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Ok imagine this: you and your friend(s) are going to play a wargame such as WHFB or 40K. Sadly your local FLGS/GW is closed/full. Do you throw down on a dining table with books, legos, cups, etc. as "terrain" or do you decide to play another day where you can use a gameing table with real terrain? I'm wondering what Dakka thinks of this.

Edit:
I understand many people have actual terrain at home I was just wondering what you guys thought about stuff like insaniak mentioned in that paragraph thar below.

I have a pretty extensive collection of scenery at home, so not really an issue...

Although we did have a series of Necromunda games many years back, while I was still building up my Necrumunda scenery, that was on a coffee table full of mixed scenery and whatever we could scrounge from around the house. Catwalks made from rulers and strips of cardboard cut up on the spot. 'Buildings' made from stacks of CD cases and books. Various cans pulled from the pantry and scattered around... if you ignored what everything looked like, it was actually a pretty awesome Necro table...

I too have a fair amount of proper terrain. If necessary I would improvise terrain with books, boxes and so on.

It always comes back to books under a gaming mat or green cloth.

I have access to a lot of scenery but I still play with books, blocks of wood, boxes etc.

I like quality scenics and scenery to enhance gameplay but anyone who gets a bee in their bonnet and needs 'realism' really needs to take along hard look at their plastic army men.

'Pew pew'.

While most of us probably have access to our own boards, sometimes it's just not possible.

But you can still throw something together really easily.

What I've done in the past:

Green Matt
Some rocks from outside
Cheap aquarium plants from the dollar store.

Looked decent, and was able to throw together in a few minutes.

So to answer your question, improvised terrain to a degree is fine. But if you're even a casual player, using books should be out of the question.

I have used lots of improvised terrain during "hey, wanna play a game" times. Books, bottles, a beretta. My buddy flopped down his wallet once. Kept picking it up and putting it in his pocket.

Baby Formula cans are the same size as a outpost from Planetstrike....

Books and boxes.

Heh, make for great hills/obstacles.

Markers are good barricades, barriers, defensive walls.
They are low enough to shoot over.

If there were absolutely no alternative...we'd probably spend the game time making terrain

It wouldn't be the end of the world, but really, it's gotta be an interesting situation where you lug 2000 points of toy soldiers somewhere that no proper terrain exists.

Never done the books under a table cloth thing, but when I first started and the only terrain I owned was a couple of old model rail-road trees and the cardboard ruins that came in the 2nd Ed 40K box, I used to use the actual boxes as terrain.

I had Tyranid Attack and 2nd Ed 40K, plus a few other boxes (Tactical Squad, Land Raider, Dreadnought, etc.) and stacked them up as buildings. Made do with that for years.

I so do love GW terrain though... I have more of that unbuilt waiting to be done than should be legal.

I own a table, so its never a problem for me anyways

When I was in Afghanistan we had no terrain per say we went so far as to take paper and cut it up for woods and cardboard cut to make ruins along with soda cans. If you both agree anything can work except for little kids they move too much to be used as terrain.

Legos,socks,piles of dirty laundry,cardboard boxes,soda cans,my guitar,My NES with a tree on top.

Piles of books, DND miniatures in a pile,ice cream "boxes", recycled newspaper clumps,apples,mediacl kit, sleeping dog, television, tau Hammerheads with their pieces all exploded looking,piles of crap I find lying around, piles of sprues,piles of painting pots,legos,laundry basket,forgeworld catalouge, sawed-in-half land raider, sawed-in-half monolith, stack of old codexes, painting light, studded belt as a pointy fence.

Grass from the yard,old vacuum cleaner,sticks,broccoli, turkey carcass from thanksgiving, grandma's walker, dog bowl, person sleeping,dead mouse we killed with rat poisoning,cereal box,cereal bag,cereal. Bowl of chips,glass of soy milk,digimon action figure,couch,batman action figure,gmecube,shoe,other guitar.

Phyew. I dare you to read th whole thing

Samus_aran115 wrote:Legos,socks,piles of dirty laundry,cardboard boxes,soda cans,my guitar,My NES with a tree on top.

Piles of books, DND miniatures in a pile,ice cream "boxes", recycled newspaper clumps,apples,mediacl kit, sleeping dog, television, tau Hammerheads with their pieces all exploded looking,piles of crap I find lying around, piles of sprues,piles of painting pots,legos,laundry basket,forgeworld catalouge, sawed-in-half land raider, sawed-in-half monolith, stack of old codexes, painting light, studded belt as a pointy fence.

Grass from the yard,old vacuum cleaner,sticks,broccoli, turkey carcass from thanksgiving, grandma's walker, dog bowl, person sleeping,dead mouse we killed with rat poisoning,cereal box,cereal bag,cereal. Bowl of chips,glass of soy milk,digimon action figure,couch,batman action figure,gmecube,shoe,other guitar.

Phyew. I dare you to read th whole thing

Dude, no way.

No one played with Digimon.

LOL, it wasn't mine. Gladly. It was 16 inches tall,so we used it as a reaver titan,lolz

I made some improv terrain out of a cardboard box last game I played. You can make good fast terrain by slotting ruin sections together without even using glue. Just a slot in each side to fit together and you're golden. Cut some windows out, and cut on the bias, slot together and use small sections in the same manner as low walls or smaller ruins. Made a good 3x4 area's worth of terrain that way in about 20 minutes. Even sprayed them whatever color we had on hand.

Pretty sure my friend still has that stuff sitting around his garage.

When an hour's work can make enough polystyrene hills to fill a table I don't know why anyone would play on improvised terrain.

ETA, deployed soldiers get a pass!

Never had to.

Between the 2nd ed box cardboard ruins, an extensive LGB train collection, and an even more extensive toy collection, I always had enough stuff in (close enough) scale.

Once played DBA an a sheet of A0 paper with terrain drawn on in marker pen. Have loads of terrain, and love making and painting it with cheap ass acrylic paints, but so long as everyone knows what represents what, so what!

Anything can 'counts as' anything! Once played against a 'dwarf' undead army as my buddy was trying them out with the figures he had! Fought against Squig 'dice' even! So long as its clear, just pick up, play, and enjoy the game!

Sure its more fun with stunning terrain and fully painted armies, but you gets your fun where you can!

Good grief, I remember years ago having to use books and railway model terrain and all sorts of horrendous improvised stuff - and believe me, I don't yearn for those days to come back. Yes, it encouraged creativity but most boards I played on were a horrible, mangled mess because, lets be honest, very few people possess both the skill and artistic flair to make decent, scratch built terrain. And certainly not when they are 12.

You kids don't know how good we have things now - the range of premade and in some cases, pre painted terrain is incredible and means it is possible to have a decently modelled board at home. The price we have paid for this is an increasing homogenisation of game boards and of course, the monetary price to be paid. As an adult with disposable income and as someone who once spent torrid hours trying to carve hills out of lumps of polystyrene, I think it is a price worth paying. And if that means my ROB board and COD terrain looks like everyone else's, well, quite frankly, I couldn't care less.

I think that having decent terrain makes such a huge difference that I would always prefer to play with it, but if that is impossible, I'll go without.

I would go so far as to say that good terrain is more important than painted models.

Jenga, a few bits of wood and brush and whatnot from the garden, cardboard boxes chopped around a bit. Sorted.

I have a bag of diferent collored and shaped felt that I use mostly for BattleTech, but my other choice is LEGOs.

My first games of 40k, I dubbed Floorhammer.

We played on the floor of my freinds apartment. Kitchenwares were raided for terrain- so there were pots, pans, coffee cups, and then we used a few VHS tapes to make some hills(yes- I started playing back before DVD's).

As the addiction grew, I started hosting small tournaments at my house. The cost of admission was showing up a few hours early and helping make some terrain. So, in short order there was plenty of terrain to cover 4, 4x8 tables.

Sometimes I feel like the spirit of the game is getting so commercialized, more and more improvising seems to be getting frowned upon- which is sad. Sure, all the pre fabbed buildings make prettier pictures. But I can guarantee people have had just as much fun playing on all the salvaged terrain that gets scrounged up.

My advice: drop $50 in a hobby lobby. Get yourself a green mat, some styrofoam, and maybe some foamboard/non-baking modelling clay. The mats are usually larger than 6 x 4, so cut off the excess and use it to cover your hills, you know, the ones you're making from the styrofoam. Finally, take the foamboard, cut them into pieces about 6" long, intermittently 1/2" - 2" tall. Glue two of those back to back to make them double thickness. Thicken each side out with the clay, wait for it to dry, then paint it codex grey. You can cut brick lines into the sides, scratch them up, or do whatever you want with them. You now have hills and ruins, and that takes about two nights.

It's for this reason I own my own table and scenery, but to answer your question; improvised scenery is a no go for me, I'd rather wait to play another day.

Ahhhh, those were the days, back when I was just starting to play.Stacked books covered with a washcloth became a hill. That green washcloth was a forest. Large water/soda bottles became buildings. etc etc etc.
Played once while travelling, we sketched out a 4' x 6' on the ground, the bushes were forests, threw some rocks in to break up LOS, yeeehhaaahhh!! Fun part was finding all the miniatures after the game...........

CrazyThang wrote:Ok imagine this: you and your friend(s) are going to play a wargame such as WHFB or 40K. Sadly your local FLGS/GW is closed/full. Do you throw down on a dining table with books, legos, cups, etc. as "terrain" or do you decide to play another day where you can use a gameing table with real terrain? I'm wondering what Dakka thinks of this.

Edit:
I understand many people have actual terrain at home I was just wondering what you guys thought about stuff like insaniak mentioned in that paragraph thar below.

99% of the games I play are such. We have become exceptional at building terrain from just about everything.

I just use my own made battle table