"You dig?" Topic

Are your trenches, rivers, sewers, and canals recessed below the main level of play or do they lay on top and maybe have "ramparts" along the edges?

I have some of each.

Both.

Always on top. But then I don't do WWI.

I built a section of Vimy Ridge, with recessed trenches and shell holes. All my other terrain is table level with slight ridges, such as riverbanks.

both but i like recessed ones

The only time I have done a recessed area was on a jungle table. I used 1.5 inch foam sheet, painted dark green and black and cut into sections, for the main ground level, but put down a blue and green cloth for a swampy lake and related streams.

The foam sheets let me do 3 or 4 levels of hills, which worked well for determining line of sight.

Mostly recessed.

Generally laid on the ground cloth which is on the table top. I do, however, generate lots of terrain at higher levels (painted to match the ground cloth) so, in a sense, at least in some games, recessed, too.

While recessed is wonderful, ease of setup and diversity of possible setups greatly outweighs the restrictive recessed features – and I say this even though I think the look of the game is of paramount importance.

Always good to remember that we are creating an environment in which to play a game – and the environment should be focused on playability.

Never had much occasion for trenches but would be same as above.

Both.

I made a series of 2 x 4 ft. modular boards where the rivers are carved down into insulation foam with a baseboard of MDF underneath (which is of course the water level of the rivers). The only limitation to making modular boards is that when you carve rivers they always have to meet up at exactly the center or each board so that you can do different layouts.

Of course this means that river has follow somewhat stiff-looking S-curves. But I think the visual look of having the rivers actually below the surface of the board far outweighs the cons.

As was said above, you have to think about playability as well as aesthetics. Obviously, when I'm using those modular boards there are only so many combinations you can put them into, and since I was able to make only six of them due to space restrictions half of the boards have what amounts to permanent rivers built into them.

However, I also made two additional 2 x 4 board sections with two different types of beaches/coastal terrain. For coastal boards, THIS is where the visual payoff is really nice. You just can't substitute the realism of having the ocean or lake surface actually be below the surface of the rest of the gaming board. Feels like it's a real body of water with a real coastline.

I also made a series of roads and river sections out of thin carpeting so that I could have more varieties and shapes of rivers if I just use a battle mat to cover the table.

So any way, I had the space and time to do both kinds of rivers, but I will say that the latter is far easier to store since you're only dealing with small cut sections of rivers as opposed to entire boards with permanent rivers carved into them.

Rivers and roads lay on the surface, when there are serious trenches,I dig

Here I thought this was about those with loaded weapons and those who dig

Mine are simply 2-D flat prints, either laminated or glued to a 600 or 1000GSM substrate. I'm way out of space for 3-D scenery and I'm still working on more!

Some of each. I did the Sunken Road at Antietam for a convention game. I used Geo Hex and some balsa wood of the figures to stand on.

Like many have said above, over the years mine have been a mix. But I always kinda' hated when my "below the surface" terrain sat above the surface, so 7+ years ago I finally broke down and built myself a set of terrain boards on which the nullahs/ravines were dug out BELOW ground level. I followed that up with a set of river boards and one swamp board where the water features were below ground level, and despite legitimate weight, storage, and versatility challenges, for me there's no looking back, as I find the visual appeal so strong.

But except for a few "sunken road" exceptions, I still lay my roads out atop the ground cover, otherwise it would just be too limiting in terms of changing layouts, at least for me. I'm not a big-time ACW or WWI gamer, but if I was, I'd definitely have to build period appropriate sunken trench systems dug out of terrain boards.