"Do you use the same terrain for different scales?" Topic

Ignoring those elements which are scale-specific (i.e., buildings), do you use the same terrain (fields, hills, roads) when you game using different scales of figures?

Yes! I have yet to run across period specific trees! Small trees in 28mm make for great old forests in 10-15mm; large trees in 10mm make for excellent bocage for 15 and 28mm.

Fences and (especially) stone walls? How high is a "wall"? Any troops behind one would/should receive a protective bonus. Fences CAN be used in multiple scales as well.

Seems that one never seems to have enough trees and walls/fences!

Rivers: Mother nature doesn't have to conform to standard sized withs so why must we? What may be a mere stream in 28mm can be a major river in 6-15mm. Water courses should vary/meander on your table. Lakes and landbound water features will always be an obstacles to be maneuvered around or crossed by boat.

Buildings used being the next scale down seems to work for many. Unless you are playing 1:1 skirmish, the footprint of the building must be considered. 4-5 smaller buildings looks better in the same space on the table than 1 "correct" size one. A delineation of how big a built up area could easily be "game standardized" based upon the table space devoted to it.

So, yes! Get the most out of your terrain. Just look out your window to see just how tall trees really are! Good gaming.

Absolutely. It could be rock outcropping or it could be a mountain.

Of course, I'm mostly running science fiction games, and alien flora could be of any scale.

Yes, I do. I use the same hills/mountains for my 28mm games, as well as for my 54mm games. They don't mind, so neither do I! Cheers!

Yes of course.

I also tend to use sub scale buildings.

I also use the same terrain for different scales. Like Martin Rapier I use one set of buildings in 1/72 scale. My Napoleonic battles are fought at a figure scale of 1:20 therefore terrain is much more 'representative' and thus sub-scale buildings are perfect as they usually stand in for an area rather than a single building. My WW2 battles are fought at low level 1:1 scale so the buildings are now in scale and represent single buildings.

Having said that, apart from Russian buildings there is, at the moment, little geographic overlap therefore I have to have a specific set of buildings for Normandy in 1944. They also tend to be a bit more 'knocked about' as the battle starts.

It probably depends whether or not you fight in different sizes?
Most wargames use trees that are too short (as said above) , otherwise reaching would cause a lot of fall over?
A second thought might be the priority the gamer places on the visual aspect of the game? This can vary from felt to diorama quality.
For 3mm gaming and 15mm gaming i have not used the same scenery items.
Nice discussion.

martin

Yes

Hills and streams/rivers, certainly. I'm fairly careful to have bridges in different scales for each width of river, which helps. Roads key to stand widths rather than scale.

For the most part, trees, bridges, linear obstacles like walls and fences and buildings are regarded as scale-specific, though they may be somewhat underscale. They need to match on any given table.

Yes, I use the same terrain for my 40mm figures and my 54mm figures.

A 15mm tree is a great 28mm bush

I use terrain that fits the scenario. Individual pieces can easily fit different scenario implementations at different scales.

What scale is a tree? A hill? A boulder? A river? A bridge?

So, yeah, sure, all the time.

What scale is a bridge, Parzival?

Some of us have a wider range of scales than others. For myself, I find 28mm bridges inconvenient on 6mm battlefields, and 6mm bridges unconvincing on 28mm battlefields. Much the same with trees, actually.

Hills, streams and rivers you can work with.

Cloth, hills, rivers, sure, obviously.

I have a bunch of green and brown craft pompoms for bushy areas or forests, those work anywhere.

Trees, maybe, maybe not. 25mm trees and 6mm minis might not work.

Bridges have some flexibility.

But if you use buildings the wrong scale I am not impressed. And if the buildings are different scales from each other you better really make up for it somewhere else.

Yes. And I often use not-in-scale buildings as well, since the ground scale is different from the figure scale.

Terrain tiles, hills and fields, etc, can be used with the 6mm to 28mm figures that I have. But I prefer buildings, fences, walls and other structures to be close to the figure scale.

Yes

Not much overlap. Hills for 1/144 Kalistra hex not too high about Tank height or twice that so 30/40mm tall. 1/72 Huge fold flat hills 60mm to 120mm tall so no overlap.
Buildings, never liked the "map" effect. Buildings for me have to be in scale with the models so no Overlap.
That leaves rivers. I could ouse both the variety is the same but typically rivers are about 30 to 50m groundscale wise so no they normaly use diffrent widths but there are exceptions.

Trees, you need too many at 1/72 so I use fold flat treees and 1/144 smaller 2D treees can't use together style clash as well as size.

What is common is tree base material Angel Hair, same for swamps.

Obviously it's a matter of taste. My feeling is that you can get away with a SLIGHTLY sub-scale house, defining "slightly" as "the casting couldn't walk through the door--but he also can't peak over the roof." But agreed the buildings can't be different scales, and you shouldn't mix building manufacture past a point. No good mixing painted wooden blocks and pdf prints on foamcore, for instance.

Some but mostly not. Geo-Hex I use for 15mm and 28mm. Trees I have organized by size, small, medium, and large. My 15mm games will not see large trees but would have a mix of small and medium. My 28mm games would have a mixture of large and medium trees but no small trees. My 15mm river pieces are often used for 28mm streams, creeks, and brooks. But other than that there is very little cross-over from 15mm to 28mm. I think I could get away with using 20mm WWII buildings in 15mm games,

I use the same terrain pieces for 15mm and 10mm, but a separate set for 28mm.

There's more habit than thought behind this though: a good deal of the smaller scale terrain, such as hills and rivers, would work fine with larger figures.