Double-decker table (terrain blog)

[SpiralngCadavr]

(originally posted in the wrong category, also figured out how to put attachments in the body)

So, I unfortunately didn't get any advice on playability in the rules section (I can still use tips, and here's the original thread), but here's the beginnings of the most ambitious scenery project I've done.

The premise is, it will be a combined Malifaux street-level map and sewer map, with 8 modular sections (4 per level) with some extra free-standing scenery to vary it up.

If this works well, I'd eventually like to do another one, but the plans I have for that one will be much more difficult to make modular, so this is a test run, where everything will be on the same level.

I was originally going to plan out the whole table at once, but found that nearly impossible, because I was having trouble keeping the notation on levels straight, so I'm doing one at a time.

We played a game yesterday (actually, it's still in the middle of the action, at the top of the third turn; the warjacks are wagons) to test how the table handled, and I'm glad I did, because some things became clear.

This shows the scale of the terrain, with the 3 blank tiles, with some of my older terrain filling in. The bottom one has the corners marked for the columns that will be in the corners.

I think it's open enough to be playable, but large enough to show scale. It's more open than I originally intended, but I decided that narrow passages, while cooler looking, would be too difficult to play with.

The second image shows how I've planned the table.

The trench will become the sewer, which is small, but still large enough to get in the way, and large enough to feel appropriately wide (10' is hardly a narrow channel). I may need to just call it different elevation, as it's intrusive enough to be slightly problematic, but I'm not sure how much some modular bridges will help.

The majority of marked rectangles will be where catwalks are placed, at the height of the seam. I quickly learned that it would be hard to move miniatures around if the catwalks were permanent, as I originally planned. I'm now planning on having the supports be permanent, with removable sections of walkway.

The third image is mostly for scale. I feel like it has the grand scope appropriate for the cavernous malifaux sewer system.

The clearance for the catwalks will be 2", and the clearance for the openings will be closer to 3". Since they're the same scale, I'm hoping to eventually be able to put grills in front of some of the larger openings, to cut off passages.

I'm planning on riddling the structure with pipes, drainage, ladders, decay, evidence of grisly demise, sewer monsters, etc., but, for now, I'm happy with how the basic structure has turned out. (I have some stuff planned out here, but any clever suggestions would be great-- I'd really like to make this a world, and not just a battlefield.)

Edited March 13, 2012 by SpiralngCadavr

[TeeCee]

Looking forward to seeing more of this project. Great start.

[Inquisitor Wall]

Looks like a good plan. Im looking forward to seeing it progress.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Thanks for the encouragement! I often find myself dropping out of terrain projects somewhere in the middle, so I'm trying to keep the momentum going, and encouragement, even w/o advice, helps.

The nails are going to be what support the second level walkways. I'm not positive how much of the nail head will be visible, but I chose nails because the head would work to keep the walkways from sliding. I'm thinking the catwalks will have metal edges with grating in the middle, possibly with some wooden repairs.

I'm planning on sanding the surfaces down, before possibly applying a second coat, depending on how smooth I want it. The flash exaggerates the texture, but any inking will do some, too, so I definitely want it smoother than it is right now.

I decided to have most of the texture be the surface itself and any painting effects: I tested an area with stone effects, and it was a decent effect for a lot of time (i.e. not worth it) and regular larger tiles would allow for loose premeasuring, which I wanted to avoid.

If anyone has suggestions about texture, I'd appreciate it.

The second pic shows off some of the details nicely. I'm not done with it, and everything was just stuck into the wet surface, so can be removed if I need to work around it.

Just another angle:

Getting a sense of what it'll look like once it's 2 stories. I've rethought some of the design, but I'm still mostly happy with my original concept. The upper floor will be 8" higher than it is, but I'm glad that the proportions with it flush look right, since it's designed to represent the two layers being roughly contiguous.

I'm probably going to build all 4 lower levels, then paint them and add details and effects, then start on the 4 upper ones, so I 1- have a complete 3x3 space and 2- can keep the color and effects consistent.

Edit!

With a stacking modular structure, I can do stranger layouts, like:

-a 3x1 two story/long table

-a "U" shaped table, where the sides of the U are above ground and the middle is sewer (the curves would be the overlap) or an "L" shaped with the leg above and the foot sewer for a really long table

-- these would require up to "dummy" sections to support the upper sections, but that should be easy to make--

-a 2x1 3-story cramped table

-a 1x1 5-story sewer madness (possibly with sidescroller-style rising muck rules)

Edited March 14, 2012 by SpiralngCadavr
stroke of genius!

[CannonFodder]

I love the concept, every time I start thinking of this, I just think .. how much time needed, and where can I store this... If you have the fortitude to finish it I envy you.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Thanks, and yeah-- storage does have me worried a bit.

I think that the sewer pieces will be fine: I can store them vertically, and they'll be a uniform 18x18x6"

The city tiles, though, don't have those corner pieces, so there's a better chance anything sticking out of them could break, and I know I'll make at least a couple buildings taller than 4", so I'm looking at yet more logistical problems (I'm thinking I might use moulding or other decoration to cover up the seams on buildings taller than 4", but that isn't ideal...)

Regarding time, if you've got the skills, it isn't actually that bad. I think I've only put maybe 6 hours in to the sewer, and a lot of that was because I scrapped a lot of ideas before settling on this.

Regarding finances, I've spent all of maybe $15 on it (which will cover the remaining 3 sections easily, though I still need to figure out if the fake water I have will stretch far enough).

[Requirement]

Looks really cool and an idea I have wanted to see in action for a while.

Regarding play, you may have to house rule some stuff or get weird with some stuff (i.e. - Sonnia's fire wall is ht 5 could it go through the ceiling? Pulses are infinitely high, is that still so if on a different "level" of the board? How the heck do you define deployment zones?) I think the one playability drawback I see from a two "level" board is how much of it is actually going to be played on if you have two levels at 3'x3'? Could be a really cool way to run a 3 or ideally 4 player game though.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yeah, those are some good concerns. In response:

I'm thinking that any ability that specifies a region is only on your floor. Otherwise, you could have stupid stuff, like anyone with a damage pulse running around on the wrong level, zapping people above/below them.

For deployment, there are a few factors.

First, I'm planning on making various barricades (large ruins, for instance, or, if I want to be cheekier, Guild tape or the like), and want to see what would happen if some passages are only accessible on one level (encouraging people to move around more), but I think this will require deeper deployment, because it'll take longer to get anywhere… but I don't know if that'll just slow down the game.

This, combined with the second idea, might work well.

Second, there's the option I added that I really want to try out of strange table shapes, in which case, I'd say opposite "corners" would work best-- for instance, top left and bottom right.

I have a hunch that this will be the best method, as total play area is the same, just disbursed over more levels. I'm going to try this once I have the 4 initial sewer tiles complete.

Third, I think, the most elegant (but also most difficult to arrange), is to just figure out a way where each crew's objectives are scattered on different levels (for instance, A Line in the Sand would, in theory, work well in this map). However, if people don't want to, there isn't a lot forcing them. I'm hoping that Malifaux's more story-based and casual play (from what I've experienced) will carry over, here.

I'm sort of thinking that games below 35SS may not have enough models to warrant the full 8 tiles, though, so I think that, either way, the narrower, stacked board might be better.

I agree that a multiplayer game might be the best way of using the whole table.

In tourney play (assuming the table sees tournaments), I'm thinking that players won't be familiar enough with it and/or more competitive, so I'd probably just break it up into a sewer-themed board and a city-themed board.

[SpiralngCadavr]

So, the progress I've made was putting down the second coat of spackel. It was feeling a bit plain, so I added patches of brick texture, and I'll be putting a thin third layer of spackel around the exposed bricks to make them appear slightly recessed, showing from under the cement (or whatever).For this update, I decided to try feeling out around how many models would comfortably fit on the table, and am pretty happy with it.This project has involved a lot of trying stuff out, and feeling what works. My initial idea of a metal walkway started to feel a bit flimsy with the gradually more solid structure of the tunnels. I'm thinking wood with metal reinforcement (balsa and plasticard).

Another shot of the overall form. The flash on white sort of blew out the detail, but I like the elevation, and think that it will work well with the catwalk, though I'm not sure how many ladders I'll need, for gaming purposes.

Testing the scale, also a good shot of the texture. I sanded out the "strokes" but left a lot of the uneven bits, as I think they'll shade nicely.

A shot of some of the more prominent brickwork. The bricks are a little large, but I'm fine with that. As far as suspension of disbelief in Malifaux, I can only assume that oversized bricks won't be the worst offender. This last one also shows the elevation (in the background) a little better.

[dgraz]

Regarding play, you may have to house rule some stuff or get weird with some stuff (i.e. - Sonnia's fire wall is ht 5 could it go through the ceiling? Pulses are infinitely high, is that still so if on a different "level" of the board?

Just use the indoor rules in the RM.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Yeah, we'll be using (a possibly modified version of) the interior rules for the sewer. Probably just play it like the sewer from the RM.

I'm basically done with the first section's structure/texture, outside of the catwalk/second level, so I decided to start on the other sections.

The first section had a lot of wasted material, because I didn't really have a good sense of how proportions would work with a 4" height. With this one, I had a much clearer sense of structure going in to it, so it took probably half as long to plan.

I'll be doing the lower level of the remaining two sections, before doing the second level on all three.

So, without further ado…

[SpiralngCadavr]

So, I haven't had a lot of time to work on this in the last week or so, but here's my table, with some minis to test out the scale.

I decided to finish the second section's structure because I'm not going to want to spackel three tiles twice (which is what I'd be doing if I finished all three new sections at once).

I'm liking the 2 wide x 3 tall x 1 deep option a lot, right now, as I think it gives a pretty cool cross section, and doesn't run in to as many problems with space potentially completely bypassed (as with the 2x2x2 looks like it might).

So, here's a 1x3x1 table, with the notable lack of walkways on each level and spacers between them. As always, comments and suggestions are great.

[dgraz]

Not sure how well it would play like that....seems like it would give all melee crews a significant advantage over crews that like to keep distance (Rasputina, for example). So I'd like to hear how playing goes on it once done - I'd venture that you should play-test now before you put too much more work into it.

I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it works fine because it is an uber-cool idea and look.

[Guy in Suit]

One way to help balance these sorts of things is to charge models with float or spirit one AP to move 'levels' - otherwise they just dominate everyone.

[SpiralngCadavr]

re: dgraz--

I'm definitely going to have a living set of house rules for this (though hopefully it'll be pretty short).

Regarding maneuverability, I'm a bit worried about that, yeah. Unfortunately, the catwalks can't be put in until everything else is painted, so any changes there will need to be blind. However, the catwalk level, depending on how many ways up there are, are definitely something that could give some strength back to ranged forces: the high ground would be really important for them.

Also, fortunately, the vertical style will require probably only a couple more hours of work than just having the whole map flat (reinforce some stuff and build spacers), so, worst case scenario, I have a single-level table with a lot of dimension.

re: Guy in Suit

Yeah, I just did a game with just a pair of Night Terrors, and I'm already a bit concerned. My first thought is that spirits will get hard cover if they're in spots that other models can't access (or would regular cover be plenty, given they already have advantages?).

LOS will limit spirits' attacks, though not their maneuverability.

I'm not sure what you mean by "levels"-- if you mean the platforms on a given cross-section, I'm thinking I'll charge some movement penalty. If you're talking between cross-sections (i.e. the sample I showed would have 3), then I think I'm going to limit everything to the ladders/manholes (or whatever I end up using), since I agree that they'd be ridiculous if they could jump up or down at will.

Thoughts on the above for preventing stupid stuff?

[SpiralngCadavr]

I realized that what I think might not be what other people can immediately understand.

Here's a sketch, color-coded:

blue=walls

red=walkways

green=ways up/down levels that don't require climbing

yellow outlines = non-permanent terrain that can be placed (sample locations)

hopefully that explains some of the madness I haven't articulated?

[LonelyPath]

That looks fantastic so far, I really look forward to seeing more of it. The stacked up shots are also nice, I was wondering if it would be tall enough for larger models and it is

[SpiralngCadavr]

Thanks, and, yeah, LCB is, I believe, the biggest mini in the game (or at least on par with whatever is, I assume), and he comes out to about 3" tall, probably could get up to 3.5" with elaborate basing.

By comparison, each floor is 2" tall, so he'll fit anywhere except under catwalks and in first story tunnels, and I think that the occasional base marker or whatever is worth not having everything scaled to fit the largest model in the game. Because of the spacers, he'll have no problem fitting on the top floor.

Time to come clean: I hadn't considered his height, actually-- at the time, the largest thing I'd assembled was the Ice Golem, which I had thought was nearly the tallest model in the game, so the openings are just a bit taller than it (meaning he fits almost, but not quite, everywhere). However, I'm really pleased about how giant LCB looks, and, for practicality, probably wouldn't have been able to make each floor taller, so would have agonized over something I couldn't change, and maybe compromised.

[Anger Worm]

Awesome project. It reminds me of the interiors of Tatooine for some reason.

I think when doing a project like this some degree of practical gameplay goes out the window. Honestly someone can account for this terrain during crew selection so it shouldn't be too awful with a few mitigating rules.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Awesome project. It reminds me of the interiors of Tatooine for some reason.

Thanks! And, yeah, I can kinda see it. Maybe since it's rounded and blocky?

I think when doing a project like this some degree of practical gameplay goes out the window. Honestly someone can account for this terrain during crew selection so it shouldn't be too awful with a few mitigating rules.

That's a very good point, I hadn't thought of that. Unless someone has a small collection, that'll help a lot, and I think that, if there's going to be something like that, then everyone can be civil in friendly games.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Just another WIP shot. I did a section of walkway. Nothing's glued in place (I want to hit all of the base with the thickest primer I can find* and I don't want it to gum up any of the details (esp. the mesh) on the walkway), but even in its current state, the stairs can definitely hold medium models' weight without a problem, and the walkway can hold 2 large models before it starts to shift.

*any suggestions on a good brand/type?

[ShaddowKatt]

Pretty freaking cool man!!! I'd love to see the end result! Those are amazing!

[SpiralngCadavr]

Thanks!

Another update, dry fitting the main walkways, haven't figured out exactly how I'm going to do the "bridges" above the portals (any suggestions would be appreciated, right now I'm just thinking a couple steps on each side and a short platform in the middle).

Another round of sanding, then I'll be putting the primer down on the areas other than the walkways.

[SpiralngCadavr]

Well, no comments on my walkways. I thought they were pretty snazzy :/

So, I primed the first section, though I'm thinking that, since it kept the detail well, 1-2 more coats of primer would be good, to ensure that it can stand up to the ravages of time and dropped models. The grey shows the detail a lot better than white, and I'm pretty happy with how it's come out. I used deck primer/paint combo (forget what the stuff is called), as the guy at the hardware store thought that that would be about as durable as I would find for a reasonable price.

I also finally figured out how my third piece would fit (I was unsatisfied with how restrictive it would be, for a while, until I got it working). Seeing three elements together gives me more confidence that the layout was a good idea, and I think it should allow for interesting flow and bottlenecks, without forcing them. The second-level walkways should help a lot with the flow, since some areas are fairly limited, right now.

The fourth tile is going to be some sort of flooded basin, but I haven't exactly figured out how dense that piece of terrain will be.

Note: If anyone has any suggestions on what to use for a ton of loose, worn/broken bricks, for the collapsed section, I'm all ears, as that part's got me stumped.

A general shot:

And two bird's eye shots of different configurations.

[Demonn Agram]

nice looking board! keep it up. I love this part of the hobby...

you asked about the bricks..

this is what me and my mates did when we were building a Mordheim monastery:

anyway, I built a mold for making two bricks at a time (from clay), I just can't find the photo of it but this is a quick sketch of it.

basicly the mold is made from wood . the bricks are 1x0,5x0,5 cm (the two "holes" in the mold). it works and is really fast... we made about 200 bricks in less than an hour...