@Elbows: great terrain indeed! And arranged exactly to the principles I've tried to describe, so I'll let myself piggyback on it a little
Such diagonal arrangement is a great way to have a varied multimatch. We often do that over the weekend, in which we fit three to four relaxed 1100-1500 pts games (one of many perks of your main opponent being your wife
). On such terrain just changing the arrangement of deployment zones layout and player order is enough for completely different scenarios to be played. You can easily play out a short sort-of escalation "campaign" over the same terrain and not be bored a bit. Just start with a recon Kill Team mission first (and the winner of this part get to choose deployment zones layout and who goes first in the next game, as well as is given a first go on infiltrators placement), then go for something like two main forces clashing and a third game of reinforcements arriving/holding an objective untill extraction (this one would be best with a small surviving force starting in a center circle deployment and opponent deploying from two board edges while all your reserves arrive either via deep strike or outflank rule), and voila! - you have a quick and interesting narrative
WH40k weekend!
Such terrain setup and multimatch format is also great for quick playtesting either a new unit type (or rules modifications), especially with multiple such units taken in your list, as this will put them in many different combat situations, with different ranges, enemies, mobility options, targets etc both in defence and ofence. Four such games utilising a list with three repetitions of a unit in question will easily let you test it in a dozen or two different situations... And this is a very important thing
IMHO, as creating interesting narrative scenarios require a lot wider understanding of in game ballance than netlisted competetive play... Especially in a game of such power discrepancy as
40K.
Which brings me straight to one thing, that you Elbows and I, differ in the most: as much as I like to have painted minis and stunning dioramas, I very much prefer to play a lot and to play in the most varied ways I can manage. And because I came back to the hobby only recently (this by itself speaks volumes on how large
40k really is, that I consider more than a year worth of intensive playing "only recently"
) my current battles are mostly grey plastic over black primed terrain...
@Wayne: if that is of any comfort, it takes only two like-minded people to have a blast with narrative wargaming really, so don't give up trying to "raise" one or two in your area by yourself...
