It seems like most of the official scenarios rely heavily on overlay tiles. They're a little annoying to me, most scenarios shouldnt requre an overlay. Its nice to have them for building custom scenarios but it would be nice if you did't have to use so many with regular scenarios. Just wondering what other opinions are on this subject.

I am newer to the ToI scene...to me this is one of the beauties of the game....the fact that a scenario can be customized. The rules are a general framework for common understanding, but the sceanrio designer has the freedom to change anything including cover values, unit types, fortifications or whatever to accomplish the goals of the scenario they are building.

An example would be in another thread someone was asking about trenches...there is nothing stoppig one from building a scenario and declaring that the fortification in cerian hexes are linked with trenches and arbitrarily assigning them cover values.

As for the terrain tile hexes themselves I am not sure how else one would do it. Yes, it is not ideal when you have to worry about knocking an excessive amount of tile arouns, but the ability to link or block road networks is pretty nice. Even though you are using ther same 12 or whatever number of map boards they can be arranged in so many various combinations. They are at least made out of a heavy flat material they stay in place pretty well. Compared to a simillar game (Axis and Allies Minis) where the maps are paper with few (PDF) or no tiles aloow for no customization ToI is very flexible.

The problem w/not having all the small terrain tiles to make up the different battlefields from the base maps is that if FFG did away w/ the terrain tiles & just supplied enough map boards to cover the whole European theater they would have to have a game box 5+ times the size of the current one to hold all the map boards needed. Probably wouldn't be realistic in terms of cost effectiveness, size, etc. I agree its kind of a pain when you bump the map board, if thats the issue? I ended up taping my map boards to the game table for that scenario & then double back taping the terrain tiles in place respectively. Seems to work fine. Plus I like the idea of less boards & customizable terrain. Also you've got to be able to build &/or remove entrenchments, razor wire etc. Thats my opinion.

RMCBRIDE01 said:

In a hardware store or the household goods department, you might be able to find large rolls of vinyl meant for use as table top protection. Long ago, I bought some of the thickest vinyl that I then custom cut to fit my dining room table and my coffee table. Not only do I not have dings and dents on my tables, but I worry less about spills because the game boards, at least, are always well protected underneath it. Other people, I hear, use rigid plexiglass.

Personally I find the tiles one of the best additions to this system. I've never had a problem with knocking them around or spills. Highly customizable. They are heavy enough to not worry too mcu habout moving around - unlike a peice of paper which can easily find it's way into a new position with a sneeze.