Re: [DSII] Genre (terrain is good!)

On Mon, 22 Feb 1999, Michael Llaneza wrote:

> It's been my experience that terrain is a Good Thing in miniatures
> games. More terrain = better gameplay.

i'm not so sure. for small-scale games like SG2 and 40k, that's probably
true - cover is central to tactics in infantry actions, and especially
at
that scale.

however, when you're fighting with massed armoured forces, a cluttered
table is just a pain, because it becomes very hard to get line-of-sight
over a decent range, and so tactics become very simple - basically,
they're a lot like close assault because you have to be so close to your
target. you lose the interplay of long-ranged soft-hitting weapons and
short-ranged hard-hitting ones. that sort of thing.

not that i'm advocating a billiard table. the sort of terrain i don't
mind
is roads and rivers, as they don't block LOS, plus one or two woods, an
urban block and a hill or three. but no more! give the crunchies
somewhere
to play at close range, but keep the field open for sweeping armoured
maneuevers.

> This particular epiphany came
> about after a few Space Marine games with sparse terrain;

space marine doesn't work that well with sparse terrain because of the
big
split between supercharged firepower units and close-range units. try
fighting a battle with only tactical infantry and medium tanks (leman
russ
etc) and you'll see a different effect, i think.

> I then played
> an Advanced Squad Leader game and was struck by the dense nature of
the
> terrain on the ASL maps.

again, ASL is a small-scale game, where terrain is far more important.

> Even a simple game like De Bellis Antiquitatis benefits greatly from
> terrain. An average game takes 60-90 minutes (100 Year's War usually
> runs shorter). I ran a demo game at Games of Berkeley. I set two
> experienced players at each other on a complex array of hills and
> streams that took over two hours to play and left both players nearly
> exhausted from the mental strain of maneuvering in my maze.

and this is a *good* thing? :-)

Tom