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For a 6'x4' board, how much is too much terrain? How little is too little?

Not sure if there are many guidelines, but attached is what we typically go with. Is this similar to others?

Thanks!

Mez

Looks good, I guess it depends on what type of battlefield you prefer.my table can be a bit insane at times.

If you have a piece of string long enough you have enough terrain.

I would only consider you have too much terrain if it becomes inconvenient to place models on the tabletop where you want them to go. Dense terrain is fine, battles can happen in very dense terrain, especially if you are fighting in urban or jungle warfare. However if you cant place a model tank near to where its supposed to go and it could reasonably get there then there is a problem.

As for open terrain, its not rare at all, many battles were fought in fairly featureless terrain especially on the Russian front and in the Western desert, but unless you are fighting on salt flats no terrain will be truly featureless. Even open fields or desert with no trees hedges, buildings or boulders can still conceal tanks due to contours in the ground even without the presence of actual hills. A change of elevation of 3m over a reasonable distance will conceal a large tank and wide open spaces with 3m change in elevation over say 150 metes (a reasonable 'short range' for a tank engagement) is essentially flat terrain, flat enough for railways without embankment, chances of elevation along those lines are comon enough to be expected as standard. Thus wide open grasslands with no 'cover' should still conceal tanks.

This is one of the most underused considerations in wargaming. Players are used to flat tables with add on terrain whereas the entire tabletop would be better off with a series of undulations and low contours offering cover over distance. This is difficult to achieve without inconvenience so most players don't consider it.

Consequently its best to break up LOS with hedges buildings and boulders instead to mitigate the fact that the ground is as flat as Holland. Or you could fight all your battles in Holland or the Q'atara depression.

Personally i would go with the more the merrier, Orlanth is right about the fact tables are generally always flatter then terrain would be in real life, so its always worth working out what is going to conceal and what is not before a game starts. Also a lot of systems now offer some sort of save even when things are in the open to represent the whole troops are not just standing in a featureless battlefield waiting to be shot.

Now i don't actually remember the terrain rules for FOW, however if they are anthing like battlgroup then more terrain can only increase the fun, means its much easier to set ambushes (over watch) to cause choke points and really punish the enemy with smaller recon units and the like.

I also think more terrain makes it generally more interesting for infantry, much more staying out of LOS and sneaking up on those high value targets, or simply being able to dig in and survive much better.

So in my mind break up the LOS as much as is realistically possible and your have a better game.

Below is a picture of a game we played on a board i would consider far to sparse but some may think is cluttered. In the end the lack of scenery below pretty much meant my panthers rules the day with long range powerful shots.

Too much Terrain makes Tanks easy prey, too little and Infantry get bummed.

It's not so much terrain per-see as things like Hedgerows, fences and walls.

You can have only 10% of the board as buildings, roads, waterways, forrests etc. But having fences and hedgerows like above, makes things much more interesting and realistic.

Hedges don't take up much space, but they help to mould and build realistic maps.



This is just plain flat green Baize, with Hedge rows!

Do you know what the cheapest way to do big terrain? Use raffia Door mats..Carve them into quarters and you have lots of Crops fields!



2 of these and you've got alot of Crops, for outlying farms, and then you can use these for many things.

Here's a link to a tournament that I held at my store......
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k4khz_Erwwg
Don't worry you only have to watch the first 1min30secs to see what we put on offer terrainwise.
Feel free to watch more if you like.

It's a different tactical challenge playing with more/less terrain and it's nice to mix it up.
Really the terrain density should be adjusted to the army lists playing in order to make for a good game.
Edit: Conversely, army lists can be picked accoring to the terrain.

as long as you get a decent mix of terrain, hills,wall, hedges, buildings, roads, etc.

Ideally you will have places to hide and sneak around as well as some open fire lanes across the board. Make it tactical!

Terrain?

As much as possible as befits the recreated area...

Here is how we usually play. We usually play an infantry vs a tank company, so we try to keep a good balance:

Big P - I love this....



But Christ on a bike, everyone would have concealment on this Board. It would be an achievement to get a clear shot at anything under FLAMES OF WAR Rules.

This in no-way detracts from how Brilliant this board is.

Real bocage fighting!

There are guidelines re terrain in FOW, depending on where you are fighting. For what its worth, unoccluded views of more than 1000metres are pretty rare in Europe.

I want to +1 the statement of using floor mats as crop fields. for $10 I took a 3ft x 2 ft one and made 24 6" x 6" sections. That allows me to make pretty much any shape field I want, and cover quite a bit of table in the process.

I will also add that "sheet cork", like to can find at Office Depot in a roll is an excellent source for roads. It can be cut to any shape for corners/curves. I think the one I picked up was like 12 ft long and 2 ft wide for about $16. If you make your roads 2 to 3 inches wide, that is more road than you will ever need on any one table.

I've found that most terrain features can be DIY'd pretty darn cheeply and with minimal time involved. Hedgerows seem to be the one thing that costs the most in terms of time and materials.

 mwnciboo wrote:
Big P - I love this....



But Christ on a bike, everyone would have concealment on this Board. It would be an achievement to get a clear shot at anything under FLAMES OF WAR Rules.

This in no-way detracts from how Brilliant this board is.

Indeed. Two veteran companies going at it would take a long time.

Still amazing.

Plays fine for our rules...

Dont forget, the problem with alot of the parts of Normandy was the close terrain.

Cant really play Normandy without such a terrain set-up.

So my tables just try, as best as I can, to portray reality in our humble way. Can never model terrain exactly, but close terrain is a must for Normandy. I personally enjoy the games on such tables and the restrictive nature the terrain gives. It forces a player to fight in a historical manner, using artillery to soften up hedgerows before infantry advance on them under the protective fire of tanks and MGs...

It also puts the emphasis back on infantry in close terrain...

If you're desperately short of terrain but have access to roads you can declare the sides of the roads to be lined by (unseen) drainage ditches. These would be slow/difficult going to cross and give concealment and bullet proof cover for any team with its base in contact with the edge of the road (but not on it).

Bocage battles are the best. usually a1/3 of my board is Bocage. Infantry and Artillery are the kings. Give a para a Zook or a Falls with faust and you got trouble.