The Importance of Terrain

This is a guest article, written by Fred, cohost of the Giant Dwarf Podcast. Thank you Fred for writing article!  If you haven’t listened yet, give the Giant Dwarf podcast a try, you can find it on itunes or here. -Editor

Greetings, from the lounge of the miniature mansion, where I often meet up with my co-host, Lars, to discuss all manner of things on the Giant Dwarf Podcast.
(Lars is not currently with me, so I have stolen some of his favorite beard candy and dwarven coffee while I sit here writing.)

Many times in the past, we have talked about terrain; and how its amount and placement, can greatly affect the outcome of a game of Kings of War. In fact, we talked so much about terrain among ourselves, that a few years ago Lars even created a set of pre-set maps, which we could use in our local tournaments, to “force” our players to adhere to a set of terrain criteria, which we felt was critical to the game.

Our criteria was:

1. No Hills in deployment zones

2. Place most of the terrain where it will matter (i.e. centrally on the board)

3. Use Obstacles.

4: Use lots of it!

The first criteria was meant to stop any horde of shooters, or War Engines, from deploying on a hill. They would need to at least move to be on it, triggering any Move and Shoot penalties that may apply.

The second criteria was to create some exciting situations on the battlefield, by blocking some of the Line of Sight, making sure some units get Hindered, and simply give the terrain a role in the battle. Sure it may not be the most accurate depiction of historical battles, but I like how it gives a small flavor of “skirmish” to the fights. Also, the use of terrain in the center parts of the board limits so-called shooting lanes, by restricting some line of sight, or at the least it will provide a lot of cover.

The third criteria was specifically about obstacles, this was just to make sure your units had SOMEWHERE to try to create a defensive position, when an enemy unit of uber cavalry had purchased the Caterpillar Potion.

Of course, these maps were later put on the web, on the website, epicdwarf.com; and is the map generator many still use frequently to this day. (props to Lars)

Over the recent years, I have heard many tournament organizers, on different podcast, use similar ideas to ours, which is great. Apparently, most gamers like to have terrain that matters, which brings me to two topics that I would like to speak a little more about; which are a bit newer, and not as widespread or publicly embraced as the Epic Dwarf map pack.

The Double Forest

Why:

While I enjoy the terrain rules of KoW, for the most part, the section about “touching the Forest to see out of it,” in my opinion only works when the forests are on the smaller side.

You would think larger forests would be harder to see through, but this is not the case. They take up more space, but since they “open up” just as easily, it can feel like they actually subtract from the amount of LOS blocking terrain rather than adding to it.

Lets say forests should always be smaller than a chariot horde, just to set a baseline. When they become too large, the benefit of putting your foot into it becomes too great. Units can simply put a toe, in the forest, and project their threat range out of it.

My experiment was therefore to try a “house rule,” by tweaking the terrain; instead of messing with any actual rules.

How:

Instead of using one large piece of forest (the size of a chariot horde), use two smaller parts of forest, directly in front of one another (2 x the size of a chariot regiment) with an inch or two separating them.

The point is not not make forest areas twice as large, but rather to make a “normal size” area of forest, only split in two parts. The two parts should be in a line between the players; a line between the 4 foot part of the table, so that when a unit sets foot in the first part of the forest, and unlocks it for Line of Sight purposes, it still will not see through the next piece of terrain, unless it moved far enough into the terrain to also put a foot in the next forest. This will force units to commit more, instead of hovering on the edge with one toe in the terrain. It also creates an actual line of sight blocker, unless units run far enough. Furthermore it gives a feeling of a part of “dense forest,” which I enjoy.

I’m not sure what my goal of this exercise was. Maybe just to tip people off that if their forest MDF bases are very large, it might reduce their enjoyment of how terrain can affect their games. So maybe cut them into smaller pieces, and use more of them instead, just a suggestion.

More Obstacles/Double Obstacles

This one is simple, if you play without Obstacles, or if they are too few and far between, then Pathfinder armies have the run of the board. If also combined with too few pieces of LOS-blocking terrain, it will be almost as if the terrain was not even there; and you were playing on a empty battlefield.

I find this very boring. My simplest solution is that when you place an obstacle, for instance using one of the maps from epicdwarf, place two instead of just the one, extending the line further. Up to 12 inches I would say is the max for one obstacle. This way you get rows of longer obstacles in your games, forcing even Pathfinder units to notice the terrain (imagine that!).

My initial thought was to give each player an extra obstacle, to place freely on their own half of the table, after deployment, making a total of 4 “small” obstacles instead of 2 “longer/double,” but I dropped this, after feedback that it might give too much of an edge to shooting armies. Simply doubling the length of current obstacles is more fair; as the positions are known before deployment, and the lines are not always exactly where shooters would love for them to be, which would be the case with  free placement.

Those were some terrain ramblings from me, Fred! And all being said, you are of course free to use the terrain how you want in your own games, or to use current “sets” as a starting point and then add or subtract something to your own liking. But personally, I think more terrain = more fun.

Fred Out! (Bye byeeee)