"How Much Terrain Is Enough?" Topic

Put down too little terrain and the table looks like a billiard table.

Put down too much and: movement becomes a nightmare; lines of sight disappear; formations can't deploy;games slow down;
the battlefield can become visually spectacular but tactically ridiculous.

So: How much terrain should a wargame table actually have?

But there are some other questions wrapped up in this.

What terrain should we choose?

Who decides where it goes?

Random placement? Players taking turns? An umpire? A historical map? Something determined by the scenario?

And perhaps most interestingly:

Should terrain be placed to represent a battlefield — or to create a good game?

How much should terrain be used to balance the opposing forces? Should both sides have roughly equal access to cover and obstacles, or should an intentionally asymmetric battlefield be part of the challenge?

And does anyone have a particularly good mechanism for deciding what terrain goes on the table and where it goes?

I'm interested in both the practical and the philosophical answers.

It depends very strongly on the scale and theatre of the game. Ancient battles were mostly on fairly clear terrain, but a skirmish in Vietnam is going to be full of terrain. Skirmish games generally need more terrain than big battle games

Agreed. Scenario specifics (if any) over-rule other considerations.

Even in battles fought on a billard table, the ground still should have bushes, boggy spots, buildings, fences around them, tree groves. Cluttering up the table might be the solution.

It depends on what the player or players wants to accomplish. Fairness? Match of wits? Recreating a specific event? Learning a bit of what it is like to wrestle with tactical problems?
Each of the above is addressed differently. You mention the solutions. Depends on the goals of the game.

Great question

Joe

Well, for a historical battle, as much as was there.

Otherwise--yeah, generally the smaller-scale the battlefield (and the more firepower) the more cluttered the table needs to be.

My favorte set-up mechanism remains the "children cutting the cake" one: Player A sets up the board, but Player B picks which side he plays. There are ways to break this, but it works nine times in ten.

Good question – we have the game master set up terrain/sides/objectives and these tend to be pretty good for a fun game. As we do Grand Tactical for Horse and Musket we do need a fair bit of open ground, since commanders of that era tended to avoid getting bogged down in woods/hills if they could avoid it – but that also means we have a fair bit of farms/villages which were things that they would fight for

I play non-historical games. I deploy terrain which will allow (and often direct…) Players to utilize their forces tactically, taking advantage of (or being forced by) the terrain as to where/how they deploy their forces.

I look at the table terrain setup, as the Referee, and I imagine how best a Player could deploy their troops, based on the terrain I place on the table. I try to give each side 'preferred' terrain, in various locations.

For example, if a side has cavalry, most cavalry needs open terrain to be effective (Dwarven Ram Cavalry, and Lizardmen Giant Lizard Cavalry are exceptions, as their favored terrain is Rough/Rocky/Mountainous and swampy, respectively -- they treat such terrain as clear and open, paying zero movement penalties for it).

In my last huge Army Men game, some of the Players complained that the infantrymen were just there to soak up casualties (each side had Howitzer field artillery and Tanks, along with squad artillery -- Bazooka's, Flamethrowers, Light and Heavy Mortars). My rules are designed to generate high casualty rates for fast play. Still, some did not like that.

My next planned Army Men game will take place in a built-up city: relatively narrow streets, lots of buildings, lots of intersections, and Infantrymen will have a relatively easy time destroying Tanks which will have limited maneuverability; LOS will be short, mostly, and most artillery will be useless, or too dangerous because the fighting will be close-in, with (I hope) lots of Close Assaults (hand-to-hand fighting). I expect to really see a lot of Infantrymen Close-Assaulting Tanks in the narrow streets while the Tanks try to turn around. Infantrymen will wreak far more havoc than the Tanks will… Same combat rules, different terrain situation entirely.

I employ terrain to challenge my Players, and myself. They often surprise me how they employ (or fail to employ…) the existing terrain to their advantage. It is part of the fun for me as a scenario designer.

During the postmortem discussions, terrain gets discussed, and I often point out how they might have better employed it, deploying their troops to take advantage of it.

I've used terrain to lure enemy units to come to my units where I had a terrain advantage, and I did my best to augment my unit's strengths enabled by the terrain.

In short, I try to make terrain a key tactical mechanism for the Players to employ to their advantage, if possible, if they see it. If not, there is always the postmortem discussion to point out things they might have missed. Cheers!