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Building a Modular Gaming Table - Part 2 : Grids, Campaigns, Size and Amounts

The reason for a ‚gridded‘ terrain

I don't want to do the ping-pong games anymore. We all know them, we all played them: two armies of the same strength on opposing sides of a battle field. Often not much more than a dice game. Miraculously a lot of wargamers are happy with that, but I am not.


There is a better way to define how a battle setup looks like: the Campaign. In a campaign the armies are moved on a map and the battles are defined by the position of the units at a specific moment in time. If it comes to battle it is clear who stands where and how the battlefield looks like. This leads to something we don‘t have so often in a tabletop wargame: unequal armies and clear objectives.


In a campaign you will have to think about which units you move to what position and will have to live with the units that are on a battlefield when the battle begins. Just like generals in the real world. No last minute changes and no carefully planned army lists. You don't have guns, magicians or war elephants on this battlefield? Bad luck! Asymmetrical situation, make the best of it. Battles will get a meaning and will influence the campaign and the following battles (or games).


Campaigning will be the foundation of (most of) my gaming in the future. What I need for that is a terrain system with which I can resemble the battlefield landscapes that are defined by the campaign map.


The solution is a system of landscape boards where every piece represents a kind of terrain from the campaign map. Or - seen from another angle - where the campaign map consist 'virtually' of a lot of the terrain boards.



Squares - No Hexes


For a long time I thought that if I would make a new gaming table, I would make it basing on a hexagonal grid. You can create good looking landscapes with them... in theory, in fixed landscapes and of course painted or printed. But if you have to create 'physical' hexagonal tiles you get problems ‚deluxe‘ and you will need a lot of special tiles. To make things worst, you will not be able to make the pieces exact enough to fit. I once tried that with the best saw I have (a Japanese Ryoba) and very small and nearly invisible deviations amounted to big gaps between the tiles on the table.


In the end, if I can't make hexagonal tiles they are a no go for me. But if you want one : there is a very nice hexagonal terrain system you can buy : Hexon II from Kallistra in the UK.


The simplest do-it-yourself terrain system is a set of square tiles. I get no connection problems if I connect everything trough the middle of the edges. Yes, sometimes it will look a bit 'artificial' or too rectangular. But that's the way it is. It is a tool for a game, not a diorama.



This is a first rough sketch of the tiles I need the most. It shows also pieces for small brooks that I may build later. And the T-section where rivers meet is missing here.

What type of landscape?


I start with a 'multi purpose green one': A middle European landscape with grass and woods. That matches with my fantasy project and most of my historic scenarios.


A terrain board from Games Workshops ‚How to make Wargames Terrain‘ (1997). This is how I want them too look. Mine will surely not be that perfect but this is the direction I am going.


Another picture from the same book. If this is (or was) good enough for the Perry‘s then it‘s good enough for me.



How much boards are needed?


Calculating the amount needed is impossible. At the moment I can only guess.


  1. My gaming table is, if I use the full size, 1x2 meters wide. When I make my boards 25cm wide I will need 32 (4x8) boards only to cover the table once. The extreme case would be a completely open battlefield with no special parts so one day I really may need 32 pieces of open terrain.

  2. Landscapes with a lot of details look great but I will need a lot of flat space to place miniatures, hills, houses and so on. One problem will be how to design this free space. I don‘t want too many pieces that are only covered with grass - that could be done easier. So I am going to make the inevitable flat green pieces but also some with little elevations and/or recesses, ditches or other small features on it and some acres that also count as 'open space'. I hope that they make a nice picture when they are mixed on the table.

  3. A river that goes straight over the complete length of the table is 8 pieces long, if it is curvy 4-6 more. Means I will need 12-14 river pieces. Maybe more if a scenario shows more than one river.

  4. Roads will be needed a little bit more, often there will be more than one. And I will need crossroads and T-sized intersections. I think I will make a starter amount of 10 road boards and expand them later.


So for the first batch I think I am going to make something around 45-50 boards.


Considerations about sizes


After some thought I settled with 25 x 25 cm boards. Smaller boards would make much more work and setting up a battlefield too time consuming. And they would introduce more visible grid lines. Bigger ones on the other hand would not allow curvy roads and rivers and the battlefields would look very similar, only like variations of the same scenery. And they can not be stored that easy.


But this decision depends on how big a gaming table is. This is good for mine, for a bigger table and with more room for storage I would have chosen bigger boards.


I want a clear distinction between all kinds of boards to show the relationship between the campaign map and the battlefield. A 'land' board should count as 'land', a 'water' board is 'water' and so on. All boards should have a clear meaning. The rivers will be nearly as wide as the boards which, as a nice side effect, will provide enough space for boats or small ships.


Something similar applies to the streets. They also have to fit my 40 and 54 mm toy soldiers to some extent. I made a 10 cm wide experimental piece of an ‚eggshell street‘ a while ago (see below) and found that this size is good for all minis from 25/28 to 40/54 mm.


An eggshell street on thin hardboard.



Expansion


The whole thing is expandable and repairable. I can make bigger boards (25 x 50 or 50 x 50 cm) if I want, small or big hills, rocks, mountains or I can add different landscape like deserts, winter and ice or Mediterranean landscapes. Structures like modern cities and streets, redoubts, trenches and sci-fi landscapes can also be realized. The boards are so small that I can build it on the kitchen table and still have breakfast.


But for the next week or two (let‘s see how it goes) I will set up a bigger workshop to make as much boards as possible: ‚Operation: Occupy Dinner Table!‘




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