SoCal Mali Boards

[LeperColony]

Going to start a thread based on the boards we use at Lost Planet in Torrance, California.  

We're starting to reach a point where our play is becoming more sophisticated.  As a group, most of our players are new to Malifaux with 3rd edition, so naturally the beginning was about basic rules and mechanics, learning crew building, etc.  But now we're seeing people pick tech pieces, try Dead Man's Hand, and explore some more advanced elements of the game.  Part of this developmental process is a growing appreciation of the impact of terrain, and so also, we're trying to play on more varied and challenging boards.

Here's three we used last Saturday.  I forgot to take pictures of two others we had demos on, which were much plainer and straight forward.

 

This is our desert board.  I'm kinda OCD about theme, so unfortunately this board tends to see relatively little variance in terms of what we put on it.  I like to stick to desert type stuff, and so our choices are more limited.  Still, here we have a board with wide open lanes, but several pieces of blocking terrain, forests, and the sniper nests.  Those don't tend to get used very often, but partially I think that's because people don't appreciate yet quite how useful it can be to set someone up there.  Enemies shooting up are going to lose a lot of range, so a sniper can use that fact for some additional defense.

This table also has some built-in ledges which, while we only count as height 1, can sometimes impact the way charges and pushes happen.

 

This set up originally had the "southern" building within the walls, but the players swapped it out for the forest when the app generated Turf War.  It's a rough board for shooters in the middle, and particularly effective for crews with movement tricks and indirect effects.  But the side lanes are much more open, potentially adding complications to strats like Idols or schemes like Outflank.  

@Diceman87, one of our resident veteran players, craftily choose to play Wong on this table, which is a good reflection on the way experience helps identify crews best suited to the terrain.

  

Sheesh, talk about claustrophobic.  I'll admit here, I happened to find a second set of carnival terrain I had forgotten I owned, so a lot more got put on this table than maybe I would normally have done.  Still, this board does have some options for ranged crews, with a few wide lanes cutting diagonally across the middle.  But it's obviously friendly to close in keywords, and all the blocking terrain would be nice for Redchapel or Wastrels.

I believe this table hosted Brewey v Kaeris.  The pyre markers probably closed off even more than normal, but at the same time, the packed in terrain may have helped the poison spread.

[Adran]

Cheers for the pictures.

My first response to seeing them was that 1 and 2 feel too open and that 3 felt that you might actually have enough terrain on the table.

 

Edit - I agree with the idea of trying to keep the scenery "themed" together . I like the ideas of the boards and they look like they have some nice challenges to think about, I would just want something more to downpower long ranges.  Although you say you don't have sniper problems even when you have sniper nests, so it may well be that your players aren't abusing long ranges, so its not a problem you need to solve.

[Paddywhack]

16 hours ago, LeperColony said:

Enemies shooting up are going to lose a lot of range, so a sniper can use that fact for some additional defense.

Don't forget that the difference in elevation counts against both models - the one on the tower and the one not. So snipers sitting up there may lose some distance too. 

While I do like the themes, I would agree with Adran that they are still a bit sparse. More scatter terrain might help. Crates, small boulders, carts, fences, hedges, etc. They can go about anywhere and help break up the really open places. The third one is just about right in my mind, though I've been shying away from large forests.

For the desert theme, you could get some cheap pieces of felt cut in small shapes to make concealing dust devils.

I really like the second one, though I was afraid at first the buildings might make it too hard to play on, it does kind of look fun. Could use a few smaller pieces around the edges though. That right side is wide open. Nice tables overall though! 

[LeperColony]

2 hours ago, Paddywhack said:

Don't forget that the difference in elevation counts against both models - the one on the tower and the one not. So snipers sitting up there may lose some distance too. 

That's true, but snipers typically start with higher range, and can get a lot more from focus.

[Paddywhack]

34 minutes ago, LeperColony said:

That's true, but snipers typically start with higher range, and can get a lot more from focus.

Yep, but that extra difference saved my bacon a couple of times from riflemen who ran out of focus.  

Cool tables though. I worked in Torrance ages ago and don't recall any good game stores. I keep seeming to move to places with small or no communities, then find after I move something new popped up  

[LeperColony]

Boards for 2/25:

Exact same as the desert board on 2/22.  Players didn't move any terrain around.

There's several other pieces of terrain obscured from this photo (a few wall pieces, another rubble patch).  The train station dominates one corner.   A couple of rubble patches adds some severe terrain.  A large swath in the middle was intentionally left bare.  Brewey and Dreamer mixed it up here in Reckoning, and most of the fighting seemed to be around the centerline.

Grandstands pen in a central area, with other blocking terrain near the edges.  One thing the picture may not really show well is that the terrain on the "northern" edge is less amenable to Search than that on the "southern" side.   Jack Daw and Mei Feng did battle here, mostly in the circular area bound by the bleachers.  

[Adran]

Again, thank you for the pictures of the boards. I would say that the middle board of the second set looks like too many big pieces. I might be wrong, you've said how there are a bunch of other terrain features we can't see on the board.

Some big set piece terrain sections can be nice, but you probably don't want to block out quite that much of the table. (I'd suggest not mixing the train station with other large buildings unless they have playable interiors , which the other ones might have as they look slightly ruined.

[LeperColony]

I was absent-minded today and neglected to get images of two of the four boards we used, but here's pictures I did get for two of 2/29's tables:

Finally the desert board got a terrain reshuffle, and a few more of the palm tree forests got used.  The players also fished out some cacti. Not super sure how they counted those (I was playing on another board), but probably concealing or blocking.

I played on this board.  For the central piece, only the pillars had any rules, they were blocking, impassible, ht 4.  A little hard to see in this photo, but there were 5-6 scatter pieces we counted as height 1 or 2 depending on the piece, and destructible.  A forest, mass grave (severe) and some buildings (the ruins with flat surfaces climbable) and two height 2 climbable blocking walls rounded out the terrain.

[LeperColony]

3/3 and the start of our March Madness event.

  

Desert board flank deployment sees a lot of blocking and forest terrain on the centerline.  Scatter terrain and a few smaller pieces in the deployment zones.  Euripidies and Brewmaster played here in an open strat/scheme/hand training game.

Basse v Mei Feng demo game on this board.  Central forest piece had a big impact.  Flanks saw plenty of fighting near the walls of the build building.

Broke out some sewer walkway pieces for Titania v McCabe.  The train station dominates one corner, a forest another.  A few small walls and a hazardous acid pool round out the rest.

[LeperColony]

Managed to capture three out of the four boards for 3/7, but for some reason photographing them all continues to elude me.

Desert board.  Really need to add some thematic terrain here so we can shake things up more.  Maybe next time the carnival will stop through.

Pretty standard mix of concealing, dense, severe forests, some blocking buildings, hazardous pools and some scatter destructible pieces.  The corner elevated areas are treated as Height 1 hills with ledges where there aren't smooth paths.  Generally they aren't that impactful, but once every 3-4 games they can screw up a charge or do something that complicated matters.

A large number of height 1, climbable, blocking walls are the most distinguishing feature of this board.  There's some buildings too, and two forest patches.  Sight lines are reasonably clear, but charge lanes are more complicated.

With the center dominated by the train station, the middle of the board is very congested while the corners are much more sparse.  Lucius and Mei Feng did battle here, mostly in an area bound by the centerpoint and the green wagon in the lower corner.

[LeperColony]

Snapshots of the two tables we used for the 3/10 games.

Stuck some carnival terrain on the desert board.  Allowed a visual shake-up, but since there wasn't too much placed on it, I don't think it played very differently.  Daw and Titania fought here, mostly in an area within 6-8" of the center purple stage.  A Corrupted Ley Lines marker plugged up that central stage a bit.

A ton of blocking terrain on the "northern" side, with the "southern" side more open.  Forests and the ruined building in the middle cut sight lines, while small walls and a few destructible pieces round out the board.

[LeperColony]

Only one game on 3/14, due to events.  But an interesting table for it.

  

Lots of forest clumps effectively break up sight lines.   Severe terrain pools complicate charging, and a few buildings hang out in the corner.