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So you finally get your last unit highlighted, detailed, and ready to take on the d6 mayhem. You arrive at your gaming destination with your army transport cases and your beautiful miniatures waking from their slumber nestled comfortably within a foam fortress. You've worked so long and hard to complete them and the day is finally here - you are fielding a fully painted army, and they're magnificent. However there is just something that isn't quite right still..

As the topic reads, how is your terrain situation? Whether good or bad, how important is it to you? Do you have a personal collection for home games that is completed, or perhaps you are part of a club with better than average pieces to select from? There is guaranteed to be more focus and effort on getting your own army entirely painted, and that to many is a feat in itself. But what is the mindset on terrain within your local community? Do they have spring green tabletops with partially painted cities of death ruins, beat up foam hills with non-matching flock/grass, and some random snowy pines? Especially in tournaments, is that what your terrain is like? I'm personally not expecting more than average terrain for tournaments - even on the smaller scale of 10-20 participants. But does that terrain even match or display completion?

I personally feel that a lot of the game can be lost with not only unpainted armies, but with mismatched terrain. This could very well be because I enjoy the hobby, so I appreciate what the hobby aspect portrays on the battlefield as well.

What is your take?

I'm a fan of terrain. I currently have a 1.5 x 1.5' building, two L-shaped ruins (two storey), some ruined walls, two citadel forests, 6.3' of river, two bridges, a citadel battlescape, the crashed Valkyrie from BfM, and some assorted ammo dumps and such. I also have some craters but use them for destroyed vehicles.

Waiting on a modular hill next.

All I'm missing is the fully painted army; all of my forces still have some unpainted masses.

Terrain is not very important to me, good quality helps with the game and all. But noting I care to fret about. My club has enough to go around so I use whatever is set up on the table really.

Personal collection, everything but the ruins set is self-made.

I should mention that terrain, and painting it, is more enjoyable to me than working on my armies. It might be that you can make terrain look great even with limited painting skill, but it's hard to paint armies without some talent.

So far I've worked entirely on rural, green grass settings, but next I'd like to look at some cities of death or Tyranid infestation pieces.

Good quality terrain is really important to me. Our local club has a really great selection, and I have an extensive collection for use at home as well.

What about at your local game stores? What is the terrain quality like at these in your area? I understand that terrain can be subject to major abuse and to offer much better than below average terrain could be painful, especially to public. When you play at a store, is the terrain just bunched up in compartments below the table?

This is one of the tables I have for my home collection. To me this is average and I could do better but it is, for the majority of the time, stored for long periods. It's flat on the tabletop but painted to give texture.

I'm not sure what the local store has. They're 30 minutes away and I've only been there twice, and I didn't look at the tables. I think it was pretty standard; scratch built hills and buildings on a grass mat.

My FLGS has cupboards full of terrain, boxes and cases under tables full of terrain, and about ten well made tables, either sculpted or flat. Some are made for specific games, like their FoW boards, which are sculpted boards. All of the terrain is removable, and each peice leaves an empty indent which can be replaced with another peice of terrain, or just flat terrain. really ingenious. They have a naval combat board set up the same way, but the tops of the islands are replaceable with various different peices.

And a RoBB shoved away in a dark corner.

So I'm fairly spoiled for choice when I go to game at my FLGS. However, I've been working on my oen terrain for home, which is mostly doing it the quick and dirty way - just buying appropriate aquarium peices and basing them, mixed with some Battlefield in a Box terrain. It doesn't look bad at all for a home table however.

Terrain is big part of my hobby. I have 2 complete WorldWorksGame's paper terrain boards, gave 2 sculpted boards to the FLGS (were they have taken a beating, oh well), rebuilding an old GW 4'x4' vacuum formed battle board, and have 2 more WWG boards in progress.

I think that the terrain, in many ways, makes the game. I'd rather have crappy minis on good terrain than the other way around. I personally own a piece or two that I am working on (including a suspended pole-hut, a half of a gigantic head statue, and a half completed smoking pool) but anything I get finished that isn't fragile I just donate to the club. My club has some great terrain, with lots of variability.

Terrain is awesome, I used a lot from railroad hobby shops. I'm also a big fan of boreal trees (partially because they help with cover saves) so I put a bunch of them on..

This board and all of the terrain was scratch built over 14 years ago. I believe that terrain is just as important as the model you put on it. This game board and terrain can be easily stored, maintained, and repaired.

Complexity, durability, and ease of use/storage are the 3 essential elements in creation of your terrain setting.

I take pride in on how on how good and durable this set of terrain lasted and is one set of many that I use when I run my tournaments.

When I played regularly everybody was responsible for their own terrain. I was in highschool at the time so most of the time the tables were just books and stuff with a grass covered cloth, but near the end of our 40k period cityfight was released and I started building ruins. And it was bloody fun both building and playing with them. To this day I still base everything in an urban pattern just in case I decide to whip out our old buildings. Also, buildings do more to block LOS, so they make the game more intense.

I only play at my FLGS, and we've got buckets of terrain. The entire back of the store is shelves of terrain; some of it old foam creations, some of it the GW kits, all sorts of kitbashes (such as a predator turret glued to the bottom of a plastic cup, viola, turret). We've got one giant temple, and, surprisingly, three fortresses of redemption.

Most of it is donated by the people at the club, and given to whomever has an airbrush to paint and drybrush them up so they look decent.

We've even got two starfields for BFG, and a set of sculpted terrain bought from a shutdown GW store from when they were rolling out the RoBB, and thus had to toss all their cool, handmade boards.

Overall, we've probably got the most terrain in any store in British Columbia, but then seeing as there's all of like 6 stores in BC, that's not too much of a boast.

Terrain is incredibly important to me. I actually refer toit as the "Third Army" on the table. Two nicely painted armies are truly not served by horrible terrain.

We even talk about it here:

http://theindependentcharacters.com/blog/?p=2359

There are a lot of pictures on our Facebook page of the terrain we play on. But here's a couple examples...

So far I've played at my FLGS and local tournaments, both of which use mostly the same terrain pieces, of which there's plenty. Some custom-made by players, others from various terrain kits and such.

At home I don't have anything yet, though I could of course whip up ruins and the like from Lego bricks I do plan on making stuff from foam eventually though, so that I can play with my brother once he gets his IG army going.

We've all been there with the battlefield of books, boxes, cans, and whatever else you have within your grasp. I'm glad to hear others are into terrain and creating a more enjoyable setting. I too placed my focus on completing a terrain set before completing my first army.

Terrain is incredibly important to me. I actually refer toit as the "Third Army" on the table. Two nicely painted armies are truly not served by horrible terrain.

That is a good point. There are many influences that the terrain can have on the battle, and I feel that the majority of battles people are involved in do not include things like rivers (whether it be water or even toxis waste and lava) or roads to perhaps add a spin to mechanized non-skimmer lists.

It seems a lot of FLGS terrain is donated and is subject to random beatings, spills, and hyper kids.

our FLGS is mostly foam hills slightly green brown with green felt in shapes and some loose trees/bushes to throw on it that when ur standing in it its forest. theyres some ruins but not much. At home I've been trying to snipe what I can from ebay as far as cheap terrain goes. So far just hills and a set of urban barricades. I hope on expanding it but I dont have enough room to set up a table without moving out my coffee table and sectional from the livingroom sadly

Terrain is just as important to me as a painted army. At the moment I spend more time building terrain than painting models.

We now have a nice variety of buildings, ruins, barracades, woodland to make every battlefield different. Next project is a modular river.

It's one of the reasons I don't play at my local GW. Their terrain is too limited.

I don't have terrain yet, but It wouldn't feel right, after spending so much time painting up my minis, to place them next to terrain that looks like garbage. I plan to make my own, and make it well.

I like terrain and have a lot. It is a combination of resin, plastic, GW card and plastic buildings, and other parts. I have palm trees and regular trees. I have 3 different table cover cloths for use: deep green (not an obnoxious bright green), sand and grey for ash wastes and more of an urban setting. I also have a number of aquarium pieces that I use that make really awesome terrain pieces, from freaky plants to old ruins and the like. We prefer to have a lot of terrain on the table so as to limit the various fire lanes and the like to keep any particular army from just sitting back and shooting.

I also have terrain in multiple scales for epic games, standard 28mm games and also for 15mm WWII games. My 15mm terrain is all painted because Battlefront sells their 15mm pieces that way.

Of course our armies are in varied states of painting, depending on time and the force being used. I like decent terrain, but I know my own limits and know I will never make tables or terrain pieces like those Dave Andrews regularly produces for GW.

I like the table to look cool, so prefer modeled hills to books under cloths and such, but don't have a particular need for fully painted armies to enjoy the game.

Skriker

Mine is foamboard and looks like crap. I want more than anything to build and paint and get some work done on my table but Im always sidetracked by models, work, beer, etc.

I think terrain is great on the battle field but making terrain is a cool part of the hobby too. You can always buy terrain but I think building it is a lot more fun. Getting to build terrain is awesome although i am terrible at it but there's lots of resources out there to learn how to make inexpensive good qaulity terrain.

I am looking at making my own table for my house and then making all kinds of terrain for it. It fun building your own terrain and making it for certain scenarios and such because i know some people don't mind playing on plain flat tables but wheres the fun in that. Terrain makes the missions more tactical.

 d3m01iti0n wrote:
Mine is foamboard and looks like crap. I want more than anything to build and paint and get some work done on my table but Im always sidetracked by models, work, beer, etc.

Battlefield in a Box! Decently pre-painted terrain for not too unreasonable prices. just buy flock to match your board and flock anything with a dirt base.