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I have a question about terrain.

Since my country is new on wargaming. I want to know if when you guys started to play in your FLGS you as customers paid for the terrain? or the owner of the store paid for it?

I've been playing at a new store. The owner bought some GW terrain. The owner also bought some raw materials (foam sheets, flocking, etc.) and the customers worked on making terrain for the store. Everything was paid for and is owned by the store though.

Our FLGS had a tournament shortly after opening up and offered up a store gift card to the winner, needless to say their terrain collection was lacking so after the winner had been crowned (not me) he used the $250 dollar gift card to purchase terrain for the store tables. It was truly a great move on his part.

But usually other stores I've been to have a stockpile of their own terrain + donated terrain.

Not here. The players paid $10.00 month, about six of them to receive benefits (like a club). Thats about $60 per month and it started in February 2011. Right now theres about $900 collected and not even a Pegasus Hobbies building.

I keep hearing that name come up in terrain talk, Pegasus. Whats so special about it?

Hmmmm that doesn't sound good. At my last FLGS the owner reimbursed us for creating the tables for him.

Contrary to what is happening here, people paid the $10 month and even the store received some donated terrain and continues to charge monthly fees. Its like if I open a restaurant and I ask customers to sit on the floor to eat and pay monthly for the chairs and tables.

Bluetau:

Pegasus hobbies has cheap terrain stuff painted and unpainted.

If you have a bunch of players interested another thing to do would be have a terrain contest, the winner of the coolest piece of terrain gets something.

This way it offsets costs, you get a ton of terrain, and it gets people involved

Bluetau wrote:I keep hearing that name come up in terrain talk, Pegasus. Whats so special about it?

Try google. Pegasus terrain. Lots of products.

Thats a nice idea Grundz, but only a few people do terrains. Must spend time painting their own armies and playing.

Every store that I have played in has provided store owned terrain.

It is impractical for gamers to bring terrain. Lugging armies around is difficult enough.

A middle road would be for the store to offer space to store player owned terrain. However, there can be problems if the terrain then goes missing or gets broken.

If the store is smart they will invest in great terrain, as it attracts players. The basics, such as hills and rocks are very cheap. They could also print out some paper terrain and glue it to cardstock.

spaceelf wrote:Every store that I have played in has provided store owned terrain.
It is impractical for gamers to bring terrain. Lugging armies around is difficult enough.

Yeah, I have a ton of 1/144 scale scenery in a box, enough for a good-sized Heavy Gear game, but it's a hefty add-on to a minis bag.

spaceelf wrote:
A middle road would be for the store to offer space to store player owned terrain. However, there can be problems if the terrain then goes missing or gets broken.

I've heard of a few stores that took the route of offering incentives for gamers to contribute terrain. Anything from deals, free sodas and snacks, up to buying materials. Then a gain, most stores seem to have a few hills and a bunch of foamcore ruins. I rarely see the really cool tournament-style tables.

spaceelf wrote:
If the store is smart they will invest in great terrain, as it attracts players. The basics, such as hills and rocks are very cheap. They could also print out some paper terrain and glue it to cardstock.

I vaguely remember GW stores used to have really awesome 'demo tables' with a bridge scene (for WHFB), maybe something similar for WH40k. Only 2x2 or so, but really nice looking.

Do a terrain-building event. You can make terrain out of foam, a foam cutter, glue and sand.

I usually just leave my terrain at stores I like.

Ask the Store Owner what the $900 is being used for. That is enough to make quite a lot of good terrain. Quite. A. Lot.

The first store I played in had their own terrain and had a donation jar to help offset the cost of maintaining and adding to it.

The store I play at now is pretty much the same. We are getting ready for a 25 table tournement and all the regulars are pitching in to boost what we have to cover all the tables. The store owner is awesome he set up terrain building days and basically is offering a workshop on how to build and paint it.

We siphon off money from tournament and league entry fees before giving out prize support to raise funding for terrain. Then I built/bought/won most of what we have. Other players built some as well, and then tend to get paid out of the aforementioned fund for their efforts.

Thanks for the answers guys. Since the store is dedicated to card games like Magic and Yugioh!, miniature games suppose to be a secundary business trial. The card game players dont have to pay anything for the use of the tables and they can use all the remaining game tables in the store. The miniature games are allowed to use only two joined tables if no more space available.

The funny thing is customers are buying a lot of GW stuff, so the business is running and theres no sense in charging the monthly fee and not investing in a good terrain. New players are coming.

Just my 2 cents worth, but in the long run, the store is better off owning the scenery, paying for the scenery, and supplying it free of charge for the players to use. It's a service the store provides, and will result in larger sales.

Charging players 10 bucks a month and not following through is very poor on the stores part.

My FLGS started up warhammer about a year ago. the store owner, and a few other people have been making and donating terrain pieces ever since. it started with simple (and ugly) LEGO terrain pieces that barely sufficed, and now we have an entire bookshelf with enough terrain to have 3 games with good terrain at once!

Big Mek Dattrukk wrote:My FLGS started up warhammer about a year ago. the store owner, and a few other people have been making and donating terrain pieces ever since. it started with simple (and ugly) LEGO terrain pieces that barely sufficed, and now we have an entire bookshelf with enough terrain to have 3 games with good terrain at once!

Even if players made donations, the store owner also donated. Lucky.

Has anyone talked to the owner about his plans for scenery? Possibly you could talk to him, and put forth a plan about how to build scenery, and purchase some pre-made scenery.

More communication is always good. Possibly he just doesn't have time, or have a clue, about what to buy or what to make.

Beautiful terrains draw customers to the store.
Without it, why would they bother going instead of playing at friend's houses?

Waste of time, many players have been brainwashed by a leading player and most of them dont care. I really decided not to go much there.

Capt. Camping wrote:Waste of time, many players have been brainwashed by a leading player and most of them dont care. I really decided not to go much there.

Instead of purchasing pegasus hobbies, why not make cheap terrain hills, mountains, ruins for a start?

foams are cheap
xacto knives are cheap
white glue are cheap
sand is free

it doesnt need to be all or nothing, have store owner spend $5 out of his own pocket and start somewhere....

They dont want to spend anything from their pockets, they should have done it more than a year ago. A player went to the store offering them recasted or remodified buildings already painted very cheap and they said "NO".

Play at home with friends I guess...?


Unless the store offer some insane discounts...
or ebay doesnt ship to your country, I see no point of staying at such an inflexible game area.

Yeah! I play at home with some of those players, and I have a gaming table with lot of terrain made by myself and others. People that come are always happy to see something new. By my own initiative I will buy plastic buildings and they offered to help me.

If you want to make some terrain for CHEAP!
I suggest wood glue/PVA glue/white glue matchsticks you can buy at a craft store (you could use normal match sticks but they are smaller and you have to cut the head off, and are more expensive) and home made baked play dough. recipee found here: http://privateerpressforums.com/showthread.php?73820-Building-terrain-with-no-money

also http://terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page109.html for trees (i haven't made any of these yet)

for results you can get on matchsticks and baked play dough (home made i wouldn't use brought- also look formy post in the PP forum site about sealing your baked dough)
I made these two pieces , my first terrain in over 15 years, they are painted now but i don't have pics.
These are the pics i do have:


and my personal fave:


i secured the sticks to the base by a small strip of foam you could build a true frame, i just went with a half arsed approach. I also filled in gaps in the wall after it was glued together, with a combination of PVA glue and gravel.

and i forgot my dodgy pilbox that i forgot to make a window in, so now it's errr...a...watchtower.


just some ideas if you decided you want to invest the time for the store you want to play at, but do it very cheaply (and they look different to foam hills ect)

Capt. Camping wrote:They dont want to spend anything from their pockets, they should have done it more than a year ago. A player went to the store offering them recasted or remodified buildings already painted very cheap and they said "NO".

In that case, they took peoples money under false pretense.

AT my FLGS, we had a day where we built terrain for the store, and a lot of times terrain can be used as a entry fee over $ for most leagues (to date anyway)