OccasionallyCorrect, what's considered Area terrain on those boards? I'm not immediately recognizing anything can be entered.

9 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

So you mean more than 25? A full 25% of the table covered in LOS & movement blocking terrain, plus some swamps or whatever?

After this game I'll pile all this stuff up and see where it exactly falls on the total. I'm willing to bet if I took all of the buildings and oversized trees and squished them into one area it would be less than the 25% you'd want to see. I find sprinkling a few pieces of area terrain like the small forests to provide that light cover also encourages movement.

My whole goal here is to make sure all players feel like they can scoot around the battlefield while taking acceptable losses. When you leave your heavy cover to go somewhere and your squad of six is now down to three, it discourages movement quite a bit.

I'm not trying to change the way FFG says we should play the game, I'm trying to play it within the rules and with what I have.

13 hours ago, Zerker said:

It may be 25% but the bigger problem IMO is that there is an overemphasis on LoS blocking terrain with a bit of covering terrain (small trees). If you neglect terrain that effects movement (which falls under the 25% rules and has an equal emphasis in the RRG) but doesn't obstruct LoS then you are bypassing a large portion of the movement rules and devaluing a lot of special abilities.

I see plenty of lanes of fire from end to end and movement lane without the feeling of being corralled in

I think we've all been influenced by the starter set and the early worlds. Starter had only barricades. And the two primary settings are Tatooine and Endor. Tattoine has no trees or vegetation. Endor is all about trees, but big LOS blocking trunks. Oh, and Hoth doesn't have a lot of area terrain either. The role models are all about LOS or hard cover. This is actually common in many miniatures games, but not all. Some have a ton of area terrain. It is actually huge in Team Yankee, and a lot of other more historical games.

Build a world and let the armies fight on it. Terrain that has a sense of place is the best start.

2 hours ago, Brightguy said:

I think we've all been influenced by the starter set and the early worlds. Starter had only barricades. And the two primary settings are Tatooine and Endor. Tattoine has no trees or vegetation. Endor is all about trees, but big LOS blocking trunks. Oh, and Hoth doesn't have a lot of area terrain either. The role models are all about LOS or hard cover. This is actually common in many miniatures games, but not all. Some have a ton of area terrain. It is actually huge in Team Yankee, and a lot of other more historical games.

Build a world and let the armies fight on it. Terrain that has a sense of place is the best start.

Hoth doesn’t have area terrain?

Shame about those Trenches and all ? ?

11 hours ago, Thraug said:

OccasionallyCorrect, what's considered Area terrain on those boards? I'm not immediately recognizing anything can be entered.

Any tile with 2 or more non massive trees on them counts as light cover. No movement loss moving through it.

10 hours ago, Tigerg said:

I see plenty of lanes of fire from end to end and movement lane without the feeling of being corralled in

Yes but nothing that looks like difficult terrain that impedes movement and gives some value to movement abilities beyond climbing vertical rises.

Firelanes can also be weak in turn based games as if they are too narrow then units can cross them back into cover without exposing them selves in the absence of a mid-move interrupt mechanic (in Legion and most other games) even with overwatch/standby. To get a proper variety you need some open areas not just lines.

As Tauntaun Scout argues it's OK to have tables that are biased one way or another to various terrain types so long as a specific bias doesn't become predominant but that's not to say that boards need to be entirely homogenous.

This is a great conversation with many good points. As I build my terrain my goal is to have a verriety of terrain to constantly mix up what hits the table. Currently I’m building more large tall trees to alter LOS lanes.

The next style I plan to focus on is water and “mud” elements. They slow units but don’t provide cover.

The final round is going to be light cover options and gentle hills that allow troopers to move on them lifting them with out climbing.

Until we have major tournies right now Terrain styles are greatly dependent on the guys in the area.

9 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Hoth doesn’t have area terrain?

Shame about those Trenches and all ? ?

Trenches are really hard to dig into a dining room table. Unless I want a dedicated 1" layer of 4x6 gaming surface with panels I can swap out with trenches dug into some of the panels. Which I do want , but don't have room to store.

If it's only about tactics for a specific scenario, my Geo Hex layout will allow me to make trenches on non-ice covered worlds though.

25 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Trenches are really hard to dig into a dining room table. Unless I want a dedicated 1" layer of 4x6 gaming surface with panels I can swap out with trenches dug into some of the panels. Which I do want , but don't have room to store.

If it's only about tactics for a specific scenario, my Geo Hex layout will allow me to make trenches on non-ice covered worlds though.

"Flat" trenches and craters don't look as good, but work fine for play purposes. I'm talking about the kind where you have a flat base and a lip built up which then drops back down to the flat base. Usually you paint the inside of the flat area darker. Troops can stand in them and poke out too far, but it works play wise as you treat the lip as providig cover only for units in the dark area.

And trenches are still small area hard cover. I don't think they solve the issue I'm having, which is a serious lack of larger area light cover.

4 hours ago, Brightguy said:

And trenches are still small area hard cover. I don't think they solve the issue I'm having, which is a serious lack of larger area light cover.

Well craters can be light cover if you like, so can trenches. Think of shallow slit trenches instead of prepared trenches tall enough to walk in. Regardless I was only replying to Tauntaun Scout's concern about his dining table, but I agree area light cover is good to have and also good to mix up the kinds.
However I think any location can easily have some!

Tatooine
Jundland Wastes - Rocks and boulders waist high to a trooper on an area base of sand.
Light cover. Does not block LOS. No move penalty for troopers or repulsor vehicles. Difficult for ground vehicles.

Endor
Light woods - short trees on an area base, mix up with ferns and such if you like.
Light cover. Blocks LOS. No move penalty for troopers. Difficult for ground vehicles. Impassable for repulsors (but they can fly over)

Hoth
Improvised trenches and AT-AT bombardment craters - flat templates with raised lips. Each template large enough to hold one squad.
Light cover. Does not block LOS. No move penalty for anybody.
At the end of every round add two new craters by rolling a d6 and a d12 and using the range ruler to place using the dice values as x,y offsets from one corner of the board. If the position indicated by the dice would overlap a unit, or terrain, adjust the placement in the direction of the board center until it is on a clear space.

All roofs of building would be considered Hard/difficult terrain. Thats how we have played it in our last 2 tourneys. Gives another reason to climb stuff!

3 hours ago, Brightguy said:

And trenches are still small area hard cover. I don't think they solve the issue I'm having, which is a serious lack of larger area light cover.

Brightguy I have no idea what your experience level is so I am just typing this up for all the new scenery builders, not singling you out. If you're really in a hurry for area cover, get a piece of that craft felt at a fabric store that is multiple colors mixed together. Green and black fibers all interwoven, look nice and suggest vegetation in the minds eye. Cut out irregular ovals of that stuff and it makes convincing scrub brush areas. Best of all felt sticks to felt: get 2 yards of grass or sand colored felt as the basis for your terrain system. You can go on to cut out blue strips for impassable rivers, brown ovals for rough terrain that doesn't provide cover, and you will have an interesting looking challenging backdrop for your games.

But as the good book says, there are those who yearn for something more...

But to Captain Rocket: As I said if I NEED there to be trenches for game purposes, I'll use my Geo Hex set. The whole purpose of a snowy table is visual impact, so, those types of trenches won't work. I might carve a fox hole into small hill...

I'm almost beginning to take this as a challenge though... people saying Hoth doesn't have this, Tatooine doesn't have that, Endor doesn't have these... I am inclined to scratch build an example of each, for each planet. Though Endor had lots of bushes and stuff in the movies, if I was modelling an Endor table, I'd use the giant treee trunks as my "buildings" and the forests would be normal model forests.

Seems like people mostly think you can't have a base of light vegetation to provide cover to everyone standing on it. What about a forest of ice crystals on Hoth? Or an area on Hoth covered in chunks of burnt vehicle wreckage? That could just as easily count as woods. Light cover can be represented by very sparse hard cover after all.

There's no reason not to have scrubby forest on Tatooine. Go to the model shop and get bags of lichen. Get green, and also some of that brown, red, orange, or yellow that they sell for Autumn projects. Cover a base in desert flock, then glue a clump each of green and brown lichen to it. Repeat but next time, use 1 green 2 brown. Repeat again with 2 green 1 brown. You now have 3 bases of desert scrub bushes that will look just fine on Tatooine. Glue a toy dinosaur skull to one if you need to make it more exotic looking.

I know I'm beating a dead horse but seriously, everyone should go back and read the WEG D6 SWMB chapter on painting and scenery making.

3 hours ago, CaptainRocket said:

Hoth

Improvised trenches and AT-ST bombardment craters - flat templates with raised lips. Each template large enough to hold one squad.
Light cover. Does not block LOS. No move penalty for anybody.
At the end of every round add two new craters by rolling a d6 and a d12 and using the range ruler to place using the dice values as x,y offsets from one corner of the board. If the position indicated by the dice would overlap a unit, or terrain, adjust the placement in the direction of the board center until it is on a clear space.

Meteor craters too. With all the meteor activity in this system...

19 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

I know I'm beating a dead horse but seriously, everyone should go back and read the WEG D6 SWMB chapter on painting and scenery making.

What is this? Too many acronyms!

17 minutes ago, TauntaunScout said:

Meteor craters too. With all the meteor activity in this system...

Of course!

Love your scattered wreckage idea too... a snow speeder blown apart, a transport crashed into the snow, crates of supplies scattered from a bombardment - all could make great light area cover on Hoth.

You misunderstand me Tauntaun Scout.

I have plenty of area terrain. As I mentioned earlier, I have a good bit of forest based on craft trees and cut green felt. It works wonderfully and was easy and cheap.

I'm criticizing the boards as depicted by FFG which tend to have zero area terrain and are used as a model by many players. And also the tables at many stores which are used largely for 40k, which uses very little light area cover.

We're on the same side of this one.

18 minutes ago, CaptainRocket said:

What is this? Too many acronyms!

Star Wars Miniatures Battle by West End Games, a game which only used normal six sided dice. You needed around 10 dice to play smoothly.

16 minutes ago, Brightguy said:

I have plenty of area terrain. As I mentioned earlier, I have a good bit of forest based on craft trees and cut green felt. It works wonderfully and was easy and cheap.

I figured someone out there would benefit from the crafting ideas regardless. It's easy to forget that these ideas used to seem new and strange to us all.

Another great item for area terrain is herds of domestic animals, in historical gaming. Thus, it isn't jarring when you move a couple out of the way to place a figure, like when you move trees. In Star Wars, instead of domestic animals, get a bunch of old Hasbro D20 civilian droids of various kinds: "gonk" power droids, astromechs of all stripes, pretty much any droid that doesn't have a gun and isn't humanoid so that the scale issues won't be noticeable. Course if you CAN convert a herd of tauntauns, dewbacks, or banthas sans saddles go for it. This type of area terrain is also fun because it can move around. You can roll 2 different colored D6 per turn. One will determine direction of movement, the other distance.

On Wednesday, June 20, 2018 at 1:34 PM, TauntaunScout said:

Another great item for area terrain is herds of domestic animals,... old Hasbro D20 civilian droids of various kinds.... This type of area terrain is also fun because it can move around. You can roll 2 different colored D6 per turn. One will determine direction of movement, the other distance.

I love this idea so much.

On Wednesday, June 20, 2018 at 12:46 PM, TauntaunScout said:

Star Wars Miniatures Battle by West End Games, a game which only used normal six sided dice. You needed around 10 dice to play smoothly.

This was such a great game. It was my first wargame back in the day. It remains still my favorite set of terrain rules.

4 hours ago, Albertese said:

This was such a great game. It was my first wargame back in the day. It remains still my favorite set of terrain rules.

I'm in the midst of replicating the terrain board and the armies from the rulebook photos. It's the most fun and exciting miniatures project I've done in a long time. It was also my first miniature game, and the one by which I measure all others.

once we start seeing snipers with unlimited range people are going to change up their boards pretty quickly to make sure there is lots of large LOS blocking terrain pieces such as buildings and walls.

snipers will make quick work of armies standing stupidly out in the open. i'm actually looking forward to this but i already play with lots of LOS blocking buildings as i discovered after my first 2 games that it's a must if you want to even have a chance at advancing on objectives without being the first one with the balls to lose a squad first for taking the first initiative and being punished hard for it

On ‎6‎/‎18‎/‎2018 at 4:36 PM, Contrapulator said:

Runewars uses a similar system, except since it's an FFG game it uses cards instead of a chart. Every card has a picture of the terrain piece and lists its effects: LOS blocking, difficult terrain, etc. That might be a nice system to apply in Legion.

Quoted for truth.

14 minutes ago, DerBaer said:

Quoted for truth.

A homemade deck of index cards with the names of one's scenery items written on them would be a nice fast way to make a random board. Wouldn't have to be anything slick and fancy since you know what you have. I might have to try this for all my games.