Set up terrain
How to set up terrain for the battle.
Some scenarios require or suggest specific terrain elements, for which you may need to plan ahead. Otherwise, you should set up terrain as you and your opponent see fit.
There are many ways to go about this, but we provide some ideas below. Consider what type of experience you and your opponent want, and use whatever idea or combination of ideas works best for you.
General advice for terrain setup
It’s one thing to have access to lots of terrain — it’s quite another thing to place it in ways that make for exciting battlefields. An engaging terrain setup makes a big difference to your game experience. It adds a wealth of narrative and visual excitement to your miniature armies as they fight, and it can provide interesting challenges and opportunities to your gameplay.
Aim for the terrain to 'make sense'. It only takes a little extra effort, and it’s much more satisfying when the battlefield has some internal logic that makes it feel somewhat believable. Think about how the different pieces of terrain might relate to each other if the battlefield location were real. For example:
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Don’t just place buildings at intervals to break up lines of sight, but rather cluster them together in groups where they might relate to each other and to the surrounding terrain.
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If you have an industrial facility or other buildings next to a river, it probably makes sense to place a bridge or ford nearby, to connect it to the lands beyond — even a wrecked bridge will do, to create a more credible scene.
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Remember that roads don’t normally terminate in the middle of nowhere — they usually head off the edges of the battlefield, out of sight, or terminate at some feature, such as a power station, a mine or a farm.
Option: Hosting player sets up terrain in advance
This is a common approach, especially for games where a well-equipped player can host the game at their home: The hosting player sets up the terrain in advance, and then their opponent gets to choose which table edge they will use for deployment in the scenario.
This approach affords the hosting player the opportunity to choose from their terrain collection and lay out a really nice battlefield setup, without reducing the time available for the game session.
One slight drawback of this approach is that it incentivises the hosting player to make 'balanced' battlefields in which no deployment edge or terrain item offers a particular advantage or disadvantage to either player. That’s fine if you want to play a tournament-style game — but it does tend to result in comparatively bland battlefields and, over time, a more repetitive feel to the game.
Option: Semi-random process for terrain setup
Perhaps you find the idea of just laying out the terrain a bit daunting. Or, maybe you’ve done that many times and feel the need for something outside of your usual habits. Either way, randomised terrain setup is here to help.
Of course, randomised terrain will sometimes yield results that don’t make a lot of sense for your battlefield. So, where a randomised terrain result doesn’t seem to work well, feel free to move terrain items around a bit to make it work, or generate a different result.
For some ready-to-use random terrain generators and themed terrain types, see Random terrain generators.
| For the best experience, treat randomised terrain generators and results as suggestions, not requirements — adjust as you and your opponent see fit. |