"How to deal with multiple contour levels in games?" Topic

I am interested in gaming a scenario from The Bear Marches West by Russell Phillips and I am puzzled by how to tackle the eight contour levels of the hills surrounding a village.

Link to scenario map link

How should they be represented with regarded to off road movement (involving Soviet T-72s, BMP-2s, and a ZSU 23-4), and to what height should they be represented using 6mm, and/or 15mm figures and vehicles?

I note that this scenario has been played and posted by Robh, on Lead Adventure Forum but it seems to be based on Phillips's scenario, with differences, noticeably by doing away with the hills.

Your help, please.

Link to Bear Marches West book
link

Link to article on LAF link

Contour levels are a problem.

I remember, years ago, looking at scenarios for a particular set of rules. There was no consistent rationale for the contour levels. It seemed like every scenario got the same number of levels, whether set in a mountain valley or the desert. So a contour level might represent 5 feet elevation in one scenario, and 20 feet in another.

So… you can either decide on some fixed height as being a contour level, or you can put in contours 'for effect' based on how you think they should affect the game.

You can use various swatches of felt, or other ground-cover material to represent them.

Obviously, they'll be way too flat, so you'll just have to use your imagination with this, but it will work. No different than abstracting the horizontal range scale, but it is more noticeable, I suspect.

Drawing terrain lines like they do on maps would work okay too.

If steep terrain, you'll just have to let both sides know that vehicles can't move up or down it, except via any roads in those areas.

Obviously, they'll be way too flat

Layers of felt will be more in line with the ground scale than taller hills

Or maybe layers of corrugated cardboard?

While I certainly could do realistic terrain having Empire original base size my stands would never stay upright. So I use steps for hills.
Portion of my Gettysburg game set up

Little round top in background, right top is peach orchard,

I go with a concept of:

Level 1: higher than surrounding area
Level 2: higher than Level one, steep slope to base level
Level 3: Higher than Level 1 and 2, steep from Level 1, extreme from base level

that covers @ 90% of the battlefields I can think of. But then I use GeoHex and smaller features for the tops/ridges

To borrow a page from 2e BattleSystems rule book, I would suggest using sheets of foamcore boards. Cut the ovals to the size of the hills, in succeedingly smaller ovals. Stack them atop one another. Each layer represents an elevation step, similar to what 14Bore shows, above. For 6mm figures, the 1/8" – 1/4" thickness of the foamcore sheets should be a better height for you.

Paint them an appropriate color, including the edges -- note that spray paint solvent will dissolve the foam on the edges… The layers will be flat, allowing for mini's to sit on them, without falling. Stacked, and painted identically, they look decent, but not realistic. If needed, you can either push tree trunks into the foamcore, or set them on the hill levels, as needed, if they are separately based.

Each layer of hills, as detailed in the map, is a separate layer of foamcore, cut to the specified shapes, as shown in the maps. You will need plenty of razor blade knives, as they dull, quickly, cutting foamcore. For larger sections, butt multiple pieces edge-to-edge.

This will give you eminently functional, customizable hills, inexpensive, and easy to make. They should survive to be re-used, many times over. Cheers!

As regards off road movement--or even road movement--it's not the height but the steepness. The closer the contour lines are to each other, the harder they are to climb--awkward for wargamers, but it's how you do a maneuver overlay.

In microscale, my first choice for hill countours is that honeycombed plastic sheet people use for garage sale signs. (Any sheet not removed from my lawn the day after a sale becomes terrain.)

Doesn't it depend on the rules you use, and scale?

That scenario seems to be set in a valley so movement laterally onto the table is constrained (due to mountains). The elevated terrain is depicted with gradually darker green shades to represent height and the contour lines separate the colored areas.

If there's no effect except to block movement then don't worry about it. If there's increased effect with elevation, apply either based on the colored area or when crossing a contour line.

On your table, only bother modeling the terrain that has actual effect on the game.

CeruLufus said. If the hills on each side don't play a part in the action, then ignore them or just put some representative foothills out. That ridge on the right in particular looks a significant obstacle to vehicular movement. Not the most obvious route of advance for an ambitious Motor Rifle Regiment commander.

One thing I do is have ramps up the steps for roads, If a unit is using that road don't penalize for the hill.
You can see them going up the peach orchard road.

Only represent the significant contours. If it is just a gentle slope, don't bother.

If that white area is a deep gulley, however, then you could use an outline that represents it, with anything inside the outline as "in the gulley". Plastic mesh, as used on screen doors, is great for that as the cloth underneath shows through and it looks like it is in shadow. It works great for showing the edges of woods as well.

Thanks guys, I really appreciate your time and effort responding to this. There was much to muse over.

It appears that there is no standard approach to multiple contour levels in a game. Gamers will have to decide between themselves the restrictions to which they will adhere. Roads become key (certainly for wheeled or tracked vehicles), and steepness ought to be a factor incurring some movement penalty. Representing increasing elevation is unnecessary if effect is not required and/or if it's objective is to simply block movement, otherwise only represent significant contours.

Finally, thanks for the tips on construction hills/small mountains.

This is the sort of thing I have in mind.

Thanks to Allensmicroarmor link

I wish, I wish, I wish …

Thanks to allensmicroarmor, again link

Our approach is to styalise as much as is reasonable. Large hills are often (not always) low gradients so movement is not that much impeded. Proably not more than local ground conditions that we lump together anyway. Few folk even u,s have more than about 4 types of going anyway.

It is more important to get crest lines moddeled than actual heights, this simplifys the problem significantly. With crest lines there needs to be some form of definition of dead ground, we have one that generally works but could be ammanded for scenario specific requiremnents (so far we have seen no need to scenario specific).

Modelar terrain (We use Hexon II) is a must if you are going to play more than you are going to make/paint, which we do, we hate painting and terrain making it wastes playing time.

PS its great to see the pictures of built up areas with a sensible number of houses. The 4 house village is a waragames wart, all art and no tactics.