2 hours ago, The captn said:

Felt this table was fun to play on. Not sure how close to 25% we were.

That looks pretty good! Enough “stuff” to make for a good game.

I have helped with enough events that I always appreciate the offer to provide a table or more of terrain. This has two benefits, I can then make my terrain cover more area of fewer tables, and my players get another players eye on terrain. 10+ tables of terrain is not cheap, in terms of time or cost, anything you can do to help is going to be appreciated by the organiser.

Even if you are flying how hard would it be to pack the barricades you have? They take next to no space and weigh almost nothing too.

5 hours ago, The captn said:

Felt this table was fun to play on. Not sure how close to 25% we were.

Assuming the playmat is the play surface, looks like about 25-30% tp me.

3 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

. I pressed some really sad stuff into service on the battlefields of the GCW. Toy fences and trees from old Marx farm and dinosaur playsets. Small rocks from the driveway became 25mm scale boulders. Plastic packaging from calculators and Pepperidge farms gift boxes got turned upside down and spray painted white, then had their edges flocked. A few times I even tried books under a tablecoth for hills but hated it.

I’ve said for years, once you start making wargaming terrain, you look at EVERYTHING different. Basically anything that comes into your hands gets turned upside down to see if it works as a building. You start getting more excited about the packaging things come in, than the things themselves. Just the other day I snatched a cool plastic egg carton out of the trash at our place to use as a mold.

5 minutes ago, Forgottenlore said:

I’ve said for years, once you start making wargaming terrain, you look at EVERYTHING different. Basically anything that comes into your hands gets turned upside down to see if it works as a building. You start getting more excited about the packaging things come in, than the things themselves. Just the other day I snatched a cool plastic egg carton out of the trash at our place to use as a mold.

Old cd's/dvd's make great pre-cut bases for area terrain. Since about 2001 everyone has access to an unlimited number of free discs.

14 hours ago, TauntaunScout said:

Old cd's/dvd's make great pre-cut bases for area terrain. Since about 2001 everyone has access to an unlimited number of free discs.

Ha! Just last week, my boss was cleaning out a store room at work and handed me a whole stack of old CDs. I'll be having scatter terrain for days!

57 minutes ago, Albertese said:

Ha! Just last week, my boss was cleaning out a store room at work and handed me a whole stack of old CDs. I'll be having scatter terrain for days!

Just be sure to scuff them up good first or nothing will stick to them!

A very easy and relatively cheap way to make area terrain is with carpet samples for fields, and irregularly cut felt pieces for woods. Place a couple of scale trees on washers so they can be moved to allow for minis to manuever in and around the "woods" and you're good to go. It looks decent, and there is no question about the boundaries of the woods.

That table looks a little larger than 4x6.

Love the Basic D&D red Box art in the background.

11 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

A very easy and relatively cheap way to make area terrain is with carpet samples for fields, and irregularly cut felt pieces for woods. Place a couple of scale trees on washers so they can be moved to allow for minis to manuever in and around the "woods" and you're good to go. It looks decent, and there is no question about the boundaries of the woods.

I've been trying to find green batting to use as "bushes" to cover portable my wooded area terrain in. Lichen looks good but it doesn't have the durability I'm seeking.

More I see threads complaining about terrain, the happier I am that I have a standardized minis game for competitive play (xwing) and that Legion is just a nice way to kick back with friends and enjoy a semi-thematic Star Wars experience

12 minutes ago, ScummyRebel said:

More I see threads complaining about terrain, the happier I am that I have a standardized minis game for competitive play (xwing) and that Legion is just a nice way to kick back with friends and enjoy a semi-thematic Star Wars experience

Well and that's sort of always been my contention with the competitive mindset as applied to RPG's/LARPs/Miniature wargaming. They are fundamentally poor outlets for the competitive impulse. But this is a debate that has gone on, to a greater or lesser extent, in various publications since the 70's at least.

As far as the money goes, looking at the whole history of the hobby*, I can't decide if competition is a good marketing tool or not for these things. It's complicated. It can make a lot of money. But the ups and downs of it can also seriously alienate customers after only a few years.

*As we know it today. Not Little Wars and Kriegspiel and stuff. Post-Dungeons & Dragons miniature wargaming. Say what you will about D&D, this weird stuff we do wouldn't exist without the D&D fad of the 1980's.

How's about we play the tables that are set out and stop complaining? That's what makes this game fun. You have to actually strategize in this game, you can't just throw troopers and expect to win. Stop thinking it will all go to dice; most times it comes down to who plays the table and who doesn't. It is actually possible to play this strategy as the rebels, you just take as many dodge tokens as you can.

9 hours ago, TheEldarGuy said:

That table looks a little larger than 4x6.

Love the Basic D&D red Box art in the background.

It was 4x8 and we setup deployment zones range one from an edge. That particular table is used for live streaming 40k. Im looking forward to the next tourney there. See if i can defend the empire.

6 hours ago, AintNoPoser said:

How's about we play the tables that are set out and stop complaining? That's what makes this game fun. You have to actually strategize in this game, you can't just throw troopers and expect to win. Stop thinking it will all go to dice; most times it comes down to who plays the table and who doesn't. It is actually possible to play this strategy as the rebels, you just take as many dodge tokens as you can.

This. Making decisions DURING the game. Army lists aren't as important as your deck in a ccg, or at least weren't once upon a time. Some people have always based their hobby around the solitaire list building aspect. There's been a lot MORE people who try to make that the purpose of the game though, since ccg's became a thing. Thus after ccg's, we see the hobby getting stricter controls on army lists and failed attempts to make tournaments enjoyable for all participants. Trying to appease the people who were intentionally going far, far out of their way in an endless quest to break the lists, killed off 40k/Fantasy tournaments. Those meeple-mania games of 2,874 brightly colored wooden cubes and 17 decks of cards has added a new wave of that mentality, and the hobby will adjust to it again.

Unlike when ccg's dropped, there's two compounding factors now. One is the internet: it allows broken lists to spread like wildfire, and internet RPG games reward that mentality exclusively, as opposed to old pen and paper RPG's which was a different ball of wax. The second is closely tied to the rise of the internet as we know it: in some areas of the US, most of the people who can afford to play these hobbies and get reliably scheduled time off for things like tournaments, are in the very types of professions that cultivate the list-hacking mentality all day, every day. There's nothing "cheesy" about making code more efficient.

On the other hand, the internet makes it a lot easier to find 3 players within an hour of you that you see eye to eye with, regardless of how you play. So if you are proactive, the compounding factor is self-mitigating to some extent.

So these debates have always existed but they've gone in waves of up and down. We're in one of the big waves now. Overall I would call this the golden age of gaming. There's never been more stuff available to more people. Unless you lived in a big city, it sucked to be a gamer before about 2005. It's easier for me to get 1990's miniatures now, than it was living in a small town in the 1990's. Crazy but true.

The reason I care about enough terrain is because when there is almost no terrain it basically just goes to dice.

I don't care specifics of exactly X% but our local tournaments run like 5% being generous. The boards are mostly naked.

At that point there is no "should I move to a better position and shoot or aim and shoot?" Every turn is just dice roll-offs, no real strategy. To make matters worse, local tournament skips the deployment card picking and tournament organzier grabs them randomly at start and play whatever he draws.

With a wide open naked board the army list actually becomes vital. I can win a board with terrain using strategy and tactics regardless of "optimal" lists. But give a naked board with no cover and I better be bringing Veers and Double AT-ST. Cause fleets, Vader, Snows are a joke.

(Forgot to mention he schedules tournaments on Sunday when store closed early so each game is 1.5hr only so they never make it past round 4 or 5.)

Last tournament no Rebels showed up amd every list had at least one AT-ST with 2/3rds of them having two.

That's why terrain matters. With basically none its just throw dice.

12 minutes ago, MajorSmexy said:

The reason I care about enough terrain is because when there is almost no terrain it basically just goes to dice.

I don't care specifics of exactly X% but our local tournaments run like 5% being generous. The boards are mostly naked.

At that point there is no "should I move to a better position and shoot or aim and shoot?" Every turn is just dice roll-offs, no real strategy. To make matters worse, local tournament skips the deployment card picking and tournament organzier grabs them randomly at start and play whatever he draws.

With a wide open naked board the army list actually becomes vital. I can win a board with terrain using strategy and tactics regardless of "optimal" lists. But give a naked board with no cover and I better be bringing Veers and Double AT-ST. Cause fleets, Vader, Snows are a joke.

(Forgot to mention he schedules tournaments on Sunday when store closed early so each game is 1.5hr only so they never make it past round 4 or 5.)

Last tournament no Rebels showed up amd every list had at least one AT-ST with 2/3rds of them having two.

That's why terrain matters. With basically none its just throw dice.

**** does your community like playing this way?

This sounds atrocious and like a terribly-run local gaming community. I would ask fellow players how they feel about the administration of the tournament and if there is enough displeasure, approach the organizer respectfully.

Any mature adult would listen to the players' concerns and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, I'd stop showing up. I definitely found other places to play games when faced with terrible judges and administration like this.

(Scheduling of course may be limited to the store's larger schedule of events, I don't have any of those facts.)

Well considering how few turned up to last tournament and one is a friend who literally went "Eh I can win money to buy my own set and stop borrowing yours" I fear it won't for long.

I don't go to tournament cause don't want to play that way. Apparently after most recent tournament a bunch of people just stuck together and played with actual terrain to have a "real" game.

I can only speak for my personal games which all have 25% terrain measured out beforehand and for the tournaments which friend does solely for prize money. Don't know how others play though I have been encouraging people in our Facebook group.

Edit: Oh and tournament is one day a month and I know they have free Saturdays. They actually claimed mext toutnament would be Saturday then facebook event said this Sunday

Hopefully next one is better... but not holding breath

3 hours ago, manoftomorrow010 said:

**** does your community like playing this way?

This sounds atrocious and like a terribly-run local gaming community. I would ask fellow players how they feel about the administration of the tournament and if there is enough displeasure, approach the organizer respectfully.

Any mature adult would listen to the players' concerns and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, I'd stop showing up. I definitely found other places to play games when faced with terrible judges and administration like this.

(Scheduling of course may be limited to the store's larger schedule of events, I don't have any of those facts.)

Gotta bring in scenery. Sheet of foam, a couple gamers, sit around the store and make hills and cliffs all day. Won't cost much. If you are painting armies, making scenery is part of being a gamer. Like learning about tire pressure is just part of being a driver.

Oh they have enough terrain. They have plenty. The Warhammer tournament had 5x as many tables all fully decked out by store terrain alone. Its just the organizer for Legion.

I'd suggest if the organizer is not an active player of Legion, they may not realize the importance. I'd suggest bringing it up to improve the gaming scene.

excuse me, but if the tournament goes that way. And there is still people going and playing those tournamentes, then the blame is theirs, not the organizer's.

Screw me once: shame on you. Screw me twice: shame on me...

Also complaining with the regional responsible for organized play could help- It is their task to improve the gaming experience for the community.

4 hours ago, Digimortal said:

I'd suggest if the organizer is not an active player of Legion, they may not realize the importance. I'd suggest bringing it up to improve the gaming scene.

Yeah you've got to bring it up with them they may not realize it's a problem. Not all games are the same for scenery. Warhammer Fantasy Battles could have an interesting game using a 6x4 table and 3 small buildings. Warhammer 40,000 needed the same size table only it used like 20 ruins, 4 hills, a pond, 2 lightly wooded areas, a bunker... Or they may not realize they are p!$$!#g everyone off.

13 hours ago, MajorSmexy said:

With a wide open naked board the army list actually becomes vital. I can win a board with terrain using strategy and tactics regardless of "optimal" lists. But give a naked board with no cover and I better be bringing Veers and Double AT-ST. Cause fleets, Vader, Snows are a joke.

I think I'm going to have to run Veers and two AT-ST's becasuse everyone has been sold out of Snowtroopers around me for months. I wanted to take 6x Snowtroopers but that's impractical now. Seems like chance is dictating my list:

• Veers
• 3x Snowtroopers (thank goodness I got 3 before they sold out!)
• 1 x Speeder bikes (included once I saw a cool snow color scheme for them online)
• 2 x AT-ST

Hopefully the AT-ST artillery can blow up all the rebels on the objective counters in the 72 years it'll take my snowtroopers to cross the board and claim the (then undefended) objectives. I only own one AT-ST yet though. So if Snowtroopers re-stock soon I'll take more of those instead. I don't like using big movie characters but for now Vader fills in the missing points.

At tourneys, I wouldn't mind seeing boards that are dense in terrain and boards with low terrain density. That would certainly shake up the staple troop focused builds right now and give lower activation high-costing vehicle inclusion lists a chance at winning. It's no secret that high terrain density favors high trooper lists. Make some boards with wide open middle areas (with dense sides?) and we'll see variety in lists!