Wargamers - Uber Table Survey

[DropChief]

To answer the first question "Would I buy a pre-made and pre-painted set of boards and terrain", the answer is yes, I would.

However ...

Would I buy them if they were going to be roughly $200-300 (circa £100-150 quid), then the answer would probably be no simply because I dont believe for one minute that anything of a half decent durability, quality of finish or build could be made, retailed and delivered for so little.

If Mongoose can source boards that meet the qualities most of you have cited as being required for under £200 (say $400), then I would be frankly amazed. If they can be done that cheaply then I suspect they will not be the sort of boards I would be interested in buying.

A good costing example would be someone like 'Warscape' in Scotland. Sadly I think they may have gone out of business now, but they were producing vac-formed plastic 2' x 2' table sections such as hills, rivers, swamps, etc. These were unpainted and generally untextured, but were a great idea. They retailed I believe at something like £20-25 a panel so a 6' x 4' table would cost £120 (roughly $200) not including delivery.

Although strong plastic, being vac-formed they were far from rigid and as I say, were un-textured and un-painted. For something of similar or (hopefully) better rigidity than what Warscape produced, plus painted, packaged and delivered I'd say I'd be prepared to pay somewhere circa £300+

If we are talking a bit of filler over some waste polestyrene to keep the costs down then, no, probably not. That I can do my self.

If Mongoose can source them cheaper without compromising the build quality then kudos, but I wouldn't be surprised if even my estimates were optimistic.

With Warscape seemingly vanished, I'd say there was definately a market opportunity there for the taking if you can come up with the right product.

Regards
Carl

 

[Eisho]

Shipping costs from the UK are disgusting. Unless you're ordering from the UK I would recommend that the principal source for shipments out be the US. I order a lot of stuff to be delivered to Japan and only ever order from the UK if a US (or Australian) stockist doesn't have it.

Cheers,

Eisho

 

[BuShips]

OK. I'd pay that price for EITHER as long as it hits my points from above.

Fair enough, Mac V (and thanks very much for the compliment :wink: ).

I think DropChief has some very valid comments that center on good terrain boards. Durability is of great import, as well as weight and shipping bulk. My styro boards would not be productive to ship anywhere, unless they were used as the packing material for something else :lol: . I like the idea Warscape was using, as it was basically where I was heading towards, and being able to reinforce the vacuformed pieces with filler underneath as I had mentioned should give adequate support.

 

[nezeray]

In the US, we've used the warscapes tiles for our SST tournaments at Origins and Gencon (although the custom terrain from Brian L's group kicked our butts in 05).

We had considered gluing the blue insulation foam to the bottoms of the tiles to give them more support. We'd leave cutouts for the screws that hold the tiles together. I don't know if anyone's done this yet, but I may try it next time I have the tiles out.

Personally my next board project will be using thin plywood, covered in PVA and paint. Then lots of movable terrain. Taking many ideas from Brian L's group (the store's name slips my mind).

James / Nezeray

 

[Reaverman]

Personally my next board project will be using thin plywood, covered in PVA and paint.

Surely polystyrene board, would be more economical, and easier to transport. Plywood, even thin, has a habit of being heavy in mass. Coat it in PVA, and scatter, and its going to double its weight. Weight aside, contstant use of the mats, will cause it to chip easlily and require more maintanance.

 

[Quark]

No offense, but that's not anywhere near what I would consider an "Uber board". It's nice, but not THAT nice. Guys, that's NOT a 300 dollar table. 100 easy, even 150. Not 300. I would not buy it, but I could actually see several of the local game stores potentially buying it. Nobody has time to make terrain anymore, and a lot of the local stuff is pretty worn down. It would be pretty convenient to pick one of these up and have ready to go right from the box.

 

[Tredrick]

I've used heavy plywood for my home board. Then again, the sole purpose is home use and my primary goal was durability

 

[CudaHP]

I have built my own tables and terrain for years using techniques I developed years ago for Modular Model Railroad clubs, so no I would not purchase especially with shipping costs.

Years ago I built a 16 foot by 50 foot table set up from scratch in approximately two months.

That included the tables and leg sets all rail laid electric done terrain and skyboards two feet tall three hills up to two feet tall by eight feet with cuts, banks, all rail ballasted and tested all scenicked painted skirted etc.
So No.

 

[Voracioustigger]

Probably wouldn't go over 150$ US. Any more than that and if I really wanted a table, I'd just build the terrain myself and put it on a flat table.

 

[Col_stone]

Probably wouldn't go over 150$ US. Any more than that and if I really wanted a table, I'd just build the terrain myself and put it on a flat table.

agreed

 

[Doghouse]

I think an important factor here is who is the target sales demographic for these uber-boards? You price the board too high and you lose the appeal of the pre-painted boards by pricing out half of the gamers.
The impression I get is that the Evo project is designed to make wargaming more accessible to gamers with more of a "plug and play" attitude to the games. Price it too low and you get poor quality, price it too high and you alienate most of the market by creating a collectors item rather than a practical gaming tool.
Best to break it down and sell it as individual components imo.

 

[MaxSteiner]

I agree completly there, selling it in modules makes alot more sense then a one piece board.

 

[Mac V]

Yes, build as you go would be nice. Like I said earlier, it would be nice to see themes such as city, moonscape, jungle, whatever.

Plus, you can move the board pieces you have around to make several out of them.

 

[Iain McGhee]

Not so sure about the board itself (very nice, but most gamers will likely already have something similar or at least a flat textured board) but I'd certainly be interested in terrain pieces, particularly bugholes and other Mongoose-specific stuff that you can't get elsewhere. If I was just starting out wargaming I'd probably look for something like this package as long as it was reasonably priced, say around £150 plus delivery max. That said, depending on price I might go for one of these if I wanted an alternative to the rock/ice board I already use.

 

[Bubba Ho-Tep]

Probably about $150 US. I, like alot of others here build my own terrain, but would love to have stuff to just throw onto the table, like the hills and rocks and such. Good economical buildings or forts/outposts would be good too.

 

[xeoran]

I think the question has to be- can you beat Antenocis and the others? Rather I think doing a deal with Antenocis for their terrain and your plastic/pre painted facilities would work best. I'd buy £10-20 Antenocis bunker prepainted in plastic as I suspect would many. Oh, and do it in modules- a bunker here,a house, a bug hole etc.

 

[KRakarth]

For that table, I wouldn't pay. I can make my own better than that.

What I would like to buy enough for:

6ft by 4 ft of boards and scenery. or even a half pack of 3 ft by 4ft.

clip together boards
so that my scenery boards are stable and wont slide apart and I can play on a table which is a bit smaller than 6 by 4. (my dining table is 6ft by 3 ft) without having to use anything else.

boards that are 2 ft by 1 ft.
because 1 ft square boards are too small and if no premeasuring is allowed (for example using that other popular UK wargames companies rules) 1 ft boards give you a really good idea of how far away something is.

because 2 ft square boards are too big to conveniently store in my flat ( I have 3 kids to shoehorn in as well) and are just too damn akward.

so that I can get a good variety of layouts using the boards that I have by turning stuff around.

crater boards that really look like craters. because lets face it most of them dont.

dune/undulating terrain boards

flat boards - duh!

Modular hillsides - that clip to the terrain boards; so corners (including a 1 by1 inside corner); 1 ft lengths- additional thought, two types, crags and slopes. enough to make at least a single two tier hill. Boards and hills should be about 30mm thick - the height of a human miniature.

that should do for the terrain itself - this gives you a nice selection of really useful multi-use terrain which you can use for hills, gullies, valleys, wadis, rivers etc etc etc. In several settings depending on colour. moons, deserts even flocked for the more verdant areas.

Possibly available for expansion sets road boards and hillsides which should have a proper sized road on - wide enough for 3 cars and maybe trench boards as well. I specificaly havent put rivers because to affect movement a river has to be BIG and you could use a blue cloth under the boards (hillsides for riverbanks) for that.

A selection of about 8-12 movable terrain pieces (for a 6 by4) -including but not limited to:

Rock spires/ crags which should look like a real geological outcroppings!

Boulder fields

wreckage - large, unidentifiable bits of wrecked tech. (crashed spaceship hull etc)


for the more urban settings:

"Timeless" adobe buildings - think Tatooine. useful for sci fi and middle east and africa.

Modern/near future generic buildings, think industrial estate.

Ruins in the two styles above

walls adobe/rendered and brick/breezeblock

fences chainlink

dont forget plants and SST specific terrain pieces as well.

So in summary for enough boards to cover a 6 by 4 (#12 2ft by 1ft boards, say with an equal mix of plain, undulating and cratered), with a 2 tier hill (#1 inside corner, #1 extra 1ft by 2 ft board, #8 corners, #6 1 ft hillsides, ) plus 8-12 scenery pieces I would pay no more than £150. The thought of halfsized terrain packs at sub £100 is a lot more palatable though. Along with "expansion" scenery packs of roads and extra hillsides.

 

[MaxSteiner]

Wow its intresting that the Brits are willing to pay twice as much as the Americans, guess its a sympton of our rip off society...
I wasn't expecting the response to be so negative really, but I have gotta say a grey board with grey features might not have been the best example...

 

[BuShips]

Wow its intresting that the Brits are willing to pay twice as much as the Americans, guess its a sympton of our rip off society...
I wasn't expecting the response to be so negative really, but I have gotta say a grey board with grey features might not have been the best example...

Yes Max, the overall color scheme didn't light fires under me either. It's quite amazing that a good paint job will make an otherwise mediocre model look good. One of the things that I do with my terrain is to use two or three different spray cans of Krylon H2o and blend them wet as I apply my colors, such as brown and a light and dark tan for desert. When just doing rocky stuff I'll use several greys and thrown in even ochre and vermilion to simulate exposed mineral content. I think "Matthew and Co." would rather have an honest opinion here before they ramp up for sales of it possibly. Of course, the ultimate opinion is sales figures. :wink:

 

[MaxSteiner]

I've really gota get some of that H2O stuff I'm sick of painting polystyrine

What I really would have like to of seen would be a modular city scape board, with streets and rooftops and signs and freeways and all the like, but storing that would be impossible...

A really good idea someone I know was floating out there was an inflatable board. Sounds absolutly moronic at first (he only really suggested it to take the piss) but if you think about it it'd allow you to have huge buildings, volcanoes, etc without the bother of trying to store it all! I've seen something simmilar for kids, like a dinosaur playset or something which wasn't eactly great, but if mongoose is going the prepainted model route then simply by colouring the stuff in the same palate as the miniatures and choosing a matt rather than gloss finish they could really tie it into the rest of the range and help suspend disbelief.
Probably not an ideal solution, but you gotta admit theres nobody out there making anything remotly simmilar fo the hobby market!