildings and detailing like the barricades) and done a great job with them.

OTOH they've ignored some great ideas from other people (modular board sections and hills) and done a crappy job with them.

I'm for it. People will put as much effort into their terrain as they are able/willing. If that means half a bottle of superglue and a quick drybrushing, would you rather it be done to a prefab GW ruined building or a cardboard box that got into a fight with a hole punch? For some, it's the only way to get a decent looking board. For others, it's yet another building material to be incorporated into custom pieces (and it's a whole lot sexier than cardboard). You wouldn't knock plasticard if half of the wargaming population started using it only to build boxes. A lack of any sort of prefab kits wouldn't force creativity, it would force the uncreative to use cardboard boxes instead of molded plastic.