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Now then, I thought about this this morning over my morning coffee, and I started to think (that was my first mistake).

Coming out of every corner of this very niche market is all this wonderful, amazing, beautiful, fantastic (notice that I do actually like it) is this pre-made terrain, be it plastic castles, towers, etc or the laser-cut MDF stuff. Either way, it's pretty simple (clean up, assemble, paint, fight!).

It most definately has its up-sides, it's modular, it's versatile and more importantly it creates a high level of accessability into wargaming terrain. But then I thought, back when I first started in wargaming (40K 2nd edition) none of this existed, and if you wanted it, you had to go out and do it yourself, you kept big mounds of stuff in boxes, tried out different things to see what worked and what didn't, learned new skills (such as how to work with balsa wood/plaster of paris/etc). I remember at the age of 10 stealing a bunch of pipe lagging out of my grandad's shed to see if it would be good for making hedges.

What I'm getting at, is in future generations of gamers, are we going to see these 'old' skills lost as gamers turn towards simply buying pre-made kits?

Discuss...

I don't think so - those people who still want to scratch build scenery and terrain will do.

But for the rest of us lazy *baskets* it means that we've moved on - For example, we've advanced from fighting on a table with books on it and a cloth over the top representing hills, or fighting round a shoebox...

Now, one of my friends has a scale model of the houses of parliament which is a lot more interesting to try and invade

There has always been ready made terrain. Nowadays there is a much wider variety available.

You can even get space corridors! And lots of useful add on parts for enhancing homemade pieces.

I still like to make my own stuff with the help of bought stuff. In this pic the cloth and hills are bought in. The alien cactus forests are bought resin pieces on top of sandpaper. The various buildings are things like Japanese soup bowls and yoghurt containers enhanced with detailing pieces various sources.

Like everything else in our hobby, it comes down to time, money, and 'talent'. If I've got the time and money, but not the talent, then I can purchase and assemble terrain that looks great for my board. If I have the time and the talent, but not the money then foamcore bored, paper, etc... are all cheap things compared to these kits and I can get my crafting on. If I've got the talent and the money I can do better things with these skills and premade pieces of terrain.

Like I've made a few pieces of terrain and it all comes out worse than what I've done with premade terrain. It's all up to the person. I think that while there are plenty of books on how to do these things, and the internet does exist, books like, 'How to make Wargaming Terrain' was a huge benefit to any hobbyist (whether you're just a hobbyist or a HHHobbyist) and they made for good manuals.

I don't think we'll ever truely see the demise of home built terrain. There will always be that allure of doing it yourself and having something you can be proud of having made yourself. There may be a decline, even a big decline, in home made terrain but i don't think it'll die out completely.
Since this is an expensive hobby to begin with and the pre-made terrain isn't always cheap, there will always be folk who can't justify/can't afford the added cost. Some people (like me) just like making terrain themselves.

Don't get me wrong, some of the pre-made stuff is great looking. Battlefield in a box make some nifty pieces like the crystal formation and the elven tower. Even GW's terrain is great if you're after imperial based terrain. (If you want xenos terrain then you're stiff outta luck.)


I'll buy pre-made stuff when it suits my needs but i don't think i'll ever stop making my own terrain. Even if my terrain blog says otherwise.

My only question is this: where are the premade plastic castles you speak of? O_O


And when it comes with homemade terrain, there would always be that person (i.e. me) who either has no money, or more interested in making stuff for their own. Only a few premade terrain impresses me since I'm a sucker for realism, and most of them are pretty expensive, shipping not included.

Premade terrain gives someone options, but options doesn't mean the old ways are already obsolete.

I have often thought and suggested that "non-Eldar" and "non-Tau" terrain bits could do well.

There is so much generic neo-Gothic stuff available for Imperials, and a lot of generic modern SF stuff as well for non-40K games.

I use a lot of both homemade and purchased.
And where I play still has a lot of home made terrain.
And a lot of younger players defenatly get into it, so I don't think it's realy think it's a downside. Maybe in other places tho.

I think there is a small downside, especially for the beginner who is seeing alot more tables covered in GW kit buildings and RoB boards. Many of them will eventually get around to building their own, but it will be a slower learing curve. Of course, homemade terrain isn't going anywhere, but I think you'll see less and less of it in GW-centric stores.

 PredaKhaine wrote:
I don't think so - those people who still want to scratch build scenery and terrain will do.

But for the rest of us lazy *baskets* it means that we've moved on - For example, we've advanced from fighting on a table with books on it and a cloth over the top representing hills, or fighting round a shoebox...

Now, one of my friends has a scale model of the houses of parliament which is a lot more interesting to try and invade

I agree. People who want to scratch build will do it. It is also fabulously less expensive, so younger gamers on a budget tend to make do with books and such which leads to building basic terrain and so on. Also, you can't get everything in pre-made terrain. If you play enough and are invested enough, you're going to want something that you can't find.

The forums are chock full of people scratch building terrain, and even with pre-made kits, there's often a lot of work to do.

I don't think pre-made terrain is going to kill traditional hobby skills. It's just too expensive at this point, and I think it always will be. Woodland Scenics kits never stopped people from doing things on their own, for example. Wargamers tend to be crafty people. It's baked into the hobby. People do it partly because they want to create things. There are those who don't like that aspect of the hobby, and while I wouldn't say that such people are not wargamers, I doubt that they would be more interested in building terrain if there weren't pre-made options.

There are certainly those that have money, but not the time nor inclination to build their own terrain. They have always, and will always, buy ready to use stuff.

There are also those who have no money, and either no time or no inclination. They will continue using shoe boxes and solo cups.

The final category is those who simply have both time and inclination (regardless of money situation). In this case they will generally build their own. Although they may purchase ready made for particular things.

Personally, I fall into the category of sometimes having money and sometimes having time and inclination. So I've bought a number of premade buildings and I have also made my own buildings, forests and hills/mountains. Some of which,. I've been told, actually look decent. However I will also use a solo cup when the situation demands it. Guess I'm complicated that way.

 heartserenade wrote:
My only question is this: where are the premade plastic castles you speak of? O_O.

Here you go:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440008a&prodId=prod180001a
It's not quite the polystyrene lumps I got back when WH Siege was released, but it looks the part.

As for home-made terrain, there are a couple of my club who build amazing stuff from the most basic parts.
Plastic coffee cups are silos, cardboard covered in plaster paint make up the buildings, and styrene blocks are carved as hills.
With a bit of practice, movie posters are scaled to fit, and shop signs are stuck on.
Even pebbles become menhirs and ritual circles when glued to bases.
Throw on extra from the bits-box, and you've got a pile of themed scenery.

I think it's actually an advantage. I started with pre made terrian aswell on my table and slowly drifted into making my own additions to vary a bit and break it up a little. I know for sure that if there wasn't any convenient premade stuff around I would not even have bothered with making my own table to play. It really is a good way to get infected with the terrain building virus

 Kilkrazy wrote:

You can even get space corridors!

I don't really need any space corridors, but I'd love some industrial towers.

Do you know of any companies tha make them?

 Skinnereal wrote:

 heartserenade wrote:
My only question is this: where are the premade plastic castles you speak of? O_O.

Here you go:
http://www.games-workshop.com/gws/catalog/productDetail.jsp?catId=cat440008a&prodId=prod180001a
It's not quite the polystyrene lumps I got back when WH Siege was released, but it looks the part.

As for home-made terrain, there are a couple of my club who build amazing stuff from the most basic parts.
Plastic coffee cups are silos, cardboard covered in plaster paint make up the buildings, and styrene blocks are carved as hills.
With a bit of practice, movie posters are scaled to fit, and shop signs are stuck on.
Even pebbles become menhirs and ritual circles when glued to bases.
Throw on extra from the bits-box, and you've got a pile of themed scenery.

Blerg. I thought it was something more fascinating than that.

Another thing to note: some premade terrain are great starts to projects of their own, which could fuel some homemade parts. For example, the Garden of Morr box set I got from my Dakka Painting Challenge winnings gave a start to my medieval village which is all homemade (except for the graveyard which composes of Garden of Morr and some Mantic gravestones).

Really getting into home made terrain at the moment. I'm even making my own Realm of Battle style board sections. 2' by 2' MDF squares supported by strips of wood 44mm deep. They join together securely with bolts and cost around £7-8 to make.

EDIT - And no skull pits either!

I find that when you make terrain yourself you feel as if you have accomplished something
But with plastic kits you don't feel as pleased with yourself.
Though playing over plastic kits seem better than playing on kitchen tables!
Where am I getting here?
Well what I think is that playing over plastic kits is better but homemade seems more self praising!

Turning weird foam packing shapes into bunkers and forts was out of necessity as we had no alternative. The terrain upkeep was a barrier for many from entering the hobby.

Now with the pre-made 3rd party stuff, it is more durable, looks better, more varied, and more accessible. I think it brings more people in by making people who wish to trade 'money' for 'time/skill' to get terrain.

Do I have fond memories building terrain out of garbage with my friends? Hell yeah I do! I was also broke with a lot of free time. Now I barley have the time to paint my stuff let alone make stuff from scratch.

I Know *HOW* to cast up hirst tiles, and do plasticard detailing on a tin can. I know how to apply sand and crap. Who has time?

I have an ork fort which is like 60% done which has been on my shelf for 10 years. I can't bring myself to throw it out as it is a really cool piece of terrain. But I can't seem to finish it as other things are more exciting and butt in line.

I think the skills and art of doing it still exist, we just focus it in different ways. I think the terrain stuff is good overall.

This really seems like a "When I was your age, I walked 20 miles each way to school, uphill both ways, in the snow.." argument.

The easy access to pre-fab terrain raises the bar a bit, but certainly doesn't remove all the hand-work to get really neat looking pieces.

Most 'pre-fab' stuff is still a kit with the exception of some of GF9's stuff and a few very basic 'elemental' pieces like covered hills. You can buy a laser gut bridge and slap it together, and it looks OK, but stand it next to the same kit that's been assembled, detailed, primed, and painted and it'll look pretty sad. There's a lot of room to tweak and modify.

Pre-fab houses, for example, may look fine when there's one or two together... but too many and it starts to look fake. Add some customization (Aouse A has some scale bicycles outside... House B has a big hole in it... House C has a weapon mounted, probably aimed at the hole in House B) and the cheap base kits look much better.

 Balance wrote:
Pre-fab houses, for example, may look fine when there's one or two together... but too many and it starts to look fake. Add some customization (Aouse A has some scale bicycles outside... House B has a big hole in it... House C has a weapon mounted, probably aimed at the hole in House B) and the cheap base kits look much better.

The houses that Warlord sells from 4Ground Terrain is really well done and having an apartment block of them looks really cool. The added bits that you suggested would serve to make it better looking, but they're not crapping the bed without that stuff

I don't think the prevalence of quality ready-made terrain has had much impact on normal gamers other than making the battlefields look a lot better for those who're not particularly good at/not bothered about building their own.

But it has contributed to making GW stores a much less attractive place to visit. I remember just about every major release at my local GW used to have a completely custom 4x4 board; a hillside along one of the board edges modelled on the outside as a cross-section of tunnels full of Skaven, an incredible Mordheim board featuring about a third of an asteroid fragment strike along on board edge, with the buildings modelled to have appropriate levels of damage depending on how close they were to it. Now the few tables that remain are just realm of battle tiles with a handful of bits of Official GW Super-Awesome HHHHHhobbyist Brand Terrain.

 Balance wrote:
This really seems like a "When I was your age, I walked 20 miles each way to school, uphill both ways, in the snow.." argument.

I certainly didn't intend the argument to be that way, admittedly I was pressed for time writing the first post so I could have been a bit better with my wording.

What I meant is more like how the 'letter to a friend' has died out with the advent of email and mobile phones etc. The advent of electronic communication is without advantageous, but the skills of writing letters, even very informal ones, is going the way of the dodo, and with it, all the nuances and subtleties that were required to write a good letter have started to fade. There are still some that practice the old ways, but most have given up the old letter-writing skills for the instant, but less personal, emails and SMS.

I was just contemplating that while a good few may look towards the old DIY route, and will also embrace the new simultaneously, I just think we are going to see (especially in the newer hobbyists) a lack of DIY terrain as they opt for the 'easy route'

 Yodhrin wrote:
I don't think the prevalence of quality ready-made terrain has had much impact on normal gamers other than making the battlefields look a lot better for those who're not particularly good at/not bothered about building their own.

But it has contributed to making GW stores a much less attractive place to visit. I remember just about every major release at my local GW used to have a completely custom 4x4 board; a hillside along one of the board edges modelled on the outside as a cross-section of tunnels full of Skaven, an incredible Mordheim board featuring about a third of an asteroid fragment strike along on board edge, with the buildings modelled to have appropriate levels of damage depending on how close they were to it. Now the few tables that remain are just realm of battle tiles with a handful of bits of Official GW Super-Awesome HHHHHhobbyist Brand Terrain.

Exalted. ^

While most of the GW terrain kits are fantastic, the explosion in Warhammer Fantasy and 40K branded terrain has had a terrible side effect. It seems that GW gaming boards, in GW stores but especially White Dwarf battle reports has become horribly homogonised.

It used to be that almost every White Dwarf featured a new, unique gaming board with incredible scratch built terrain and the occasional GW terrain product (e.g. the old resin Imperial Shrine was awesome). Nowadays, the gaming boards are almost always just variants of GW Cities of Death kits, the Planetstrike and recent 6th Ed Fortifications terrain line, and Realms of Battle boards.

One of my local GW's, GW Middlesbrough did make an incredible Goblin Town board for LOTR, using expanding foam for rock spires and cliffs to anchor walkways to and give the board an appropriate sense of verticality, so they deserve a lot of credit for their creativity, but even this made heavy use of GW terrain kits...Realms of Battle boards for the floor of Goblin Town, one tile was used as a wall/cliff face, and a heck of a lot of the Goblin Town walkways kit were used.



I miss the days when White Dwarf how us to make our own terrain, and supplement it with their (modest) lines of terrain products. Now, its all about how to make the most of their kits - no scratch built terrain piece tutorial in sight.