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Hey folks. I'm away to embark on a mammoth terrain marathon for my infinity board. I love building terrain, and I have some grand plans. Just wondering how high I should go. I'm mostly planning between ground, first and second stories, but I'd like to go three stories high in two or three places. I'm thinking this may give a sniper unfair advantage, but if there are two or three scattered around the board, would this offer an op advantage, or be ok? Most of the board will be densely populated, with only roads offering any kind of serious fire lane.

The board will be 4x4, but I'm eventually planning on 8 two by two tiles (games and gears urban battlefield), with the ability to swap out tiles to change things up.

I think that sounds like a great start. Your fear about going to three stories in certain sections shouldn't be too much of a problem, as long as you make sure to have certain things break up the sight lines. In general though, having a Sniper up high is really dangerous, and can cripple a side. But if you're going to have densely packed terrain, things such as Cautious Movement can stop a Sniper from wrecking a side. Just gotta use the rules in your favor.

My recommendation would be to put the taller buildings towards the center of the table, as that would at least stop people from deploying snipers directly on the highest point of terrain. Sure, they could infiltrate to it, but that keeps things interesting. And if people are rushing to claim that chunk of terrain as a sniping point, it makes for fun games.

So have you figured out what you're going to use for the terrain itself? Going to get a bunch of MDF premade things? Or make your own custom stuff?

Make my own stuff. For multiples like hab units, I'll cast up a bunch in resin. For others, I may buy the occasional kit, but I'll scratchbuild most.

Go taller, but house rule that every inch up counts as an extra inch in. This keeps infiltrators from getting crazy for us. And with enough tall buildings, they actually block LoF one from the other, cancelling much of the height advantage, but not all of it.

People are too afraid of snipers, IMHO.

 Red Harvest wrote:
Go taller, but house rule that every inch up counts as an extra inch in. This keeps infiltrators from getting crazy for us. And with enough tall buildings, they actually block LoF one from the other, cancelling much of the height advantage, but not all of it.

People are too afraid of snipers, IMHO.

Somewhat. I think some are more dangerous than others. They're only really dangerous when they can hit targets that don't have the weapons to strike back in my opinion. Being on a roof means I can just drop a grenade on your head easier.

Casting your own buildings huh? That sounds like a lot of work! But it should be pretty damn cool. We will of course want pictures.

I place 1 or 2 tall buildings in easy access of one deployment zone. Offsets first turn advantage and makes picking Initiative or Deployment less of a no-brainer. If you try to create perfectly even tables, then players will want to pick initiative over deployment.

I really like connecting walkways between floors and buildings, it adds a more vertical aspect to the table since fighting for control of rooftops isn't limited to long range weapons.

Also scatter terrain for roofs (AC units, Solar panels, billboards, rooftop gardens, etc). You can use them to control whether a roof is viable location for AD troops to land.

On the casting side of things, I have an idea for a slum made of old habs that are converted shipping containers. It'd take forever to build them one by one, but if I can make each part like a 'kit', then once the first is done, I can cast up loads of them in no time at all.

I plan on having a fair bit of walkways too; I loved necromunda as a kid, and I see infinity as being the grown up version. My aleph faction even has a nod to the old Escher gangs - crazy hair for everyone.

I figure it will be worth the effort - I'm a lover of good terrain, and I want to lure my gaming group into the game, so with a nice table, and adding another two factions to my collection via ice storm, I should be able to tempt them.

What materials are you planning on using for most of this? Are you going to scratch build everything from cardboard and plasticard, or are you going to McGuyver it from various bits and bobs?

I'd love to see some pics once you get going.

It's OK 'going big' but you have to have more than one point that can serve as a sniper perch - this not only means that you don't have everyone running to one point on the table, but also means that there is some LOS blocking between the high points. I have 3-4 of the 3-story MaS apartment buildings, and some scratch built terrain of about the same height.

Another good idea is that you don't give as much cover for those high points (in the form of ledges/walls on the top of buildings etc.), makes it a bit more of a risk for anyone trying to use them as a sniper perch.

So overall I would never say "don't use high terrain" as you will sometimes hear, but just try and do it sensibly.

That's what I thought really. Just good to get some confirmation.

To answer earlier questions, it'll be a hodgepodge of scratch built, cast and purchased stuff. Just whatever works. Each 2x2 tile will be themed, so a slum area, commercial etc. Toying with the idea of a vertical car park for flyers etc too. Lots of ideas. Starting with the slum though.

Yep. A good rule of thumb with tall buildings is to have multiple or none at all - if there are several then they automatically create deadzones from the tops of the other ones.

Look forward to seeign this. Please post what you do.

I kinda want to go crazy and eventually make a board with these in them




Here is where I got the pictures from

http://www.lead-adventure.de/index.php?topic=55891.0

once oshiro release them that is. Not sure how useful they would be though

Once they are released they should be avalable here

http://www.oshiromodelterrain.co.uk/catalogue.html

While that table looks fantastic, I can only really see buildings that size being awkward to play Infinity on.

Yeah that's why I said not sure how useful they would be, for infinity at least. Wonder how infinity would work on a multi level board with interiors, imaging it may become a pain in the ass if models we on seperate levels.

I don't even like using 2 or 3 story buildings with interiors. It's a pain in the ass if someone decides to put guys inside, then on the roof, then move them around... Models are going to fall and break.

Yeah, multiple story buildings look great, but are a nightmare to really play through. I would consider 2 stories the limit unless the buildings are impassable/non enterable. I would make sure when using any building that the tops can be easily lifted off to allow access to the interiors. It is very difficult to actually play through them otherwise.

Table analysis of bostria of what constitutes a good Infinity table. It includes high ground on a deployment zone so that, as mentioned earlier, so that there's an advantage for choosing deployment rather than initiative.

In any case, interesting watch. Check it out!

That's a really good video, and raised some great points. It gives you a look at how CB intends tables to be made for the game. It made me think more about it - we tend to make more symmetrical deployment zones, with the interesting buildings in the center and buildings in the deployment zone more just to mitigate alpha strikes.

But I like the idea of asymmetrical deployment zones. Putting a sniper nest in one deployment zone, with good line of sight to the majority of the board, makes the dice roll off more interesting - do you choose deployment to grab that sniper tower for your sniper or HMG, or to deny it to your opponent? Or do you go for initiative and leave that choice to your opponent. As Mike said, a lot of people say 'go for initiative all the time', but an asymmetrical table adds real choice to even just the beginning roll off.

I think it's interesting how the designers intend enough open area that you can't actually get very far without revealing yourself to most of the table. I can imagine the game balance starts skewing very quickly as you move away from that. On the other hand, I always thought that my tables were way too sparse since I was just getting started. This looks like they weren't as bad as I was thinking.

 dementedwombat wrote:
I think it's interesting how the designers intend enough open area that you can't actually get very far without revealing yourself to most of the table. I can imagine the game balance starts skewing very quickly as you move away from that. On the other hand, I always thought that my tables were way too sparse since I was just getting started. This looks like they weren't as bad as I was thinking.

Balance is a hard thing to get right on an Infinity board.

Too sparse and long range weapons dominate the game. Too dense and direct template weapons (flamers, chain rifles, etc) dominate the game.

You need multiple lanes of fire, but also none that cross the entire board, or if they do, not in common thoroughfares (the example in the video is good - the sniper nest has good LOS to most of the board, and a secondary thoroughfare has LOS across the board, but is hidden bhind buildings). You need multiple levels of terrain, and a good point from that video is asymmetrical terrain to make choosing deployment over initiative a real choice. You need scatter terrain so infantry can move from cover to cover, preferably no more than 8" apart. But not too close as to impede larger base models like bikes and TAGs. You need areas where people can successfully use cautious movement (so terrain peices that are 4" apart), but not too many as you do want shoting and AROs to actually take place. You want areas good for objectives, where there's ways to get there, safe places to try to accomplish it, but also unsafe areas where people can watch it with good positioning.

So yeah, you want lots of varied terrain. Catwalks, 1, 2 and 3 story buildings, walkways between them, and plenty of scatter terrain. I think the porblem on the boards we play on at the moment is there's very little vertical movement. not many different levels, no catwalks, so the game just becomes a fight on the streets so a lot of scatter terrain is needed. Once I get terrain to lift some combat above street level less scatter terrain will be needed.