I’ve never played miniatures before, but a friend convinced me Malifaux would be a great way to get started (thanks Andy) so I’m jumping in. I still haven’t played my first game but have been reading a ton in preparation. While waiting for my figures to arrive I’ve built my first terrain base and was hoping for some honest and critical feedback as to playability.
My first set will be Mei Feng and her Rail Crew, and my wife is starting with Lucas McCabe and the Relic Hunters. I want the terrain to work for a wide range of crews, but knew it would conceptually be in the badlands, and I had to have a train track for my boys.
Before I began I established a number of requirements:
The set was to be abstract. I’m not a fan of a lot of the “realistic” wild west buildings and such that I’ve seen. I’ve always figured imagination fills in the blanks far better.
It had to be inexpensive. The base is 1” foam insulation with spackle spread over it. Most of the terrain pieces are electrical or plumbing parts I also got at the hardware store. Add in some sprinkle-on grassy textures from the model train store and this whole setup has only cost me a few bucks.
It had to be modular. I live in a condo and space is limited so I cut the base into 18” squares.
I apologize for not having figures in the photos. I only received them recently and haven’t started assembling them yet. I included measurements on some of the key pieces so you could get a sense of the scale.
I see the hipped hill and the slope more as molded base than actual terrain pieces, but when I started spreading everything out it feels really busy and tight. Is this too crowded for good game play?
Do you think I have enough variation in size and type of terrain? Will this board be overly favorable to either ranged or melee? Thanks a ton for any and all feedback, and please feel free to be brutally honest. As I said this is my first try at building terrain.
I see this as a sinkhole over a soulstone mine. Severe terrain so -1 travel.
No travel penalty for gentle slopes, but if my opponent agrees I would like to have the pools of irradiated light coming out of this structure do Hazard damage if your figure stops within the glow.
It appears some ner-do-wells wreaked havoc with the Malifaux railroad. That’s ok, will give my Rail Crew something to do in their spare time.
It may look like a thin slice of polished geode, but this small plane is the result of a weakness in the fabric of the Breach. Time shifts quickly forward when you enter the plane – even though there is no mechanism in the rules for this, I would like to have this area be a +1 inch for each inch of travel across it. Would that totally break the game?
Various electrical parts. Treat them as dense with soft cover?
Various plumbing parts. Treat them as blocking with hard cover?
This hill is made of dried grout I found in the bottom of a bucket I was cleaning out. All I did was glue the pieces together, stick them on a piece of the leftover 1” foam I used for the terrain, blended them together with spackle, and spray painted the whole lot.
Hedge rows made of a piece of floral foam. Trunks are random splinters from a 2x4 I broke up with a claw hammer. My understanding is this type of item would be dense with soft cover.
Thanks in advance for any and all feedback!