Specialist Arms Forum
Warmaster => [WM] Warmaster Fantasy Discussion => Topic started by: mlkr on October 21, 2015, 07:53:43 PM
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Hi everyone :)
How do you go about with terrain for Warmaster? Size of buildings and trees and such. I am thinking there are 2 routes to go down.
1. Either you look at the miniatures as true scale so that one strip is 5-6 actual individuals and then use 10mm terrain that is in scale with these.
2. OR you see the miniatures as abstractions of much larger troops so that a strip is representing more troops than the 5-6 sculpts on it. Using terrain that is smaller scale (6mm) to fit this idea.
I get the feeling that both choices has it's merits and drawbacks.
Option 1 lets your miniatures look to scale with buildings and such, but I have noticed that trees look too big if in scale and larger buildings like castles take up a lot of room on the table.
Option 2 will have your miniatures look to big, but hopefully the idea of them being in abstract size will work? On the other hand I am hoping that 6mm scaled terrain will help paint the picture of really epic battles with armies clashing together amidst villages, vast forrests and rolling hills.
Does anyone have any thoughts on the subject? I would also love to see pictures of units/armies next to 10mm and 6mm terrain!
Cheers!
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I'm going pretty strongly for 10mm.
In fact I should post a WIP as it's all I've doing today and yesterday. =-P
I currently have a mix of 4 different sources for buildings:
Ratibes: Windmill, Tower and Base, Village Well
Hovels: Gothic Church Ruin, Bridges, Barn
Total Battle Miniatures: Barn, Church, Half Timbered House, Warehouse, Stone Walls + Corners
Fenris: Ruins, Egyptian Style Ruins
And I have a mix of trees that would work for 6mm up to even 15mm, all from S&A Scenics: http://scenics.co.uk/
I also have all my hills from them. They make ones in desert or green colours, as well.
They sell area templates but I ended up making my own out of cut up MDF with Vallejo texture paste on top.
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I also play BKC2 in 10mm so I buy stuff that I can use for both, I have heard it said that building should always be on a smaller scale, but a lot depends on what you can access.
This site http://theminiaturespage.com/ref/scales.html is a good reference site for scales
6mm = 1/268
7mm = 1/220 = Z scale for railway buffs - a good source of scenery
8mm = 1/200
10mm = 1/161
10.06mm = 1/160 = N scale again for train buffs
Of course 6mm buildings carefully mixed with 10 might allow you to show hobbits living with humans :)
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I play a lot of 6mm, and only Warmaster in 10mm. For me, it made no sense to buy 10mm terrain, so i continue to invest heavily in 6mm terrain.
I don't have a direct link, but my kealios.blogspot.com has done 6mm/10mm crossovers.
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For WM I always use 10mm terrain. With the size of cavalry and monsters, you need some vertical height in the terrain too.
For other eras I have used smaller scale terrain to indicate the overall scope of the game. But for fantasy terrain in scale with the figures seems right.
For big pieces like castles you might try compressing the ground scale, while keeping the vertical scale I keeping with the figures, this gives the visual impact of the castle, without it taking up a huge amount of the table.
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Thank you for the input everyone ^^
We are probably going to make a few tables for Swedish Open next year and I am thinking we can try both 10mm and 6mm terrain on different tables. That way we can see them next to each other and hopefully like both ;)
Personally I am very interested in making a 6mm table and see if that gives a greater feel of really grand battles. I have some ideas of making a more dioramic (is that the word?) table. Will be fun ^_^ !!
We have already made some terrain in 10m for this year that I will make sure to take photos of during next weekends Swedish open ^^
I had a look at some 6mm terrain at the kealios-website and it looked pretty nice next to some GW dark elfs.
Talk again!
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Hi All,
I'm trying to find some good 10mm scale jungle scenery (especially palm trees etc). Does anyone know any good suppliers?
Thanks
Dave
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Oh Dave, I'm sorry but I, too have been looking into that and not found any really satisfactory answers.
There are brass etch palm trees that you can get. When I google the question several TMP forum topics come up... S&A scenics have some palm trees but they are very spindly...
There's a chinese company that sells palm trees of all kinds for architectural models:
https://www.themodeltreeshop.co.uk/
Expensive but meant to be good.
Speaking for myself I have now and then been trying to collect the old Games Workshop Warhammer 40k jungle trees that they used to sell in poly bags or as part of an earlier 40k starter set. If you look at the Warmaster Mag Lizardmen edition cover you can see that they use them in that.
http://www.ifelix.net/gamingblog/wp-content/uploads//2012/01/warmscen.jpg
^ They used them for Games Day terrain as well for Warmaster Lustrian jungle
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Thanks Ben.
I'm tracking these on ebay (10Pcs Model Kit 50mm figure Palm Tree scene Landscape Gum Making Height 5cm) they have the advantage of being a lot cheaper but don't look half as good!
I'm using the Warmaster mag for inspiration for the Ziggurats I'm trying to pluck up the courage to make - I agree with you by the way - 10mm models seem to work better for me that 6mm. I've tried both but prefer the former.
Cheers,
Dave
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Ooh! Was there a "How to" on the ziggaruts? I really want to get some but yeah it looks like you have to make themself.
There's a guy calles Stonehouse Miniatures who has some Incan / Mayan ruin pieces. They're meant for a larger scale but as impassable set pieces they could work?
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I'd suggest going into a pet store that sells aquarium plastic plants?
I've made Warhammer scale jungle from these before. I'm sure that with a bit of snipping and gluing onto small bases, you could make some nice clump and plonk down jungle terrain?
Dave
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For Palm trees have a look at the ones Pendraken sell
http://www.pendraken.co.uk/Resin-Scenics-and-Trees-c25/Palm-Trees-sc264/
I think its the 50mm ones I have - a couple of packs of these will give you plenty for desert games.
Even managed to find a photo of some in a warmaster game
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aoiA6W0_zVg/UwkMPbEpuiI/AAAAAAAACT4/XlRuKDU4Uis/s800-Ic42/IMG_3386.jpg)
For more jungle terrain then aquarium stuff as Dave says is good.
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I've used it too but only for 28 mm
I will have to try it out for 10mm, it had never occured to me to try.
(https://imageshack.com/i/j620100321026j)
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Realised I have some photos of Vos's jungle stuff too
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KBhXvD-FnR4/VjEslJo_MCI/AAAAAAAAFDg/-qtqWroSUIc/s1280-Ic42/001.jpg)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-zcxvHy85O18/VjEslHf1q4I/AAAAAAAAFDY/V5RcD_1Mm3o/s1280-Ic42/001.jpg)
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I'm convinced. Pendraken for Warmaster Ancients and off to the local pet store tomorrow for Warmaster. Thanks to you all for your advice!
Dave
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Distracted by how nice that Skaven army looks!
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10mm fantasy seems to be a hard find?
I have been looking around but cant find that much in ways of buildings really...
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@mlkr
Fantasy specifically is hard to find in any scale but 28mm because of the obvious Warhammer Fantasy crossover.
I can link to the places I got my 10mm from. I had heard that Total Battle was going to do 10mm Fantasy at some point but seems to have moved into other areas.
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Yeah I have found a few old posts on different forums about Total battle's 6mm line being released in 10mm but then it went quiet.
Please do post links :)
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Well here are the things I've found, not much fantasy but still, suitable historical ones.
Empire:
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/bigbattalions/10-15mm/blackpowdereurope.html
http://www.hovelsltd.co.uk/10mmrange.htm
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/The-Lonley-Tower-10mm-terrain-warmaster-forge-world-/111275902939?hash=item19e88f87db:g:XbUAAOxyOMdS93CS
Kislev / Norsca:
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/skirmish/10mm/darkage.html
Araby / Khemri:
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/skirmish/10mm/northafrica.html
http://www.hovelsltd.co.uk/arab200.html
http://www.kerrandking.co.uk/ (Go to 10mm > "Desert City In A Box")
http://www.hovelsltd.co.uk/fantasy200.html
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stormwind, did you ever finish your village from the total battle miniatures? Last I knew you had it ready for paint I think, you talked about some something wrong with the casts. Any pics with warmaster troops next to it?
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Just to stir things up a little
this is a 6mm scenery site
http://www.levenminiatures.co.uk/pages/medieval.htm
upcoming scenery includes
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/v9kEhRMuoX2mmDAMFlxkHEhGf-m_q2yQF8z5vHiVYSj_HUDdbeIhs_4uRq6c8IEYEAaDDA=s159)
Facebook page
https://www.facebook.com/levenminiatures/?fref=photo
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@CJ
My painting speed is about a square inch per month so you'll probably have to wait til 2016 to see them painted. I am very easily and quickly discouraged when trying to paint things so even prepping and undercoating them felt like a big achievment. =-P
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I have seen the outcome of your painting stormwind and the work reflects the time you take for sure.
I have just added levenminiatures to my favorites, lots and lots of buildings to choose from.
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Ordered some 10mm stuff from hovels to begin with.
Want to see how that works with the stuff we have already scratchbuilt at the club :)
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Returning to the OP, and to give the two-cents'-worth of input from a (very) seasoned, middle-aged grand scale gamer (newbie to warmaster - but experienced in 2mm, 6mm and 10mm in other rulesets)...well here goes...
I would suggest for inspiration on some "diorama" type boards you google images search for grand scale terrain master "Bruce Weigle". His late 19th century boards are designed for the (small even for 6mm) Heriocs and Ros range but are a great reference for any scale up to 10-12mm. I believe he makes his buildings at around 60-70% of the scale of the figures to give the grand scale impression. I think that's about right. Scaling for 10mm I'd say that 6mm is about right, and that 10mm scenery is better suited to 15mm games. I agree with Kealios that owning a lot of 6mm and then investing in another bunch of scenery in a scale slightly larger (remember that most 6mm models are 6mm "foot to eye" and that most WM models - especially the infantry - are on the small side of 10mm) is fairly pointless. Total Battle Miniatures 6-7mm Pike and Shotte range is very "oldhammer" in style and the large range can be supplemented further with some of the Napoleonic range - the Napoleon in Russia range fulfilling much of my Kislevite needs.
When asked about the demise of Warhammer and "massed fantasy combat" (writing for his regular column in Wargames, Soldiers and Strategy magazine) Rick Priestley replied: "Massed combat? WFB is a 1:1 game with a skewed groundscale! 120 dwarfs versus 150 orcs isn't massed combat...it's a punch-up in a pub car-park!". I think that how we think about scenery in WM game is a throwback to 1:1 games (WFB is what I'd refer to as "large skirmish") where we are more comfortable with buildings being roughly the same scale as the models, if you want to think of your 30 WM orcs representing 30 orcs and 1 building representing one building in WM then do so by all means...but I don't understand why in those circumstances you wouldn't just play Warhammer with a bit of command and control thrown in.
By its very nature WM is a grand scale game representing massed combat with an emphasis on command and control and which largely plays down the differences in races emphasised in WFB. To play any game at grand scale requires you to immediately get your head around the abstraction of what the battlefield and the models represent. I think from Rick Priestley's original introduction to the game he specifically references that a 3-base regiment represents around six-hundred troops with a five frontage and 720 for those with six. Those of you with large armies, represent this for spectacle sake on your table. It will take twenty full regiments and sixty stands, two deep and thirty across to represent a single regiment in a four-deep line formation in 1:1 scale. They will take up a 1.2 metre frontage on your table. That is what your single 3-stand unit represents. Place a single 10mm scale cottage in front of them, how many of those 600 troops are shielded by that cottage? The regiment can no more claim a "cover" bonus or restricted LOS from that building than you could take shelter from a musket volley by hiding behind a tennis ball.
The truth is that in grand scale games, most of your scenery is just that...scenery - and therefore just there for show. It may sound counter-intuitive, but if you want to represent a farm-house and a barn on a grand scale battlefield - it should not really have any bearing on movement, shooting or LOS. A regiment would not be able to shelter behind nor would they be able to hide behind these buildings which compared to the footprint of the regiment would be absolutely tiny. Likewise the regiment should be able to move through the terrain feature without any penalty with the represented troops affected by the building - maybe around five percent of them - simply running to catch up with their comrades if they were slowed. Any set of buildings whose real-to-scale size could not be imagined to be able to fully obscure at least 200 troops (1 stand's worth) can be ignored. I take a stand in line formation to be in real scale terms to be 4 ranks deep so in dwarf terms that's 60 abreast (45 metres?), any obstruction that I don't think is big enough to cover this size of frontage I ignore as terrain feature.
What is important in grand scale games is agreeing what terrain features ARE important and agreeing on them battle to battle. In my experience the things you need to represent are:
Built up areas - an area containing more than two or three houses from a large hamlet, to villages, towns and parts of cities. The outskirts of the built up areas should be clearly delimited (say with brown cloth and buildings placed on them. The buildings themselves are individually irrelevant (unless specifically required to be relevant such as a temple etc) and the entire built up area should be treated as dense woods. Main roads can exist through the built up area if the players wish but units, must traverse them in column formation only (think I've see rules for these in WM somewhere - something like all sides of a column count as flanks and/or rear).
Woods and forest - as above, but with trees instead of buildings of course (!)
Specific areas of difficult ground - marshes, muddy ploughed fields (such as at Agincourt)
Specific defendable obstacles - walls, ridgelines, sunken roads, earthowrks etc. In these instances I am taking about specific and important defendable battlefield positions only. For example, the stone wall at Fredricksberg, the walls of Hougamont at Waterloo, the sunken road at Antietam, the Pratzen Heights at Austerlitz.
Everything else should have little if no effect, most hedges, gentle slopes (although these may not provide a defendable bonus they may obstruct LOS), thin treelines, small sections of wall, individual buildings or those deemed not to represent "built up areas" as defined above.
Sorry about the epic post! I've probably previously bored all concerned with my ACW terrain but I will try to take some pictures with WM figures to give you an idea - you'll just have to forgive the obviously ACW buildings as I don't have any WM 6mm buildings painted up!!
So for me...I prefer 6mm for 10mm games. Not least because I ignore most buildings the bigger they are the more they get in the way! And also...the 6mm range is massive compared to the 10mm ranges. Irregular miniatures even do a set of metal roofs, doors and windows with pegs you can just push into balsa to make your own. Of course scratch building buildings at this scale in very easy as well compared to 28mm.
2-cents worth...I've spewed out a fool's fortune!!
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Beautiful summation.
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Will get warmaster specific shots when I get home but these are TBM 6mm ACW.
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Kislev methinks
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/bigbattalions/6mm/1812napoleon.html
Other old hammer style
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/bigbattalions/6mm/pikeandshotte.html
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(Snip)
I think you've made your feelings on the matter very clear. =-P
Everything in wargaming is a compromise. I've got some 10mm terrain as that's what all the GW promo pics show and I like it. I might get some 6mm further down the road but I've got enough on my plate at the minute! =)
I have seen the outcome of your painting stormwind and the work reflects the time you take for sure.
Aww well shucks, you gone and made me blush... <3
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Hi Stormwind.
Was afraid that may sound a little preachy! Just giving my opinion on how grand scale works. I'm of course as fallible as the next uber geek! I know from playing brigade level f&f at 6mm scale for years that it's best to concentrate on major terrain features is all!
It's whatever works for you at the end of the day.
I hope this doesn't mean I won't be welcome at madgamers at some point in the new year!? :(
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LOL Stormwind is unlikely to refuse a game of Warmaster, he has had to become very tolerant of people like me.
When we play with woods we have trees placed on green mats and move the trees out of the way, in BKC2 we do the same for BUAs.
A large enough wood/BUA will disrupt LOS and slow movement, but a single house is as much of a speed bump as a single tree, that is to say zero effect.
I've often suggested building scales at a smaller scale this allows you to place a few building rather than one so that it looks like a town, but you have to beware the Lilliputian effect.
However for skirmish games then same scale buildings are always appropriate, you need to be able to fit in the doorway. :P
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Nah, no worries, you're absolutely right of course. Everything in the Warmaster rulebook and written around it by the authors explicitly says that a single unit of Halberdiers / Spearmen is hundreds of people. It is a grand scale game.
=)
My hills / forests are pretty scale ambiguous. I've not even played a game with buildings in yet. I have walls painted and ready to go but no fields. Planning on getting some Fat Frank roads though which will really change the game by adding paths through dense terrain.
I love the TBM complete town set:
http://www.forum.specialist-arms.com/index.php?topic=5196.0
That would be an amazing centre piece to a board.
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I do the ambiguous size as well. but like Gorrin said, the only terrain worth putting on the table is REALLY worth noting in the battle. He mentions the sunken road at Antietam and the wall at Fredericksburg etc etc. not every rock wall is a real defense. I made a castle (not pretty) but its also fairly large so I could actually put 2 stands facing each other on the walls, for combat.
though towns are very very pretty I need terrain that helps the game move, not hinder it by making everyone try to find a place for their mini's or forcing warmaster bases to slide all over or fall over onto their sides. the most gorgeous terrain is usually, to me, a game stopper. for now on I am going to try and just stick to putting everything on 1/8" thick plywood from home depot. I get mad at my hills as I cant seem to get the incline right, stands keep sliding off. Stormwind, have you seen the town terrain piece that I made? with the paper buildings? I was trying to make all sorts of crazy rules for it but just found it all to be to technical and confusing so just went back to the basic dense terrain.
As for woods, I shared how I made mine and I still stand by them. mine are not the most beautiful I know but they are extremely functional. I actually remove the tree top canopy and use it as a swamp. a better modeler or someone with more time could make them better for sure.
my terrain is a huge leap from the basic cardboard piece that you had to imagine was a hill or forests from when I first started about 15 years ago with my brother. LOL
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SW - one of the nest bits about the TBM town is that all the buildings are removable and movable and have a variety of standard footprints (3cm x 3cm, 6cm x 3cm) etc that fit in small depressions in the base. Mine is as yet unpainted but will post when it is.
The set is about £45 but you do get all the buildings and by just using two or three you can make small hamlets / villages etc.
Here is a Bruce Weigle tutorial on grand scale board building, like I said herioc and ros minis are tiny even for 6mm - but I'm sure the techniques could be scaled up for WM. There was a picture in one of the wargames magazines of his wife carrying the boards in their carry-case with one finger!
http://www.g-design.us/bruce/BrucesTerrainBuildingArticle.pdf
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@Horrin:
Gosh, I feel a sudden bought of inadequacy looking at all his work. =P
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Returning to the OP, and to give the two-cents'-worth of input from a (very) seasoned, middle-aged grand scale gamer (newbie to warmaster - but experienced in 2mm, 6mm and 10mm in other rulesets)...well here goes...
This was such an enjoyable read ^_^ I think the biggest problem that we are having is wrapping our heads around the abstraction of it all... It just kinda looks wrong with houses smaller than the individual figures, but at the same time I cant personally feel the epicness that I want when a house is a house... I did order some 10mm stuff and that will still come in handy on one of our tables - but it looks like I will have to order myself some 6mm also so that we can have 2 tables at the club to compare between.
Epic Warmaster - here we go! ^_^
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The other day I ordered a few of the JR Miniatures buildings, via Magister Militum. I got these:
http://www.magistermilitum.com/jr1711-forest-huts-x6-7187.html
And the round houses, which don't appear to be on their site now - perhaps I bought the last set? Which I also only received 2 and I think the listing was for 3 (and I've only just realised so I had best send them an email ha).
The huts were resin and the round houses were hydro-stone I think. I painted up 3 of the huts and both round houses, fairly roughly for the Tri-Wiz this weekend. After I might go back and add some highlights or whatever.
The sculpts aren't great and I think the castings are pretty dire too. As it is, cheap but not necessarily good. I would still buy more if only because of the cheap and frankly, table dressing doesn't need to be super-duper-fabulous in my opinion.
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Gorrin - as a brother Adler ACW and Naps fan - where did you get the sticky up fluffy corn fields please?
Dave
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The yellow wheatfield stuff? It's model railway scenery. comes on a sheet an you cut it out.
http://www.sceneryexpress.com/NATURE-PLUS-WHEAT-FIELD/productinfo/NH07421/
http://www.noch.com/en/product-categories/model-landscaping/grass-meadows-fields/grass-mats.html
Or did you mean the fields with the corduroy lines of crops? If so...I bloody well can't find the company now..but they were based in California. I'll have a look brother and let you know,
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Thanks - that noch stuff is lovely!
The fields I'm covered for.
Dave
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Dave - I'm sure other model railway manufacturers make similar products such as Woodland scenics and Busch etc. I'm not sure where in the world you are based but I get most of my wargaming scenery from model railway suppliers. Namely Model Junction in Slough.
The grass mats are great though. Teddy bear fur is far too thick for for grand scale gaming!
Can you remember where you got your ploughed fields from? I need some more and I can't for the life of me remember where I bought them!
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Ok - apologies as I have not got painted versions (and TBM were not at Warfare last weekend the fools!) but here are some snaps of some warmaster dwarfs in front of some 6mm scale medieval(ish) buildings. If anything the buildings look smaller that they do in real-life because of the depth of field on my phone camera. You can see that the buildings do not look ridiculously out of scale with the models at the same time as not having too large a footprint.
There's a few pics here from a couple of heights as well as focus on the buildings and on the unit.
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Here is a pic with the dwarfs against some generic(ish) painted 6mm farm buildings, and also some scratch built 6mm trees and a scratch built field.
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Yes I must admit they do look good.
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I'm based in the UK.
4 sets of noch corn mats have just arrived from amazon - a bit pricey but lovely stuff. They'll do for Warmaster as well as for my adler historicals!
The rubberised ploughed fields I would recommend are from the states - go on the Hotz Mats web site.
Dave
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That terrain and those buildings look just right to me Gorrin. :)
What make are they?
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Hi mlkr. Unpainted buildings are from Baccus but I believe that timecast manufacture them for Baccus:
http://www.timecastmodels.co.uk/buildings_catalogue/6mm_catalogue.html
https://www.baccus6mm.com/catalogue/ScenicItems/
Painted ones are fron total battle miniatures (note mine are ACW ones and not these pike and shotte)
http://www.totalbattleminiatures.com/bigbattalions/6mm/pikeandshotte.html
Woods and fields are.scratch built.