Warrior Ancient and Medieval Rules

[Todd Kaeser]

Okay folks - there has been much talk about terrain apperance over the past few years and I've thought that we could use this topic to put in ideas that have and have not worked for the creation of quality looking terrain.

I have gone to fabric stores and instead of using felt for woods and brush I have found other fabric. For woods I have found a dark green fur - it adds depth and when a few trees give you an excellent looking woods.

For brush I found another fabric that was textured different shades of tan. I put on "bushes" - which I started with a 3" oval piece off wood (craft store), painted it brown, hot-glued static moss and rocks to it and a decent looking bush is created. Adding 3-4 of them to a brush gives it depth and a fair look.

For hills I went to Home Depot and picked up some of the foam insulation board inch and a half thickness. I used a very sharp knife, but I believe there are better tools out there, and sculpted my hills. The foam is durable enough to create a relatively gradual slope so your troops won't tumble off when they are on the terrain piece. I spray painted it brown and when it was dry I flocked it with a green mixture. The hills I have are nice looking, have depth, and will hopefully be survivable over the years.

For marsh I used some craft foam sheets about 1/8th inch thickness - dark blue. I tried to hot glue on some leftover green fur and then create a water look, but I have not been as successful as I would have liked. I would appreciate any suggestions here.

Just some thoughts on the matter - hope they helped.

Todd K

[Mark Stone]

This is in the archive somewhere, but I'll repost it here to draw it to people's attention. Last time the "ugly terrain" topic came up, I put together a web page describing what I do for terrain. My artistic ability is limited, and I want things that are cheap and easy to assemble. Here's what I do:

http://digitalpilgrim.com/play/warrior/terrain.html

I'm not entirely happy with the hills, and I'm still looking for a good solution there. But everything else I'm quite happy with.



-Mark Stone

[Todd Kaeser]

I'll post some pictures of unit on the terrain I've created.

Try making the hills out of the foam insulation board, looks cool and it will give you a decent workout w/ the cutting unless you have a cool insulation hot knife.

Todd

[Noel White]

Sounds (and looks) like I've done similar things with my terrain.
I try to make the best terrain I can. It really helps me enjoy the game.

I have separate terrain parts but generally I use the same painted burlap mats for the area. The separate parts will indicate the type. Most common terrain choices are roughly the same area. This way I can use any shape of mat for any choice, to help get the right shape for the battlefield. The mats roll-up and the separate terrain counters all go in a box together. So far I've finished 2 types of woods, 1 of brush and 1 rocky. I'll do marsh and olive groves next.

Good looking hills are bulky and hard to transport, and unless all are "gentle slopes" the elements tend to go skiing. No solution there, other than lightweight foam.
I've taken to painting (subtle) crestlines on the hills to reduce player-arguments, and generally steep slopes get shaded slightly darker than gentle slopes for the same reason. This means I've had to make a mountain of mole-hills to cover numerous choices.

I'm having a hell of a time comming up with a way to do good-looking, transportable and variable water features. So I never take those choices... if anyone has a solution, please speak up!

Oh, one more thing. To what scale do you make your terrain?
To the figure scale? To the ground scale (ie 1mm=1pace)? or to something else? I've been trying to split the difference, but I'm afraid my mini Acropolis will look like a dog house in comparion to the figures.

Noel.

[Kelly Wilkinson]

I think the biggest challenge we face as Warrior players will be to find terrain that we can move our troops onto that will look good and actually define the limits of said terrain answering such questions as, "Am I in or out of said terrain. I sort of think that using felt that is flocked might be a good answer. Still, when one is trying to travel light on the plane, this is a problem. I certainly am glad that you guys posted this as I've been lurking in the events section reading all of your excellent points.

Kelly

[Mark Stone]

Some comments on Cold Wars terrain:

First off, nothing I say here applies to the 25mm scale. I didn't play in that scale, and thus have no gripes. My sense is that people put a bit more care into 25mm terrain than 15mm terrain; not sure exactly why.

Alex and I were a completely neutral presence with respect to terrain; we played Mongols, and all three games we picked 4 open spaces. Here's what I observed from our opponents:

All terrain placed was felt.
None of the felt was painted or flocked.
One opponent did have some reasonable "separates" to make the felt look more like brush and woods respectively.
One opponent just had a big box of felt sections, some of which were cut to irregular shapes and some of which were still in their original rectangular form.
This same opponent put down different colored felt for the same terrain type, folded felt to make it fit, and used a purely rectangular piece when nothing else would fit where they wanted it.

Here's how I feel about this. First off, I was pretty disgusted with the terrain effort overall. If we have great looking terrain, we will attract attention from other gamers. If our terrain looks like crap, we will be dismissed at first glance by other gamers. Other games get this part of the game right, so it just can't be that hard.

Other than segmented features like road or minor water, terrain should not be foldable or otherwise maleable. We should just ban this practice outright. I'm also strongly opposed to the use of felt, though I realize there are a few players (Noel comes to mind) who have done some good thigns with felt. How about this:

All felt must be painted and/or flocked;
All felt must include reasonable separates to indicate its terrain type;
Felt may not be folded to make it fit - whatever shape it has is what must be placed (nor may time be spent cutting felt to fit);
Felt must abide by the rules: it must have an irregular, not a rectangular nor perfectly ovular or circular shape;
What goes for felt goes for other flexible materials as well.

And indeed I was sufficiently disappointed with my terrain experience that I'm now leaning towards the pre-set terrain group. If we go with pre-set terrain, I certainly won't oppose that move.

Again, I have to ask: why does this stuff have to be solved by regulation and enforcement? Why can't we, as players, take pride in our hobby and its appearance?


-Mark Stone

[joncleaves]

[Mark Stone]

[chrisbump]

Although I agree with Mark's stance, I see logistical issues arising. BTW, I have no skin in this as we do not play tournament warrior any longer in this area.

If felt cannot be folded and yet the player is required to place his terrain in a confined space, then necessarily he will have to either bring multiple sizes AND shapes of each type of terrain that he may want to place or he will have to make his terrain modular and have lots of smaller pieces of felt that he will then piece together in the confined space. Neither is going to entice new players to the game.

I think that the terrrain issues may, in part, derive from the rules as written. Roads and clear areas are laid tactically to deprive opponents of laying their terrain and then we complain that the symetrical piece of terrian laid out is unrealistic? If roads can be placed atop of woods and hills and woods can be placed atop of hills , why can't woods be placed beneath roads? Are all of the roads in our games newly developed? Or does vegitation not grow back up to the edges of the woods? I've seen, in tournament games, clear spaces laid out that are purely tactical, and shaped like a star or very long and narrow rectangular (practically linear) shape for tactical reasons, or laid in such a place as to deny the use of terrain on a flank as well as in more of the center of the board. How realistic is that?

There have been multiple articles within this group about the tactical use of terrain and how the clever player will use roads or some other to deny his opponent the use of beneficial terrain. Authenticity? I am sure that there are examples, but the percentage has to be very small.

Why not allow terrain to overlap previously laid terrain by some number of paces? Are we to seriously represent our game as one that beleives that there cannot be a marsh within a woods?

It seems to me that as long as terrain can be placed to tactical advantage and also to deny the placement of other terrain, then you are going to have to allow flexibility of terrain depiction to both players, and you cannot complain about the lack of realism or authenticity in the way the battlefield looks.

Down here in the Dallas area, we long ago took Scott's advice about looking to other games. We still play Warrior, but with enough of our own x rules to (derived from looking at how other games did things) to compensate for areas like this that we did not like as much as we do the engine of Warrior.

When we play, we use prepositioned terrain. The host who lays it then allows the other side to choose which side of the table they want. That is not feasible for tournament play. But tournament play belies most authenticity anyhow and as such the terrain depiction should not be too vigorously scrutinized as long as it can be placed by the commanders.

Just my thoughts.
Chris

[Steve Hollowell]

I know some people really enjoy the terrain placement aspect, but as far as I am concerned, it leads to some really unrealistic looking battelfields. Most generals are not going to fight in terrain that puts them at a distinct disadvantage, but if you get cold dice during terrain setup, that is exactly what happens.

Put me in the camp that believes pre-set terrain is the way to go. I would rather spend my time pushing figures and writing lists then figuring out where to place a woods and how to best screw my opponent with a minor water feature.

[Mark Stone]

[scott holder]

I'm optimistic that we can come up with some mechanism for "preset +/-" that will allow for streamlined setup, better looking terrain AND a bit of terrain tactics at the outset.

scott

[joncleaves]

I like the goal that Scott has stated.

[chrisbump]

'To Scott's plan, perhaps you could assign to each table a number of terrain pieces that are aesthetically acceptable. Those pieces could then be rolled for by each player and placed about the table.

This would allow you to control the appearance of the terrain, only have to transport a mnanageable amount (or at least a finite amount) and still allow the players to roll for and assign placement of the pieces that they are given to work with.

Chris