Setting a table, a matter of following etiquette..

[Lex]

or not   

I am starting this thread hoping to see some overview pictures of set tables, and to spur on a discussion on what, in your point-of-view, constitutes a "nicely set" table.

[Lex]

Desert table set-up for some nice summer outdoor play

[jchaos79]

I post three battle tables:

.) Chaos vs Empire attack flank
.) Carmania forest border (lunar empire vs argrath army)
.) Attack to elves harbour (chaos vs elves)
.) Attack dark castel (chaos vs elves)

Some of them correspond to mini campaings battles. Games of 500 pts to play in one day lots of quick battles from the campaing setting. So they are very improvise battle tables.

[jchaos79]

continued,

more to come

[azrael71]

Setup from 2 weeks ago
Quite scenery heavy



I will take some pics of our weekly setups

[azrael71]

Here is this week's table.
Lots of woods, as it is wood elves versus dwarves tonight.
Let's hope the dwarves give it a better go than the dark elves did last week

[Carrington]

This is one of the places where Warmaster's 'loosey-goosey' ground scale is something of a concern....

Should a Warmaster game-table be modeled on Gaugamela-- I.e. flat as a pancake -- or on Gaugamela and the approaches?

More generally, I'm still unsure whether Warmaster is a tactical/grand-tactical or operational?

[Lex]

Personaly I think a table should have scenery footprint of about 50%-60% of its playing surface. Note ---->  FOOTPRINT = the actual size of scenery + the "area of effect"  or "area of influence on gameplay"if you will.

When asked about setting tables I always think of it like this:

- divide the table in say, 9 areas.
- create a scenery plan for each of those 9 areas, as if you where setting up for a game of Warhammer or 40K.
- shuffle those "cards", and randomly distribute them onto the 9 areas, then set scenery correspondingly.

You will find yourself with some interesting configurations, with plenty of open areas to manouvre in, and some key cover around the centre of the table. A good game of Warmaster should allow you to go for a denied flank, or to actualy move and anchor flanks on terrain for a fight in mid-table. Dancing around is part of the game (and one of the reasons I hate playing with a turn-limit on events. With Bretonians I have found it not unusual to "prance around" for 3 to 4 turns before actualy engaging.

[blish]

I try to divide the table into six and there should be about 35% to 60% of the table in scenery depending upon if its a campaign or or one off game.

[Carrington]

Personaly I think a table should have scenery footprint of about 50%-60% of its playing surface. Note ---->  FOOTPRINT = the actual size of scenery + the "area of effect"  or "area of influence on gameplay"if you will.

When asked about setting tables I always think of it like this:

- divide the table in say, 9 areas.
- create a scenery plan for each of those 9 areas, as if you where setting up for a game of Warhammer or 40K.
- shuffle those "cards", and randomly distribute them onto the 9 areas, then set scenery correspondingly.

You will find yourself with some interesting configurations, with plenty of open areas to manouvre in, and some key cover around the centre of the table. A good game of Warmaster should allow you to go for a denied flank, or to actualy move and anchor flanks on terrain for a fight in mid-table. Dancing around is part of the game (and one of the reasons I hate playing with a turn-limit on events. With Bretonians I have found it not unusual to "prance around" for 3 to 4 turns before actualy engaging.

The idea of a "21" turn limit was a pretty good one: roll one die at the end of every turn, when the total reaches/exceeds 21, game over.

It's true, though, the existence of a turn limit tends to accelerate players' efforts to bring things to conclusion -- which is one reason why geographical objectives become important.

[Pugwash]

Just a picture of one of our past table-set ups.  I'll get a few more from a battle report this weekend - I am gradually building up my stock of warmaster terrain.  I have come to realise the importance of a balanced terrain set-up more and more, so am appreciating the wisdom in this thread.

[jchaos79]

Hey very nice tables guys,

In my opinion the table needs to have enough space to manouver in open fields. Usually we use a random number of elements (1D6,1D4 or 2D3), checked in the table of anicent rulebook, and dispose in the table also randomly with help of a dice. We have to tables, the small one is normally divided in 6 spaces, and the big one in 9 spaces.

 I post two more tables, an attack to a Khemri temple (siege battle) and the Qadesh table (scenario homemade),

hope you will enjoy

[spiritusXmachina]

Normally we use minimum 6-9 pieces of terrain (most of the times its woods, hills and fields). Estimated diameter of each piece is between 15-30cm.

But it is always important how concentrated and where the terrain is placed and which armies meet. I remember one game with only three pieces of terrain placed in the very center of the table. No one noticed that the rest of the table was open terrain because the whole fighting was going on in and around the center.

Greetings,
Gerald

[wmchaos2000]

We usually use a lot of terrain, but we have the advantage of having a broad variety of terrain pieces to choose from.
This because we play at our local club using WFB-tables and old terrain from Firefly which fits nicelly with the WM scale.
Village, Church with cemetary, Pub-house, many different chaped pieces with woods, elevated hills, small streams, hedges and so on.
Most of the games the bloodiest combats stand between the terrain pieces where the largest open fields are.

Last week we played a game with a table set so that it had a shallow stream going from one deploy zone to the other.
It was passable for almost everything but only at half pace.
A part from the stream there were several woods and hills.
During the game no unit was ever ordered to pass the stream, it sort of became a natural force divider.
So the influence of terrain heavy tables is very obvious in most games and also in this one.

I agree with Lex that a game without turn- (and time-) limit are the best games and most enjoyable. Leave hasteness to do the Warhammer players.