Faction Power Fluctuations

[Whut]

So I haven't had any experience playing in person apart from a demo game, all my experience has been with Vassal. But I have seen games played in person, includng snapshots of tournament tables, and I have to say the difference in terrain is pretty huge. Tables in person rarely have the amount of dense terrain that some Vassal maps have, specifically the ones that look more like an asylum or crypt with a lot of rooms and walls.

Do hobby shops not have enough terrain? Or do some Vassal maps have too much?

Because the way I see it, shooting is INCREDIBLY powerful in malifaux and is mainly balanced by line of sight and cover, but that makes me think that guild, outcasts, and Arcanists are more powerful on the tabletop while ressers and neverborn gain an advantage in Vassal, and it seems like this fluctuation is is not insignificant.

[thebarbalag]

The Vassal maps have been designed using the same concept that physical tables should use: terrain sufficient to cover ~ 1/3 of the entire table. At our store, I measure 12" of the table, fill it with terrain of various types, trying to keep a good mix of blocking, severe, and scatter, and then spread that terrain over the table. That gives us good coverage. Ratty, who I believe designed the Vassal maps, has several good articles on the subject around here somewhere.

[Adran]

I don't use vassel, but from a pratical standpoint, a more physically crowded board is much harder to move things around and see all your models. I've certainly left part of my crew behind in some games because I couldn't see them.

I've made some interesting terraclips boards, but it gets very hard using multiple levels at the same time.

 

Its certainlyy the case that some boards will favour some crews. The 2 extremes are probably the shooting crew vs incorporial models, with one doing best on an open board, and the otehr doning best on a board full of impassable terrain.

 

The balance point is that you see your board before you select your crew, and so know what will be good

[MasterDisaster]

Ressers are hardly a faction that needs to worry about shooting being powerful, they have some monstrous beat sticks, lots of support and healing and the infamous Ca 8 Lure ala Rotten Belle. Double Belles = Quad Lures and that often negates the range of shooting because you are being eaten by Izamu or a Rogue Necro shortly afterwards.

 

Still I see your point though. For the most part I've found a lot of players do not use the standard 33% coverage which ends up making Gremlins, Guild, Outcasts and Arcanists pretty badass where as Vassal seems a lot more balanced and these factions tend to lose a fair bit of power in the shooting department because the terrain is more diverse and evenly spread out which is as it should be. 

[Whut]

The Vassal maps have been designed using the same concept that physical tables should use: terrain sufficient to cover ~ 1/3 of the entire table. At our store, I measure 12" of the table, fill it with terrain of various types, trying to keep a good mix of blocking, severe, and scatter, and then spread that terrain over the table.

Right, and that's fine, but when this style is used I tend to see less impassible walls and more "islands" of terrain, or cover barricades, but rarely harsh range-punishing terrain like I do in vassals' walled-off rooms, or that one map with the train car blocking most of the center. Maybe this is because my store has an abundance of Warhammer Fantasy terrain, but I'm sure others know what I'm talking about.

Thanks for the replies everyone!!

[Cats Laughing]

I think it has a lot to do with the available terrain. My FLGS has piles of WHFB, 40k, and WarmaHordes terrain, which means hills, forests, low walls, craters, and sci-if ruins, which all kind of suck for Malifaux. On the otherhand, I've got my own set of Mordhiem terrain and an MDF train set, which makes for a lot more interesting game

[Whut]

Can anyone attest to how much of a difference this makes? I know it really comes down to the amount of terrain, but is there any way we can make some sort of measurable estimate of the effect this has on certain strats/schemes/matchups?

[4thstringer]

I don't play Vassal, but I know when I have played games of malifaux that have felt "indoors" I have found them to be rather frustrating, and honestly feel like way too much terrain under the rules. 

[Math Mathonwy]

There is also the counterpoint that shooty models do pay for their shootyness and the range in their ranged attacks. If the board is dense enough that you can deny all shooting from more than 8" away, then the shooty models are punished too hard. This is also more pronounced in attacks that have the symbol since everything tends to be in cover. Meanwhile Belles and such simply don't care.

[D_acolyte]

I am not a Vassal player.

Despite what the rules may say about percentage of terrain on the field it is up to the in person players to use it, which means that some players that use range attacks will try and minimize the terrain that give cover vs cc player will try to minimize rough terrain.  one way this minimization happens is with larger pieces so a disproportional amount is in a building or something off to the side.  If you want more terrain then play with more or use smaller pieces to give the fell of more. Also see about how the local group do it and try and convince them to use more.

PS if they are also warmachine players be ready for an uphill battle. I have seen some that have stated that if there is more then 2 hills and 2 forests of x size that they will not play.

 

I tend to play with a lot of wall, hedges and trees.  Sometime I will have a full building 2 story building with removable ruff and second floor on the table, and that thing is HUGE.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yep, terrain is a huge factor in the game, particularly if one side is focused on range or models with incorporeal/flight. The 1/3 rule is very important.

[Math Mathonwy]

That 1/3 isn't the whole story. As an extreme example, having one giant mountain (or a lake!) vs having only really many 1" x 6" sections of walls of various heights will both lead to very silly games. Of course neither of those situations is likely but all in all the type of terrain that fill you use to fill up that 1/3 is really important.

Often in battlefield pics I've seen people using mostly (or only) western-style houses which, depending on whether you allow models to go inside, makes, e.g., Incorporeal really good and Flight really lackluster.

[MasterDisaster]

Really a good battlefield should have 1/3 of the board covered is various types and sizes of terrain. I tend to try and get a mix of scatter terrain (Boxes, barrels, sand bags), Soft Terrain (trees, forests, bushes, low walls etc) and hard terrain (rocks, buildings, barricades etc). Effectively I aim to have 1/3 of the original 1/3 of table space  dedicated to different types of terrain so it's fairly evenly mixed and then try to distribute that terrain evenly across the table so that both players have equal amounts of Soft/Hard cover, Severe and Hazardous terrain etc on their side of the board. Better to have a fair playing field so people can't use that as an excuse when you pummel them with your crew 

[Adran]

Just want to counter that last point. I don't think you do want to have a fully even battle ground. If you do, then the choosing who sets up flip is hugely important. If you instead make one side a little better than the other, you actually force a choice on the flip winner. Bizzarly, an unbalenced board leads to a more balenced game.

[D_acolyte]

Blizzards.... Who wants the return of the random special "Terrain"?

For those that do not know, in first edition there was a large number of areas ranging from the swamp to the quarantine zone and each had a table of normal terrain and another one for special "Terrain" and events. One such special "Terrain" made all open ground into ruff terrain another one was rocks falling on your head or the Hanging Tree.

Blizzard was one that messed with shooting and will of all non frozen heart models if I recall correctly.

[thebarbalag]

Buildings, or similar "lane blocking" terrain are a must. I think you always want a good mix. I like about 1/5 of the board closed off/occupied by large-ish terrain pieces like buildings, or forests, substantial scatter, like individual trees, barrels and crates, low walls, etc. and some instances of severe terrain, forests, rubble, swampy ground. Be very careful with terrain that severely impacts one side of the board, or one type of models - a river running across the board with one bridge in the middle, or a very high wall on one side of the board (when that side is in one player's deployment, but not the other - less of big deal otherwise) are good examples of this. It should be very difficult, if not impossible, to draw LoS from one side of the board to the other. Ranged models should be limited so that their player has to make good positioning choices to get LoS without cover, but not hampered so greatly that they are never taking a shot without cover, or their effective range is drastically reduced all the time.