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I was wondering what the coolest theme terrain to play on might be?

Assuming a balanced set up, and nothing ridiculously elaborate, what do you think the best looking terrain really is?

A bit more to the point, I have a large stock of terrain, often I supply a sizable amount of it to local events and I am thinking of adding some more sets for tourneys next year! I'm looking for ideas from people, of things they have seen or would like to see or which of these ideas might merit additional tables:

Things I did already:
Lava World
Death World Jungle
Ice World
Dessert Table
Ork Junkyard
Urban Table (Imperial Architecture with complete Buildings)

Things I'm considering:
Urban Table (Eldar architectire with fighting platforms)
Trench World (WW1 style, craters and dual trench lines, maybe dead trees)
Chaos World, (Lots of giant skulls and lakes of blood, maybe cliffs and fortress walls or alters)
Necron Crystal Fields w/steel colored Tomb Pyramids
Imperial Cathedral board (with space marine statues in it)

Also generally any images/techniques and or stories you have of good terrain would be surely welcome!

Eldar Urban table. I've always wanted to do one of these, and have never had the time or the money. Seeing a really good quality one done would be the next best thing.

Make sure you make it multi-level though, and post WIP pics.

Could you post pics of your other terrain as well? Some of that stuff sounds very cool, especially if you do this sort of thing often.

Necron Crystal Fields

Ice world.

Duh.

Trench world.

The crystal fields would be very different, but IMHO the trench world would be the best to play on. If you swapped the elder urban terrain for dark elder terrain, it may be more popular due to their new release.

Good luck!

Alexgm101.

I think an DE urban map themed on when the imperium invaded cormough. Other than that I've always wanted to see a full done trench board but the crystal fields sound quite cool. Don't know how you'd add sufficient cover though (maybe crashed ships, entrances to tombs - perhaps do a 4' by 4' board with little cover then do a second 4' by 4' board to represent the catacombs underneath)

Of those, I'd plump for the eldar-themed urban table. The cathedral idea sounds really cool but might be a pig in terms of practicality ... there's a similar thing at Warhammer World I played on recently: it looks fabulous but actually getting around it and moving your minis was a bit of a pain.

It's nice if the terrain has nice little vignettes dotted here and there for players to spot .. little visual things that help tell the story of the theme or battle.

Good terrain makers can be the unsung heroes of the 41st millennium.

I just stick with the standard Fantasy terrain. My Ogres love to demolish Empire villages. One day someone will see sense and just hire my coalition of the mindlessly violent!

Dastardly Dave wrote:Could you post pics of your other terrain as well? Some of that stuff sounds very cool, especially if you do this sort of thing often.

Sure, of a few of my completed tables:









I'll get WIPs and images of new ones as I can!

If you swapped the elder urban terrain for dark elder terrain, it may be more popular due to their new release.

How can you battle over Dark Eldar city terrain if they live in one city that nobody else can reach or find?

I like battling on death worlds, mostly because i have lots of cool jungle terrain from my fantasy lizardmen. But the trench world seems interesting. If you want to make a chaos world, take a look at the chaos base on Dawn of War: Dark Crusade

alexgm101 wrote:The crystal fields would be very different, but IMHO the trench world would be the best to play on. If you swapped the elder urban terrain for dark elder terrain, it may be more popular due to their new release. ...

Right good point, I have an idea for dark eldar buildings based on soft sculptures, essentially a frame with taught cloth stretched over it then painted with plastic resin! I have prototyped towers like this in the past but don't have any prototypes or images, good idea there!

Generally:

I have about 1 build day left, I could make one more table.


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Thanks for the excellent responses, keep it coming!

I saw this a while back, but a rundown 70-80's (I think) styled town. It had broken cars in garages, campaign posters, paper on the ground, broken windows in the factories, etc.

Have you got a copy of White Dwarf 313? That contains a chapter approved article on Daemon worlds. If you have it, it might provide some inspiration.

Hmm, no, I do not have that issue what sort if things were in it?

Augustus wrote:Things I did already:
Lava World
Death World Jungle
Ice World
Dessert Table

You built a DESSERT TABLE?

Hills made from jelly?

Gingerbread houses?

Rivers of custard?

Sounds incredible....

Yes with Gingerbread men also!

Candy FTW! Merry Thankwanzicahween!

Scenery Examples:

Metal tank trap forests
Swampy ground
Floaty crystal monolith
Cracked ground showing blue 'energy' effects
Ground made entirely of metal plates, with trees made from girders (bit like Irn Bru really). It's the ferrous world of the iron warriors
Floaty chunks of ground
'Point of a chaos star' towers
and of course, the obligatory pools of boiling blood.

Speaking of which, it also had a table to roll on for landscapes. I'll summarise below:

1: Realm of Boiling Blood - Any infantry model that remains stationary during the move phase must make a successful armour save or suffer a wound.

2: Plaugescape (knee deep in grease and grime). At the start of each turn, each unit must test toughness (6 autofails), and for every point the test is failed by the unit loses a model.

3: Mutatosphere - If a unit takes and fails a target priority test, the opponent may choose the target instead (including friendly models).

4: Perversoria - Each unit must pass a leadership test at the start of the turn or do nothing.

5: Daemonicon - All models are at Ld -1

6: No effect. Yet...

There was also a 'Chaotic Manifestations Table', but it's a little complicated to type out.

I do remember some GW boards that had Iron Warriors/Chaos metal spike arrow area terrain, it was weird but cool looking, hmm, I could make those!

The best terrain is a blank perfectly flat featureless table. Why? Because you can do anything you want with it.

Magc8Ball wrote:Ice world.

Duh.

I agree here though, and not just because it makes a nice pun. Ice tables always look like fun things to play on.

Were I any good at painting, I'd base my models on ice bases, even though most games we play are urban games.

Necromunda/Hivecity would be pretty cool for 40k.

I think battles taking place on a tyranid-like-goo table would be great. You could either say it's inside one of the massive bioships or just on a planet in the advanced stages of a tyranid takeover, but I think something along those alien lines would bring a lot of people to the table.

I've been wanting to make a necron themed death world table with punji pits made of toothpicks and the like....Hopefully I'll get around to making it.

we made a 6'x4' sand table literally foam, white glue and sand. The Terrain are necron sygils etc all black and sand blasted

bloodaxegit wrote: How can you battle over Dark Eldar city terrain if they live in one city that nobody else can reach or find?

You have GOT to read the piece in the DE codex detailing the invasion of Commoragh by a massed force of Salamanders, Howling Griffons and (I think) Silver Skulls.

That'd make a good campaign.

The favorite terrain I've played on was an Ice Table that was designed by BlueTablePainting.

Out of your idea's, I think the Necron one would be awesome.

Augustus wrote:Trench World (WW1 style, craters and dual trench lines, maybe dead trees)

This is the kind of board I am going for if I ever get round to it.

Whatever theme you decide on make sure to remember to leave plenty of flat, level places for figures and movement trays to stand.

At Bristol Vanguard we have about 40 boards worth of high quality terrain for our gaming nights and tournaments that we run. You can see photos of them here:

http://www.bristolvanguard.co.uk/BV/Vanquish_2010/Pages/Games.html#grid

snurl wrote:Whatever theme you decide on make sure to remember to leave plenty of flat, level places for figures and movement trays to stand.

Yes of course! Good point.

I have a new hybrid design for area terrain that sort of combines a hill, a base, and some movable elements, in this way it is my hope to provide (cool looking) cover for infantry (in the area), vehicles (using the hill) and possibly also monstrous creatures (behind the movable elements).

I think a major failing of a lot of terrain out there is that it was designed for the 4thed mindset, where the are terrain was abstracted and in 5th edition it can be really hard to get 50% coverage on vehicles or MCs with spindly little elements on area terrain.

Thanks for the input everyone, I'm thinking I will probably spend some time and effort on a Tomb World and finish the Eldar Architecture I have already started for the next 2 boards!

I'll try to get some images in this thread!

Thanks for the opinions!