Forest terrain

[SnowDog]

Although I am extemely eager to get to some urban warfare the fact that I don't have any buildings restricts it a bit. So my first games will probably be in countryside (maybe in Africa). Now, how do you represent forests in BFE?

I have seen couple of different ways.

1) Each tree counts. So if the tree doesn't hinder LOS then he's a fair game. That's a bit expensive way to build any kind of forest, obviously not to mention move your troops there.

2) Much more abstract way. You mark the wooded area with a piece of cloth for example and maybe place a few trees there for the show. While troops are in the marked area they are considered to be in the woods and thus benefit some kind of cover from it even if they are not directly behind any specific tree.

From what I have understood from a demo game of SST, you move whole units of troops so I tend to believe that option 2 is closer than 1 but I'd like to hear it from those that know the deal

TIA!

 

[Mr Evil]

i prefer ndividual trees, but then i play alot of warmachine and hordes, but i have been thinking of just putting a tree and some twigs on a CD to represent a wooded area, if one or two trees are together or on there own then its a single tree if 3 or more are put together the area covered by the bases is a wooded area.

keeps it simple and keeps the table looking nice so you can still have the od tree of on its own without being some strange small wooded area.

 

[Wolfhound]

Every gaming group is different of course, but what we do is similar to what Mr. Evil describes.

We get a CD (any old CD will do) and mount our tree, usually made from pipe cleaners (the classic Pipe Cleaner Tree), to the middle over the hole. Then, the area around the hole, usually clear on most CDs (the area with no data on it), we will flock in a slightly different color or border it with a hedge or bracken of some kind. This is our "Heavy Foliage" area. Then, the rest of the base we flock however we normally do it (PVA/Elmer's Glue and flock mix). This is our "Light Foliage" area.

Lines of Sight/Lanes of Fire that only cross one Light Foliage area grant whatever cover or concealment bonus the system grants. LoS that pass through the "Heavy Foliage" are obstructed to anyone on the outsides, but not to the unit within or drawn to the unit within it (we grant whatever the "heaviest" cover or concealment bonus to the unit within the Heavy Foliage area. If a LoS is drawn between more than one 'Light Foliage" area, then LoS is blocked. If a vehicle can move between the actual "trunks" of the trees, then we say the bracken wasn't thick enough to prevent... if we want it to be "really heavy woods" we say any vehicle that can move through without touching the "Heavy Foliage" areas can pass.

We've found pipe cleaner trees on CDs to be
a) Cheap
b) Easily bent for storage and rebent for usage in the even of a fall or a squashing on the way to a game
c) Look quite nice if even slight effort is taken to make them
d) get rid of all those old Internet Service Provider CDs you have laying about or that you make when a Burned CD fails to burn.

The other way we do it (if it's a quasi permanent terrain table that won't need to be moved) is to have a package of terrain lichen with you, and when you need to make a forest, tear it off in little bits of it and scatter it about to form a "perimeter" that marks the edge of the treeline. Tree stumps of pewter or paper mache (or just random pennies - but that looks rather bad on a quasi permanent table) mark tree trunks to prevent vehicle movement. [/url]

 

[nezeray]

Wolfhound,

When you did the hyperlink, you left the tag open, 90% of your post is a hyperlink.

Nezeraya

p.s. I love terragenesis!

 

[Old Bear]

During playtesting I told everybody in the Studio that the whole marked area of trees (we have ours based in groups) counted as woods. It makes life a lot easier and also accounts for underbrush and other things that also tend to go hand in hand with woodland.

 

[SnowDog]

Thanks for the answers! What a relief it was that I don't have to buy/build a whole bunch of trees to have a forested area. I have to read through the pipecleaner-tree article and try it out myself, thanks for the link Woldhound!