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Azgadil’s New Player Observations - Terrain


azgadil

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What are the recommended new player terrain lay outs?
 
Is there a detailed ruling on how to build terrain?  -ie Player one puts one piece. Player two puts one piece. Repeat alternating placement until both players pass. 
 
What are the communities thoughts on making all terrain with height greater than zero impassable (or obscure with height zero)?  Or can the community provide a clean way to manage the following; vantage point, avoid many odd climbing scenarios and other markers placed on/near objects of greater than zero height.
 
Thank you for those who contributed to terrain placement suggestions on PullMyFinger. I now ensure that terrain does not prevent scoring, such as avoiding terrain that covers a wide area in the center which might make it impossible to score in some thing like turf war. 
 
 
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10 hours ago, azgadil said:
What are the recommended new player terrain lay outs?
 
Is there a detailed ruling on how to build terrain?  -ie Player one puts one piece. Player two puts one piece. Repeat alternating placement until both players pass. 
 
What are the communities thoughts on making all terrain with height greater than zero impassable (or obscure with height zero)?  Or can the community provide a clean way to manage the following; vantage point, avoid many odd climbing scenarios and other markers placed on/near objects of greater than zero height.
 
Thank you for those who contributed to terrain placement suggestions on PullMyFinger. I now ensure that terrain does not prevent scoring, such as avoiding terrain that covers a wide area in the center which might make it impossible to score in some thing like turf war. 
 
 

There aren't any recommendations because no 2 people own the same terrain. 

There isn't a detailed way to build boards, so you can do it how you decide. We typically have someone set up interesting looking boards but we are all experienced enough to not build a board that will give use a huge advantage. (And normally we build the boards before we know what the deployment or mission is). If you go for alternating pieces, make sure that you get enough pieces down. There isn't a hard and fast rule as to how much is enough, (the guidance is 1/3 to 1/2 the board should be covered, but lots of straight walls may take up much  less space than 1 large building that you can't enter yet make a much more interesting board). Lots of the games I play are tournement style, so we just walk up to a pre-made table and then me and my opponent define whats there to make the game playable. (The same table can play  quite differently if you change  how you define terrain on it so you can get a very different sort of crew and game,without changing the layout.)  

I would suggest that all models can reach the same areas of the board. So if you have areas that are greater than Ht 0 either make them climbable, or impassable. Flyers may be able to get their easier, but they shouldn't be the only way to get there.  I would also avoid too high a piece of terrain to stand and shoot on because it often isn;'t fun to have to climb for 2 activations just to stop a sniper. I don't personally avoid multiple level games, they can add a lot of interest and feel more story driven, but I am also comfortable with Vantage point rules, climbing, and marker placement that I'm happy to make sure funny situations are dealt with before we start. 

I must admit I often try to make the board sides a little uneven, because otherwise the flip to pick sides can be the most crucial flip to win so you get to set up second and react to what your opponent does. But if the layouts aren't even you have to make the choice of do you want the better deployment or the ability to react to how the enemy deploys. 

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We usually let a third party set terrain or one player does a board and he opponent gets to add or shift a few pieces before knowing what the mission or deployment will be.

My club is big on cramped boards, ideally both deploymennt zones should have safe spots from snipers and each player can usually reach the center line somewhere along it completely blocked by a huge building or forest. We are often at about 50% board coverage but the 6" around the edges are kept pretty clear making it very dense near the center. Often a cliff or something is at the centerline edge so no LoS can cross those clear edge areas. I'm a fan of blocking off parts of the center line with impassable blocking terrain but naturally making sure both players can reach scoring areas.

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Am I correctly inferring from the replies that this game requires experience to set up terrain in a fun and balanced way.  

My reason for writing is to share that terrain is a barrier to entry and may prevent our group from gaining the experience needed to reach a balanced and fun game play.  An initial set might be helpful. 

Its a two fold issue to have auch free reign to create our our terrain at this stage; 1) it’s time consuming to set up. (We don’t have a guide but we know bad terrain creates a bad player experience so we spend a lot time trying avoid a negative experience) 2) unbalanced game states can create a bad  awful. 

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I think it would be triky to create a good guideline apart from using more terrain than you are used to from any other game and probably avoiding vantage points unless about half the rest of the terrain can block LoS from them.

On a board with a lot of building of the same ht it won't be gamebreaking to have a sniper on one of them but a single sniper's nest can wreck a game ifthe rest of the terrain is too low. I would also recommend LoS-blockers that are at least ht 3 so big models can't see and be seen from all over the board.

If you play many games and have a wide selection of models and terrain setups a single game might be a bit one-sided but shouldn't turn you off the game forever. If you rarely vary the density of terrain one player might find a way to game your standard setup which will lead to bad blood.

This could be true no matter if it's a little or a lot of terrain. On an open board there are several shooty or lure-heavy builds which will be annoying as hell. On a very dense board certain crews that can create blocking terrain or ignore LoS will feel overpowering.

We do everything from veritable shooting galleries where models have great LoS to extremely cramped boards where half the board is impassable or severe in combination with being blocking or dense respectively. I could try to do a few quick image representations of boards I have found fun, not sure others would agree those are "standard". Not sure where these should be stored either. There used to be a sticky o terrain somewhere around hese forums I think?

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59 minutes ago, azgadil said:

Am I correctly inferring from the replies that this game requires experience to set up terrain in a fun and balanced way.  

My reason for writing is to share that terrain is a barrier to entry and may prevent our group from gaining the experience needed to reach a balanced and fun game play.  An initial set might be helpful. 

Its a two fold issue to have auch free reign to create our our terrain at this stage; 1) it’s time consuming to set up. (We don’t have a guide but we know bad terrain creates a bad player experience so we spend a lot time trying avoid a negative experience) 2) unbalanced game states can create a bad  awful. 

Well no and yes. Experience of the game will help set up terrain in a fun and balanced game, but it is by no means essential.

There are certainly boards that can create bad games, but a lot of the time they do that it is because player can exploit the terrain better than the other eitehr due to model selection, or luck. I can't think of a layout that will garentee a bad game, because players don't build their crews until after they have seen the terrain. If you do only have a small selection of models then you might not have the options that allow you to play well on the board, but that can also apply to most parts of the game. If you have only own a few models that are all good at combat, but expensive to hire then you probably won't be able to play a good game of interference.

An empty board can be much less fun, but it is only very unbalanced if one person builds a slower melee based crew and the other builds a ranged crew. 

Argentbadger writes a lot of very good battle reports with Photos of the boards, so you can see some things other people do. (A lot of the threads in the Battle report section have photos, which at least will let you see some of the set ups other people use. Vassel has a lot of pre- made maps, which again will allow you to see ideas for the set up. 

The best advice I can offer is to not spend too long on making the board. Play on it. and after the game talk about it, what seemed good, or bad. Was something a problem. Did something seem too strong, and would it seem that strong if the board was changed a round? 

 

 

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I did a few mockups based on memory of the boards for an event and a few fun ones my buddies built for game nights. You will note we have a large supply of buildings and forests but not much scatter. I usually try to create relatively safe zones in the anticipated deployment zones. They might be a bit light on terrain near the center actually.

Board 1.png

Board 2.png

Board 3.png

Board 4.png

Board 5.png

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