Terrain/Scenery in Age of Sigmar

[HammerTime]

Hi legends,

I played WFB back in the day and have been just playing 40k for the last 15 years or so.. My Beerhammer group is starting to look into AOS to get away from space marines for a while! I have a number of fat mats and heaps of terrain for 40k but how important is terrain in AOS? How much should cover the table and what sort of configuration would you suggest?

Bonus points - I see heaps of 3rd party 40k style terrain out there, what can you recommend for AOS?
Double bonus - show me your tables for inspiration!!!

 

Cheers.

[EccentricCircle]

Some terrain can be repurposed between systems. For example the Deathworld forest kits for 40K and associated jungle type terrain works just as well in fantasy settings. If you have hills, trees, rocks, rivers or other natural features then they can pretty much be used as is. Natural environments are probably more important for AoS than they are for 40K, although as ever it depends what you are after for your gaming experience. Some of the less technological 40K ruins could also work. Some Age of Sigmar stuff has a somewhat steampunk feel anyway, so the odd pipe or gear won't look out of place.

Many factions have their own unique terrain piece, which can be quite fun to give the board a bit of flavour related to the competing armies, that will also be relevant in games, so once you know what army you are going with you can see if there is a specific piece that goes with them.

As to what else you can do, the sky is the limit really. Age of Sigmar is such a high fantasy setting that it doesn't have any one look or style to it. The official GW kits are mostly based around a ruined azyrite buildings theme, but you can have proper medieval buildings such as the ones Conflix make, or any of the numerous sets of terrain made for other games.

There are in increasing number of terrain sellers on ebay who 3d print designs. That can often be the cheapest option, although as with anything there is a bit of a trade off in quality sometimes. If you get lucky you can find some sellers with very high quality relative to their cost, but they are the exception.

Mantic's terrain crate sets are alright as a source of scatter terrain, and are relatively cheap, however they are made of soft plastic, so some of the pieces deform a bit more than I'd like. I find that within a kit there are usually a few really good pieces, one or two bad ones, and most of them are ok, so your milage may vary.

Games Workshop's AoS range is definitely at the more expensive end of the scale, but there are some really nice kits in it, and I'd actually also recommend some of the terrain they do for Lord of the Rings as a good source for houses and barricades that aren't in ruins or covered by skulls!

If you want to go all out there are companies out there that do amazing resin buildings, but they are usually eye wateringly expensive.

I have a few "Battlefield in a Box" pieces from Galeforce Nine, and they are very variable. Some of them are solid resin or plastic pieces which are great, but a lot of the bigger hills are kind of foam cored, and almost all had bits break off in the post when I ordered them. I was able to patch them up and repaint them, but unless you can buy them from a local shop and transport them carefully I wouldn't recommend them. The came well packed, but broke despite the best efforts of everyone involved.

As to boards for inspiration, these are more dioramas than actual game set ups, but give you an idea of the kind of things I have in my collection. The set ups here are far more dense than would be practical for most games.

 

[DINOSTAR]

I always like to post in these threads because it makes me feel like I got more of my money's worth on this custom made table.  

[EccentricCircle]

2 hours ago, DINOSTAR said:

I always like to post in these threads because it makes me feel like I got more of my money's worth on this custom made table.  

We're always keen to see more of your table, it's fantastic!

[HammerTime]

Thanks so much guys, some really nice pics 😀  - is coverage important for line of sight at all or just to set the scene?

[Kramer]

2 hours ago, HammerTime said:

Thanks so much guys, some really nice pics 😀  - is coverage important for line of sight at all or just to set the scene?

Personally I think terrain has 3 gameplay ways to impact you game:

one is line of sight blocking. Two is movement blocking. Three so the terrain rules that are added to terrain through the matched play rules.  

i always try to include a mix of the above. Basically, IMO, the less terrain you have the more it’s list building game. The more terrain you have, the more tactical the game. 
 

[HammerTime]

8 minutes ago, Kramer said:

Basically, IMO, the less terrain you have the more it’s list building game. The more terrain you have, the more tactical the game. 
 

Perfect, I'm a big fan of more! Didn't want to get a heap and then find it was less favourable.

[Kramer]

28 minutes ago, HammerTime said:

Perfect, I'm a big fan of more! Didn't want to get a heap and then find it was less favourable.

Yeah definitively do. It was one of the biggest wins of the change to AoS, no more set ranks so you can actually use and move around terrain. 

some of the more competitive players do argue against too much. But I’m always unsure if that’s just about people wanting everyone playing the set standard. Or that it does, like they argue, change the balance of armies. But more terrain, more fun in my mind. 

[michu]

1 hour ago, Kramer said:

But I’m always unsure if that’s just about people wanting everyone playing the set standard. Or that it does, like they argue, change the balance of armies.

Bit of both I think. But, yes, some of them act like only list building should matter.

[Trout]

The Matched Play rules in the current General's Handbook proscribe 5 pieces of terrain; 3 of them large (up to 10" across at its widest point and 18" tall at its tallest) and 2 of them small (Up to 6" across at its widest point and up to 6" at its tallest point). Matched Play is for evenly matched competitive-style games. In addition to that, many factions have their own faction terrain which they will add to the table (in addition to those pieces).

 

For other game formats that aren't as focused on balance/fairness/competitiveness, the Core rules recommend one piece of terrain for every 2 square feet of play area. But you can really do whatever you want. I recommend just making the table look as cool as possible. Create a world you would like to play in, then play in it.

[Angela]

I like terrain.  The Warhammer terrain-especially some of the OOP stuff is really cool.  But I also use whatever I can find that I like. This is the back of my table right now. It has an alter from Reaper, a volcano that is for an aquarium, a tower that is for a fantasy garden and a Magewrath throne.  I also use faction terrain as just terrain sometimes when I am not using that army.

[SunStorm]

My AoS setup is a gaming mat and some pre-painted terrain from gamemat.eu - https://www.gamemat.eu/en/terrain/pre-painted-resin-terrain/badlands-set.html

I also have a few pieces of the orc themed terrain from https://www.minimonsters.eu/