>warhammer on a children's playmat
This is the most appropriate 40k table I've ever seen.

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>>97515755

These tables are genuinely better than what I see guys at the flgs use.
Some times they don't even use terrain at all.

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>>97515755
I know this is a joke thread but here’s my basic home setup.

>>97517872
don't take this the wrong way because I mean it as a compliment: your setup has real "apes together strong" energy

>>97517879
I have no idea to take it but I love the Planet of the Apes movies/setting so I’ll take it positively.

Is the vibe “primitive race that somewhat understands the precursor race is rebuilding on top of the precursor ruins”?

>>97517872
You're almost sovl posting anon. Get a flock table instead of the mat and the foam ruins almost take care of the prefab trees. You're doing far batter than I am.

>>97517912
Well I have green foam ball/orange-red toothpick alien giant cactuses for my scifi games to replace the forests if you’re looking for that SOVL but I don’t have pictures of those on the table unfortunately.

>>97517934
BASED

>>97517887
pretty much

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An aside but reading the terrain rules in Epic reminded me of how much I love the old showcase maps like the themed maps in the LOTR Legions of Middle Earth book or like you'd see in White Dwarf. How they were mostly based on being visually interesting and having neat structures and terrain features like rivers, woods, walls, craters, trenches etc. that would radically change the flow of battle. You know like a real battlefield rather than 4 ruin special.

Even when they are asymmetric who fucking cares it will make for an interesting battle. GW and competition fags don't want you know this but having fun is legal. Imagine fighting nids or world eaters in the fucking shire if difficult terrain was still hardcore.

>>97517848
I kinda dig this.

>>97518147
>Imagine fighting nids or world eaters in the fucking shire if difficult terrain was still hardcore.
This plus make it a campaign and start gradually swapping terrain sets to represent how the fertile fields and green meadows get contaminated by chaos or assimilated by alien biomass. Would give a nice feeling of time pressure too, how much time are you willing to spare if it means another portion of the bucolic paradise gets permanently fucked up?

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Can I get some advice? This is our current set up, what can we do to make it look more interesting and lived-in? I'd like to put a bow on this one before starting another theme and we can't really get away from printslop on a flat table because the setup needs to be portable.

>>97518147
The thing is LotR SBG is just fundamentally a much better game than GW's main games. No matter what terrain you use, their rulesets do not support the kind of varied scenario play that LotR does.

>>97518427
I think you've got a lot of good stuff there. My suggestion would just be basic stuff like small rubble piles and makeshift barricades. And I think those two raised platforms could use some dirtying up. Everything in 40k has such giant footprints these days it's difficult to have little bits and pieces around just to make things look nicer so I don't know that there's much more you can do.

>>97518385
There's something to be said for simple and child like glee to be had pushing little plastic toys around making explosion noises. Fantastically made terrain does what it says, but having fun playing the game as a baseline and then adding to that over time with hobby skills feels about right.

>>97518427
Things that make it look like a battlefield instead of a clean suburb.
>wreckage, blowed up tanks, crashed air units
>craters, smashed walls
>barricades made of at hand materials

>>97518147
>having fun is legal
Fuck off. A game needs to be competitively balanced before anything else. If it's on the table and meaningfully reduces either players chance of winning, then it shouldn't be on the table at all. Winning the game is what matters, not faggy concepts like looking good or lore appropriateness. Those aren't quantifiable things, so they don't matter.

Why is it always L shaped ruins now?

>>97519911
Y r u gae

>>97519918
stable shape, silly

>>97519911
Asymmetry is not inherently bad, even if it's not competitively squared. Many people just play for fun, and having different, but not necessarily majorly unbalanced, table setups can be fun too.

>>97515755
Not gonna lie, that's quite a nice table in its own way. Would definately play on it, just for the lulz.

>>97519911
>A game needs to be competitively balanced before anything else
not it doesnt

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>>97519911
>A game needs to be competitively balanced before anything else
>Assuming that ANY GW game has EVER been competitively balanced
Here is your (You) anon, you gave me a good laugh

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>>97519911

>>97522717
Fuck wrong thread

>>97519918
Terrain only exists to block line of sight and has no other purpose or effect.

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>>97519911
he definitely makes a good point. I've said this before but I'll say it again because its a strong argument and I've never seen anyone disprove it without appealing to opinion

look at pic related. yes, obviously, left looks better than right, no one is going to disagree with that. but when playing a GAME, right is obviously going to be a funner experience for BOTH sides, just look at the utter lack of balance in the left terrain set up. the near side has to traverse a river and then fight through open fields while the far side immediately gets access to most the hard cover of buildings on the map and on top of that gets the hedgerows overlooking the open fields. its blatantly not fair and poorly set up.

>but just give the attack side more units!
ok then, how do you balance that? how do you know how many points to allocate to balance out the terrain advantage? double? triple? what if thats too much and now the attacker has the distinct advantage? its way too much trouble to figure out. thats why tourney tables will always provide the better gameplay experience for BOTH sides. GAMEplay. WarGAMES. These are GAMES. A good game needs to be fun for all involved. It is not fun when one side has an inherent advantage over the other. There is a reason why 40k tournaments are by and far the most popular wargaming events and playstyle over every single alternative."

Think of it this way. Look at Battletech players. They arguably play on the ugliest paper hex mats and hex counter terrain in wargaming, despite the fact that playing BT with physical and 3d terrain has existed for decades. They CHOOSE the uglier terrain because readability and clear rules for LOS matter to gameplay, aesthetics do not.

>>97523029
Why do you post this pasta?

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>>97519911
>>97523029
If you have to play like this to have a "balanced game" maybe its time to look at a playing different game
Maybe the rules should facilitate more visually interesting and thematic scenarios instead of requiring flavorless standardized setups to be playable

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Oh mu science, what a cool and sovl board!

>>97523029
>funner experience
Did you mean 'more fun'? Children and ESLs shouldn't post here.

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>>97523029

Ty for giving a well thought out effort post to my original LOTR map post.

It's ultimately down to game design here la.The focus on holding objectives, the fact that totally obscuring cover is the only thing worth a damn and the deadliness of shooting are why the administratum standard L shaped ruin exists. As an example that WW2 map has bocage, trees, and other light to medium cover that all mean fuck all in 40k but could mean something with more granular terrain and cover rules same as the river and the risk reward of fording it vs taking the boccage covered bridge choke point.

The obscuring ruin maps exist because of the game rules and those game rules could also be changed to make more varied maps viable. Just like you could make a mission for that Normandy map if you aren't shackled to having to rush control points (also GW would have to playtest it before publishing unlike usual).

>>97523739
chaos fighting on a world of glass is pretty thematic

>>97515755
Very cool

>>97523029
>but when playing a GAME, right is obviously going to be a funner experience for BOTH sides
I disagree. If that were true, then there'd only be one faction, in the name of competitive balance everyone will play the game the same way, no need for one side to have a hundred people who can't land a hit vs the other sides a dozen people who always hit, for example. But, multiple factions exist. Thus, there's an inherent 'utter lack of balance' in the game already. Might as well go whole hog with it.
See also: videogames such as Dota or Deadlock, on the surface the map is mostly symmetrical but tiny differences do exist and might add up over the course of a match, and creative players can use the differences to their advantage.
>inb4 why you talk vidya in board game thread
Because all orthogames are basically the same game, just with a slightly different set of checks. So, comparing the games is still useful if they're similar enough. Videogames seem to be fine with asymmetry, why can't tabletop players also be fine with it?

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Contributing to a (hastily made) board set up for old world. We probably could have done better, but it was a thematic and fun game of an Empire knightly order driving off Beastmen from a village.
In hindsight we should have placed a few fences and/or trees around the center, but it was a casual game so it didn’t really matter.

>>97523748
looks like a real battlefield. soul

>>97519911
>>97523029
>Why? Because I said so of course.

>>97523029
I, too, remember when Washington and Howe agreed not to fight on Long Island because the terrain was too unbalanced

>>97529673
Real life doesn't have to be balanced. Games do.

>>97529953
why are you fags playing 40k then?

>>97523948
>well thought out effort post
Its pasta from 2 years ago.

>>97529966
Because 40k is a fun, competitive, balanced game. The cool lore is a plus but if the game wasn't good I wouldn't bother with the models no matter how much I love the lore

>>97530148
>40k is a fun, competitive, balanced game
lmao, so balanced there's quarterly balance patches and a new edition due this year

>>97530157
yes. unlike a vast majority of other wargame companies, 40k patches constantly and releases new units to balance around constantly. consequence of being a thriving successful company I suppose. If other wargames were just as good as 40k maybe they could do balance patches and updates as well. oops.

>>97530873
amazing how these patches just happen to be required every quarter and new editions by sheer dint of chance happen to be required every three years seemingly as if by clockwork (but totally not)
maybe 2026's 11th edition will finally be the time they get the balance right, after all thewe cleawly twying so vewy hawd
Kill yourself.

>>97519911
I’ve played over 500 games of 40K and the same again or more of Necromunda and Mordheim and some of the most enjoyable games I’ve played have been lopsided. I genuinely pity you and your fun-limiting tournament faggot approach to games.

>>97530873
>their game design is so good they can’t nail decent balance and have to keep patching shit until the whole thing collapses so a new edition is needed to kick the whole thing off again!
I’m laughing in 4th edition at your faggotry.
You think they’re good at their jobs but clearly forgot the absolute clusterfuck that was Eldar at the start of 10th, and have never played any editions earlier than 8th, I’d guess.
Meanwhile games like Bolt Action don’t seem to have the need to constantly balance and rebalance.

Hello, I'd like to thank modern Warhammer 40K for being a great containment game for retards.
Thank you for saving the rest of us from your playerbase, GW!

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>>97523029
That WW2 diorama looks gorgeous but would be terrible to play 40k on. Not only would you damage it while moving models around, it's way too open, half of your shit would be shot off the table turn 1.
The touneyfag table looks fugly but even aside from the proper amount of los blockage, it has the benefit of being something you can reasonably set up on your kitchen table and store the terrain pieces without much hassle.

>>97531288
Even though I know your memeing, it hurts me to know there are "people" whom unironically think this.

>>97531288
Every table under the Sun in terrible to play 40k on.

>>97519918
>easy to make
>stable on the table
>easy to move minis in
>can be relatively compact to pack up

Its been a dominant ruin style for decades for a reason.

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>assblasted anons crying for "balanced competitive terrains"
Nigger, just play mirror matches (without dice of course) and shut up. We are trying to play games and have fun here

>>97519911
>wh40k
>good
>balanced
lol
lmao even

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You know, people who complain about the 40k tables being WTC cereal box cutouts better immediately post a picture of a fully painted army for their game system.

You fucks keep going on about immersion all the time, the single biggest break in immersion is a greytide or primer army.

Go on then you fags, let’s see all the pretty armies that go with the pretty tables you keep going on about.

>>97532257
yep, thats the other great thing about 40k tournament culture. the 3 color rule ensures that 40k tournaments are always vibrant, colorful, and painted. Most wargamers don't even paint their models, even more wargame fans ... dont even own models. If you criticize 40k tournament gameplay or terrain without posting your own painted models or bespoke terrain, you're a fake and should feel ashamed.

>>97523748
Ah yes, I love living in my two houses next to perfect right corner stream and big rock in ruins.

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We ball!

>>97532964
Kinda awful to look at.

>>97533020
Explain exactly why?

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>I WANT PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL GAMES OF SKILL!
...do people really play wargames like this? everyone i play wargames with will set up the terrain to just look cool and then we set up an encounter or scenario based on our armies' narratives.

>>97532964
I like the purple vaporwave tower.

>>97533201
What do you mean do people really? 40k tournament play is the most popular wargaming format amongst all wargames.

>>97533201
>I WANT PERFECTLY SYMMETRICAL GAMES OF SKILL!
They don't. They want p2w chess because chess is hard work and they're insecure about never being able to reach the top anyway. Terrain now only ever being one of a handful of prescribed setups means one less variable to think about when launching the hot new netlist at their opponent. By chance or design, 40k games have evolved to mostly be over by turn 3 for the same reason, the least amount of friction for strategies cooked up in isolation.

>>97533291
i've never considered 40k competitive players people

>broke
Perfectly symmetrical, perfectly abstract terrain
>woke
Terrain has decent level of asymmetry to make deployment and early game more interesting
>bespoke
Terrain is built around a narrative scenario

>>97534801
>40k games have evolved to mostly be over by turn 3
I miss the 4th edition six-turn format with a wide range of mission goals. It felt like actual gameplay and not just checkers with slightly more elaborate pieces on the board.
Leaf blowing your opponent in the first two turns is standard now. Back in my day tabling someone turn 3-4 actually meant something.

>>97523029
Hello M pasta poster, Battletech player here, we play with hex maps because at its core BT is Hex'n'chit gaming with some neat miniatures for flavour, not for competitive balance. Battletech maps are notoriously unbalanced (outside of Solaris style arena maps) and we also tend to mash a bunch of them together for larger scenarios (with orientation of said maps drastically changing the battle space). Funnily enough the most "balanced maps" (outside of Solaris play) is generally in Alpha Strike, the off-hex simplified ruleset that many 40k refugees seem to focus on and which often sees symmetrical terrain setups. It also sees players mostly doing "points-based list take all comers" type games as opposed to a lot of Classic Battletech play which does use BV2 as a balancing guide but which often is played in the form of scenarios with often unequal BV2 ratings.

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I used to have a felt mat with books under it, but when I started collecting knights the bases wouldn't sit flat so now my brother and I play on a traditional table

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>>97536152
I've seen this terrain a couple of times before, it should not look like ass but it does. My only explanation is the oversize models.
Since the terrain was made for 25mm base models and the newer GW terrain are still being made for 25mm models for some reason. Everything looks off.

>>97533291
McDonalds is popular too, I would not say it's the best food ever made.
Hell there was a time people tried to play D&D in a competitive format it is perfectly possible to do since at the end of the day RPG and Wargames are the same thing, but with emphasis on different things.
RPG forgot about the war part and wargame forgot about the role part.
But neither works for tournament play, you can force them into that, but everyone can see how cancerous it is for the hobby.
Because it is like using bike for moving heavy cargo, you can do it, but a proper truck would be a better idea. In this case playing a videogame like an RTS would be a better tool for tournament play not a wargame.

>>97536972
Modern GW models really simply are too big. You can't have nice terrain when you need to accommodate models with 160mm bases and the most common model in the game starts at 2 inches tall minimum.

>>97534801
It's truely a tragedy that retards with no friends also represent the biggest potential for customer spending and/or that GW is beholden to capitalism.
Soulfulness of content is directly proportional to how likely your average consumer is part of a closed gaming group doing scenario and campaign play rather than some untermensch you'd also find at FridayNightMagic.

>>97523029
>ok then, how do you balance that?
Who gives a shit? If it's blatantly broken, play twice or rebalance half way through.

>>97520900
what's offensive about this isn't even the simplicity of the shapes, it's that they're so massively out of scale and randomly placed like no buildings ever

>>97537102
I play 3rd/4th and 10th. You can use newer models while playing older editions but up too 32mm bases or single models up to 60mm base anything past that and you immediately start to notice how ass they are for playing.
Random crap like the old IG heavy weapons in 60mm bases for a squad are an absolute shit show to place and move. Squads of 40mm or 50mm models like some marines are just too big to properly play, let alone deploy from a transport.
It can be done but it is awkward.
Hell even 10th functions better with smaller bases. Playing my sisters with my old metal models just works better specially with the stupid smaller table size modern 40k player insist on using.

>>97537175
Fuck off commie.

>>97533170
>bases inconsistent
>wolfheads on kniggas
>extreme flat colours
>Wolf pelts
>OSL on the objects looks pretty blocky.
>space wolves
>i just personally don't like it
does that satisfy you?

>>97537175
>Who gives a shit?

Most wargamers, which is why a vast majority of wargamers play 40k, and a vast majority of 40k players play tourney games

>>97523029
All the people thinking this pasta is worth responding to smdh

>>97540970
I never tried to hide the fact that it's a post that I repeat often, and that I will continue to repeat it as long as the argument against tournament play continues. Funny how you whine about me making my argument but never against the 10000th recycled post about how tourneys are badwrongfun slop

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>>97530873
>Since the first edition was printed, there has always been extensive playtesting

>>97541004
They leave out the fact that ITC tourney data actually gives GW immense amount of balancing info, making it the most play tested wargame on the planet

>>97540986
You’re assuming everyone wants the tournament experience like you do, probably because you’re a relative newcomer who never experienced how much fun narrative battles or non-‘capture the flag’ gameplay is.

You no doubt have Warhammer+, go look up the BatRep ‘Last Stand at Glazer's Creek’ in WD 222 for a good example, or ‘Warzone Tempestora’ in WD248/249 for outstanding examples of 40K games that absolutely blow your faggoty tournament play out of the water.

I bet you’ve never even played a six-turn game in a 6x4 table with asymmetrical objectives. You are the embodiment of the tournament cancer that is killing 40K. Fuck you, newfag.

>>97541030
The VW Beetle is the most-driven car in history, doesn’t make it good. Balance only goes so far when the game design itself is so shit that whoever gets first turn will win most battles.

I get that GW loves the tournament scene because it reduces variables and produces data for balancing (as well as ensures spergs are constantly chasing the meta at great expense). But at the base level, it’s simply not a good game. It was, up until maybe 6th edition, but not since.

Why doesn't GW add rules for allowing the players to set-up terrain? Rather than something like this >>97523739 why not say each player gets to place X pieces of terrain, from Y types, then players can place objectives? Would make the game more dynamic and could still keep things relatively balanced.

>>97541151
An old terrain placement strategy was to place objective markers more or less symmetrically, then roll off for first pick. That player would place one piece of terrain from the pile available and put it wherever they wanted on the board. Players would alternate placement until they agreed the board was dense enough or they ran out of terrain.
A major downside to this was the first pick advantage of building a killbox, screening opponent off of objectives, or just taking advantage of the other player's inexperience to build a battlefield favorable to your own army.

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>>97541004
GW's playtesters are probably all good people, their problem is they come at the games with a casual, fluff-centered mindset and don't think like WAACnigger tournament players. So the rules they write seem fluffy to them, but they don't full think the implications of them through.
See: Eldar at the start of 10th
Or the Linehammer faggotry of early TOW, where it was said that all models in the front rank get to swing. With no regard to how far from base-contact said models in the front rank were.
GW coming out with quarterly updates is good and healthy. Because WAACfags will always try to break the game. It's better that GW regularly touches things up to counter out-of-control WAACfaggotry.
I still have a lot of complaints about 10th ed 40k, but it's the first edition I've plays (started heavily in 5th) that genuinely improved over its lifetime instead of getting worse and worse and more and more mired in powercreep.

>>97541836
That’s the thing with tournament versus narrative. Tournament by definition is full of netlisting, meta-chasing WAACfags, which delights GW when a ‘balance patch’ makes the meta shift and another million dollars worth of plastic (cost to produce: $30k) walks out the door.

Basically, 40K today is subject to maladaptive incentives. GW has cleverly engineered a shitty product that end-users will constantly buy more shit to ‘fix’ in the race to stay competitive.
>started in 5th
The last halfway decent edition, and then only because it was built on the bones of 4th/5th.
Honestly, 6th and onwards were just a slew of changes designed to force people to re-buy all,the books.
What they need to do is revert to a 4-5vyear edition cycle. 3 years is just too short for balancing the number of armies they’ve got. Every edition, people hold their breaths to see whether they will get the short straw and have their codex come out 4 months before the new edition drops.

>>97541949
>GW has cleverly engineered
And this is where the schizo theory falls apart, assuming not merely competence but devious genius on the behalf of GW.

40k players are usually fat faggots so there's that.

>>97541836
>their problem is they come at the games with a casual, fluff-centered mindset and don't think like WAACnigger tournament players. So the rules they write seem fluffy to them
lol, maybe 20 years ago. Ignoring that GW gets tournament players to playtest (some things, not everything, because they've been a source of leaks), GW staff can only playtest with studio armies, meaning they only have access to what the studio painters have painted, which means they can't stress test anything and they don't really care. Also lol at trying to claim that anything in 10th especially is designed with a "fluff-centered mindset".

>>97541151
Other games do this, I remember Star Wars required each player to bring three pieces of debris (asteroids, debris fields, I think later they added stellar gas clouds or something) from the options available in the core set and expansions, each player placed their three pieces in the area outside of the deployment zone with some basic requirements (iirc it needed to have at least a 1 straight distance between each piece of debris, so no massive blocks of asteroid). Depending on your list you would bring smaller or larger asteroids, maybe bring the debris field pieces instead as they interacted differently with collisions and so on, but it meant that with just 6 pieces of cardboard for terrain you could have a bunch of different field balances.

>>97541151
A good amount of tournaments did this in the previous edition and they stopped for a good reason. It was terribly unbalanced and good players could win just by getting first drop.
It could work for a different ruleset but 40k is extremely killy, being able to hide and stage behind terrain is very important.

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>>97541004
>relentless amount of playtesting
>4 games a week between 10 people

>>97532757
This is literally Beorn's exact living situation word for word

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>>97534902

>>97523029
"Balanced" and "fun" do not have a strong correlation, retard.

>>97542504
GW wants more sales. Their own incompetence is another issue.

>>97542767
I still laugh over that line.
There was a time when I had two jobs, studying at night, had a painted army, kept up with family and friend and still manage to have more than 4 games during the week.
While this chuckle fucks only manage to get 4 games and that is their job for fuck sake.
It felt like the politician saying we are working hard and then the camara zooms in to them sleeping in congres

>>97519911
Ok, so what game do you play? I hope it's not 40k if that's your criteria

>>97518427
Some more scatter and some big craters and it's a good one.
> Printslop
3d printed terrain is fine, I don't understand the hate. It can be more detailed than anything you could hand make, it can be much more robust and durable, there is a shit ton of variety, and it is fairly cheap to make it you have a printer.

>>97517872
Grim

>>97524178
Put a LOS blocking terrain piece in the middle you little bitch

>>97542767
>>97543458
I think they mean 4 games a week per person, not per the whole group of 10 as "between them" would imply. That gives you 20 games a week and thus a 120 games in the mentioned 6 week period. It's still nowhere near "relentless" of course, you could get 4 games in a day if you were just focused on the mechanics and shit without too much hassle.

>>97530148
40k lore is dope af but it hasn't been a fun game for many editions and it has never been remotely balanced ever.

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>>97518427
I notice the ruin in the bottom right has some warping on the base, if you can’t get it back down, maybe cover it up with some cork/aluminum foil?


otherwise like other anons have said, scatter terrain. I have a lot longer of a way to go than you, I still have to work on my tiles for my pieces to go on top of, finish my pieces, and work on some more non urban stuff

>>97520900
The random angles are insane.

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>>97520900
this shit is the very definition of soulless

>>97542663
Absolute bullshit. They could use tabletop simulator and bang out 4-5 2000pt games in a day, easy. They could get the top ten tournament players globally, put them on TTS as employees from anywhere in the world, and invite them to break the game.
This ‘constant rebalance so the game is only finished three months before next edition’ is crap. No wonder so many long-term 40K players are leaving for much more fun systems like Bolt Action.

>>97543458
I used to GarageHammer two nights a week with 6 other guys back in 3rd/4th and we’d regularly knock out 8 1500pt games a week.

>>97543921
4th was good for balance but also had a high level of customisation. The 4th Ed Marine and Tyranid codexes were masterpieces of game design.

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>>97545321
>pic
Skill issue.
Git gud.

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>>97546907
I have a skill issue. Wrong pic and 4chan won't let me delete it. yes, this one is different.

>>97519911
Russian roulette is a competitive balanced game you should play. Over and over again.

>>97540384
kys ugly slut

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>>97547605
Don't be like that sister!
Come on, you'll feel better if you join in on a GROUP HOWL!
>AWOOOOOO

>>97543820
You’ve never played old world have you? Per the terrain rules the center should be free of any terrain in a 12” radius

I owned this mat btw

>>97553045
I think we all did anon, thats why people call it "that one playmat we all had as kids"

>>97520900
Incredibly immersive battlefield

>>97553387
No, it's the "if you didn't have this as a child, your parents didn't love you" playmat.

>>97558271
lol

>>97515755
I am 99% sure I had this mat as a kid growing up late 90’s early 2000’s

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Why does 40k get shit for ugly maps but no one ever points out how butt fuck ugly Battletech games are?

>>97564530
Battletech is halfway to being hex and chit, as such elaborate terrain (or any at all) is seen as unnecessary

>>97517859
Huh, no terrain?

>>97530157
GW SHAREHOLDER PROFITS > rules, lore and game quality

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>>97565157
My issue with BT is that it should look like picture related. With tokens for the mechs and actual terrain, but the game is usually played in flat maps that you are lucky if they have something printed on them.

>>97519911
Asymmetrical maps is how unbalanced factions can be balanced against each other

>>97535768
Nooooo you can't delface his narrative

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>>97565693
I think I've only ever played one pickup game that was hand-drawn on a hexmat, the rest of the time it was on some sort of mapsheet. Occasionally a demo guy brought heroscape tiles to a con. I used a chessex erasable hexmat for RPG scenarios when I first started out, but these days the box sets come with plenty of alternate hex tiles.

I played a hexless game once on felt and frankly it didn't look any better - maybe worse - than mapsheets, and my concern that it would devolve into millimeter nitpicking went exactly as expected. Also, terrain buildings don't leave much leeway to getting on them unless they're perfect boxes, or moving into them.

Randomly assigned mapsheets with single mulligans are the way to go for pickup games. If the guys near you don't use those that's on them, player choice whether they want to go all out on flashiness or cheap out with paper standies on photocopied hex grids. Even in the picture of >>97564530, nothing in that picture from the miniatures to even the record sheets are recent, the record sheets are unofficial printings from a piece of freeware from the 90s, and most of the minis were first batch from the 80s. It screams 'old guy dug his box of stuff out from storage but some of it is still missing'. Or maybe be bought stuff once 40 years ago and refuses to spend another dime, who knows. Even still, with barely any tweaks to this setup beyond an updated rulebook all of this is still perfectly viable for playing at a modern table. Even the negligible changes to the construction rules I'd shrug off.

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>>97565880
Oh I do not have issues with the hex, but I'm reaching 40 and in all this years I have never seen a single BT game that didn't look like ass.
Even something like picture related would be fine for me. Simple cardboard hills and aliexpress trees on a base on top a regular printed hex map.
It's just strange to me that I only stumble with this online and not a single time in any BT event I've been.
Like I know people do it and I know the guys that play BT locally also play other games with proper terrain and have hex terrain too, but for some reason simply refuse to use it for Battletech.

>>97517848
Time Bandits

>>97519911
Biggest issue I have with modern 40K is that the game is too balanced around dense urban combat. A nice open field is basically just handing ranged factions a easy win while a map consisting out of dense forest or cliffs is basically doing the same but for melee.

>>97523748
more soul than anything posted up to this point in the thread

>>97524178
minimalist, but an actual battlefield for wfb. good

>>97532964
my only issue here is how wildly different some of the army's schemes are, and the bases for the wolves mismatched to the terrain, but outside that this has the most soul of anything in the thread.

>>97565948
Speaking from experience
Hate those damned mini trees in the middle of hexes, all they do is get in the way of putting your mini down, needing to be displaced every time you move there.
3D hills are good for people who can't read numbers, but with the scale creep on miniatures get increasingly harder to fit a miniature into. One or two elevations and it might obscure facing if the miniature fits at all.
There would be ways to fix that, but it would require upscaling everything, which means less play area on the table, more terrain to lug around, and everything needs to be custom made at a premium instead of out of the box.

Also setting up a game with mapsheets is like five minutes, tops. The tables where people are setting up with foam tiles and mini trees they end up taking like half an hour to an hour piecing the damned thing together, and then another 30 minutes to cobble together a force on the spot instead of thinking stuff up in advance even though 9/10 times we use the exact same battle values.

Then there's transport. You'll end up lugging bags of terrain to the game store because god knows everything there is 28mm fantasy gothic. You can have every mapsheet ever made and it fits in a folder.

>>97568611
In other words BT tables looking ugly as fuck is intentional?
What a shame

>>97568611
>playing in a store

>>97569281
Ya this, so every BT players just accepts that BT is supposed to be ugly and they themselves claim it's not for any balance purposes lmao, at least 40k is played on 3d terrain and there's an actual reason for why people play it .. and that's not like 40k doesn't have beautiful narrative tables, 40k players just accept that gameplay>aesthetics so they choose balance first scenarios

>>97569430
In 40k case it's because they are retarded. I know because even the L shape can be prettier than just unpainted mdf.
I've seen jungle tables that use a jurassic park theme and uses the fences and walls for the L shapes.

>>97547630
Was this supposed to be funny little worm?

>>97517872
I see you made your own ruins. Keep going. Save some soda cans or any kinds of cans. Sanitize them. Maybe score some cheap PVC elbows and pipes and put together some industrial tanks. you can look though the archives for terrain threads. Generally you can find nice tutorials for craters and other things. Building your terrain used to be a big part of the game. It's nice to see some lads still do.

Bump

>>97564530
Because Battletech has been a stable and cheap game system for decades, 40k pumps money out of wallets with quarterly release cycles and doesn't even look good

>>97564530
At least all the minis on the table are painted.

>>97541836
Did he put basing tufts on unpainted and unprimed models?

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>>97517848
Legitimately a better terrain than modern 40k tables

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Some local lads recently posted this one that I think has potential. If only it had some more buildings surrounding the space ship

>>97519911
Exquisite bait, also checked

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>>97589215
I kinda like this. Its approaching a sports field vibe, the battle mat ruins it though, it doesn't really fit.

>>97589241
Just make it a salvager shanty town (whether legal and AM-affiliated, or full junktown), complete with workshops, large-scale disassembly machines and such.

>>97541004
Stop selling your fucking books then and just update the file on your app

I've been out of the loop (and glad to) for a long while. I know the L-shaped ruins are already a meme, but where exactly did they come from? Basic 40k rulebook of the newest edition? Recommended scenarios? Tournament scenarios for whatever's the meta-defining event? Somewhere else?

>>97590022
As I see it/remember it there's two reasons why 40k tournaments look so ugly these days: GW's insistence on shitty TLoS rules, and the jangly keys of international rankings provided by Frontline Gaming's International Tournament Circuit.

TLoS came with 5th ed, that's the foundation for all this shit. Abstracted area terrain rules no longer exist and as such TLoS reduced the cover provided by a bunch of the terrain they make themselves even. They rules people are chained to TLoS but the people sculpting the models including the terrain, want to make stuff that looks good.

However a lot of what's wrong with current 40k can be blamed directly at Frontline Gaming. Not just the L shaped ruins, but 2000 point games as standard because they wanted to make fewer hard decisions with listbuilding, they were swayed by (or are themselves) autists complaining about terrain not being simply fair but completely mirrored.

Up until their International Tournament Circuit took over the world, most events had houserules to keep their nice looking legacy terrain usable. which FLG could have done because they weren't averse to houserules, but the guys 'just happened' to own a laser cutter. Smaller tables too, because they just happened to also make terrain mats and the smaller size is more commercially convenient. It's easy to read a very believable conspiracy behind it. Near the start of 8th ed ITC really took over the international scene. The ugly fucking terrain at the 2018 London GT in the last few months of 7th was shocking because it was new, outside of the US at least.

>>97517848
nice brikwars table.

>>97535768
>Funnily enough the most "balanced maps" (outside of Solaris play) is generally in Alpha Strike, the off-hex simplified ruleset that many 40k refugees seem to focus on and which often sees symmetrical terrain setups. It also sees players mostly doing "points-based list take all comers" type games as opposed to a lot of Classic Battletech play
Yes, we already know Alpha Strike is the faggot containment mode.

>>97590278
>Unpainted models
>No battle mat
>Flat unpainted rectangles for terrain

Could do much better

>>97595105
That's the point of that photo. In fact, it'd be much more interesting to see how you could realistically make it WORSE. I'll start:
>no unit has attached weapons/loadout parts, because the next codex will change the meta and the minis will lose their resale value.

At least these people have games and terrain. Let's see your shit, put your money where your mouth is, I challenge you to post YOUR games and YOUR terrain that looks better

>>97595105
A lot of new wargamers underestimate the power of some cheap colored felt. You can make a decent looking grassy plain, desert or snow map with like $10 of felt.

>>97590783
I’ve never really known anything other than TLoS, so this is a sincere question; what’s the alternative/how was it before? Also, is the problem with TLoS the rule itself or the people playing the game?

>>97517872
I think it's neat

>>97519911
Commendable bait.
Take this (you).

>>97596548
How most wargames deal with area terrain such as ruins and forests is that you can only see a certain distance from the edge of the base, so the open windows of the Cities of Death ruins weren't so much of an issue when they were released in 4th, LoS couldn't be drawn through the average size building no matter if models on the other side were visible.

When 5th rolled around everyone had all this legacy terrain, much of the terrain GW sells doesn't work as LoS blockers with TLoS. Like I said though, that was only the foundation. The vast majority of people and tournament organisers houseruled terrain rules so more terrain would functionally block LoS again.

That is until ITC started taking over outside of the USA, and casual gamers are downstream from the competitive scene, and despite the noisy malding at tourmament players here, the majority just go along with whatever is the status quo in the competitive scene.

>>97596548
>Also, is the problem with TLoS the rule itself or the people playing the game?
Both, really. You can play TLoS just fine with decent people, but that kind of rule is very vulnerable to arguments and abuse when (not 'if', unless you play exclusively in private) you run into tourneyshitters.

>>97597725
>>97599479
Thanks gents

>>97547605
You asked Anon.
your knight acheron thunderwolf cav and aggressors all have different environments on their base.
you overuse the overheating effect on your models and the eye glow is awful.

>>97536990
Tournaments are used by GW to advertise their latest products. that's why they only allow the current model line and game rules/stats. Also, by powercreeping the latest things stats, it garentees the tournament players will immediately buy them to stay competitive. It's all a sales strategy.

Easily 99% of these tables look like fucking shit.

>>97540986
>tourneys are badwrongfun slop
They are though.

>>97601248
I mean.. welcome to fucking business?

>>97532964
why are there so many random decals on the tanks?

>>97536990
>RPG forgot about the war part and wargame forgot about the role part
I've never heard of competitive DnD but many of the bigger wargames have dedicated roleplaying materials to run more RPG style campaigns and optional rulesets for more thematic story-centric games.
>But neither works for tournament play, you can force them into that, but everyone can see how cancerous it is for the hobby
playing wargames competetively is hilarrious if you come from literally any other kind of competitive game. It is extremely normal for people who play the game even at the highest level to not know the stat spread or abilities for a given unit. Judges have to be present not to enforce basic rules of fairness and monitor cheating, but just so someone can explain and interpret the complicated esoteric interactions so the game can continue. It's a joke, it's unserious, and a hilarious way to waste time and money for WAACfags who will buy up hundreds of dollars of units for a meta list that will get patched in 3-6 months.

>>97518427
Lived in requires sediment, and stuff stacked along walls - Barrels, bags, clumps of dirt or sand, things pile up. Try a black dry brush towards the base- Take black paint, maybe even spray paint, apply it to the bottom edges of your models and sponge or rub at it with newspaper wads so it looks like grime has collected towards the bottom of things

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My buddy 3d printed a huge landing pad that we played on last week. Having a 3d printer for cool terrain is super cool. He keeps threatening to paint it, but as you can see by his yellow lads over there his backlog grows faster than he can paint.

>>97603751
Help paint it

>>97603754
If I didn't also have a large backlog I would, but I need to finish my own models first.

>>97603758
What's in your backlog? Godspeed.

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>>97603760

A bunch of chaos warriors, knights, chariots and ogres for Old World.

20 or so Space Marine infantry, a Redemptor and an impulsor

Buri Aegnirsson, nine steeljacks, 3 pioneers and a memnyr

A broadside, a riptide, two crisis commanders, and a ghostkeel.

My buddy with the terrain has the terrain itself and

~1200 points of tyranids

~1500 points of space marines

Most of a night lords heresy army

Two Cathay battalion boxes with assorted additional models (with the new one per-ordered)

and 80% of a Brettonian army still to paint.

So there's a few things ahead of the terrain on the priority list.

>>97603790
Knocking out space marines first?

>>97517872
That is a perfectly respectable home setup, anon. Maybe do some differently shaped ruins and mix and match them so they aren't all corner pieces.

If asymmetrical terrain is so unbearable to you just play twice and change sides in the second game

Just go play Chess if you want balance

>>97595397
>transparent plastic for L-shapes so fat players don't have to waddle around table to see other models
>dice app on phone instead of dice tray

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>>97603949
I'm actually working on my Old World stuff at the moment.

Just put the snow paste on these fellas, need to give them rimjobs and do a little wash on the snow. Then it might be ogre time.

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>>97569430
Yeah but even in 40k you can do table that at least look passable with minimum effort. Even if you stick to the retarded L shape terrain and bases format of 10th.
Even picture related is way better than the absolute sadness that is this bullshit >>97523739

>>97604966
Good color choices

>>97605002
WTF? I love fully transparent ruin terrain now

>>97605002
That actually kinda works.

>>97605002
Sprue arbors is brilliant

>>97605002
>the absolute sadness that is this bullshit >>97523739
Frankly, that bullshit is sadly close to great, Just remove the cardboard bases, replace the battlemat with vague dark color without clear patterning, airbrush edge highlight the buildings with a neon color, and voila, you have a VR training facility!

>>97609785
That would mean actually putting some work, like the jungle terrain example.

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>>97609785
>replace the battlemat with vague dark color without clear patterning, airbrush edge highlight the buildings with a neon color, and voila, you have a VR training facility!
Its a bit more expensive than I want to pay for terrain but the transparent look of these and the tealight boxes has a neat look.

>>97610590
I could see that terrain when playing Tau vs Tau. Necron vs something or Infinity game.
But regular 40k... Not really.

>>97610785
If it was less angular shapes and more curved arches something similar for the webway could work well.

>>97610785
Eldar too.

I'm in my 40s now and have been playing warhammer since the 90s. I promise you games workshop is full of shit and will never ever balance their games. I have seen this again and again with warhammer fantasy, 40k, sigmar and probably the old world now too. They deliberately have the latest codex armies overpowered almost every single time to sell models. If they don't it's an unusual fuck up and they usually make that army overpowered by the next edition release.

They could have had a balanced game 20 years ago if they wanted to. Never listen to these greedy cunts. 3D print and download pdfs, as a gamer you don't owe anything to someone not trying to make the game as fair as they can.

>>97541030
The game is playtested by ITC tournament players and it's worse than ever. It's been abstracted to a boardgame where you stand on circles just like Overwatch or whatever.

>>97541747
I prefer games like this, but I will admit, it is very easily exploitable by people who care about winning than having fun and being a good sport. So everything's gotta be fair and balanced for tournamentfags.

One easy work around for this would be to say you can't place terrain within X inches of an objective. Or maybe some hybrid system, with presets for objective terrain, and then players just fill in the rest of the battlefield how they want

>>97616529
We need to learn to tell waacfag to fuck off.

>>97610590
See, now you're getting it.

>>97610785
That IS an Infinity table.

>>97625073
If I recall correctly since I haven't touch infinity in years.
Infinity does not have True Line of Sight.

>>97628426
It's partly abstracted - miniatures are effectively cylinders with base size and specific stat-determined height, but terrain cover is WYSIWYG (unless houseruled if you ave 40k ruins full of holes) and terrain coverage matters a lot.

>>97628803
So not True Line of Sight.
No half functional wargame use it, because it is extremely retarded.

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>>97592400
DID SOMEBODY SAY...

>>97641165
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiR_O65Jp7M