Apocalypse terrain requirements/assistance

[War Angel]

Good morning everyone,

 

I've recently become interested I getting a table and some terrain from GW's sector imperialis line. This seemed like the best place to ask about terrain, expecialy of this nature, as when I think of a pic games I think of the old cities of death rules and the like. That said, I'm not really sure what questions to ask as this is a large undertaking and I'm worried about messing it up. Any tips you could provide would be nice. I'm looking to use GW's terrain, not other substitutes. I am a little upset as I know I missed out on getting the old line of buildings, and they would have greatly increased the options available to me. If anyone knows where I can grab some of those that would be awesome.

 

Againc thanks for the help, and I hope to have armies as impressive as you all soon.

[NovemberIX]

If I had to boil it down to a few simple bits of advice

 

1. Terrain is your third army on the table

 

2. Modularity helps bring variety which ensures novelty

 

3. When you think you've bought enough, you haven't, double it.

 

4.Fake it till you make it.

 

To make some short stories long, I run some fairly regular Apoc sized games in my house. I use a pair of 7'X4.5' tables along with Secret Weapon Miniatures tablescape tiles and a variety of building kits from GW and Pegasus Hobbies. The extra space on the tables that isn't covered by tiles is great for leaving books, dice, and measuring devices. It also helps with asymmetric and offset layouts, which is nice because trying to reach 4 feet across the table to reach the middle is a pain, better an L or a T shape to keep thing interesting and reachable.

 

 The nice thing about the new GW kits is that they're supposed to be more modular in fitting together, and truthfully, there's so much variety now, the old stuff doesn't really hold a candle to it. So going back to my first and third piece of advice, treat terrain like it's another army you're fully committing to. Starting off I bought something like 9 building kits from pegasus hobbies, even then I felt like it was a bit sparse, and definitely lacks some of the verticality the new GW stuff shows off well. There's no one specific kit I would say you need to buy, more that you should buy lots of kits, and buy in multiples. Build some of it straight up as designed, and other stuff, start getting creative and kit bashing pieces together. You'll want a few large terrain pieces, some middle size ones, and variety of smaller pieces you can use in between. You'll also want a variety of scatter terrain, things like barrels, crates, craters, and rubble. The thermic pipe set is also pretty nice for making scatter terrain.

 

I would like to say keep an open mind to not only other terrain manufacturers, but also possibly making your own terrain pieces and elements. Some PVC pipe from a hardware store, balsa wood sheets, and various rods and shafts all cut to size sorta look like construction material, you can then use that to create makeshift cover and firing positions.

 

Which all more or less feeds into my last piece of advice, building plastic kit terrain to cover an Apoc size table is not cheap, so if you gotta make do with making your own terrain till you can afford all the pieces you want, there is no shame in that, and can sometimes lead to pretty cool things. More to the point, some of the stuff you could make, could end up being way more interesting than anything you'd be able to buy. But hey, if the extent of your current skill is priming cardboard boxes grey, then work with what ya got!

[War Angel]

Thanks for the suggestions, it really helps out. You wouldn't happen to have any pictures of your stuff do you? Terrain doesn't seem to be popular on these forums.

 

Thanks again.

[NovemberIX]

A lot of these images were posted up as part of battle reports, some of which have been lost in the great forum purge of 2018, and other lost in the database crashes from years previous.

 

http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag67/NovemberIX/Bat%20Reps%20Pics/ED8EA3B4-3A12-4CFF-8542-4DD2BADC7A91_zpsdbwfwfee.jpg

Pre-game, The battle of Murska Airbase. 6th edition game, objectives were the buildings (archives, communications tower, fuel depot, command center, research labs) by the end of the game everything was destroyed. Layout was intentionally made very open, there was variations in height, but they didn't come into play since it basically became a race against 3 Knights, and a pair of Fellblades popping the objectives.

 

http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag67/NovemberIX/Bat%20Reps%20Pics/D9C44997-7F34-4259-8C26-D67E1A2D3E7A_zpsdpbuzrbw.jpg Battle of Murska Airbase post battle. The destroyed markers are excellent bits of kit, basically an LED candle light with a teased out brillo pad that's been painted black. I believe they can be bought online. (my set was gifted to me)

 

 

Not an Apoc game, but still somewhat large (I think 3 or 4K) 5x4 table, I just really like the greenery in the middle.

 

http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag67/NovemberIX/New%20NIX%20thread/134B14B5-F373-4BE8-9FC1-68FD2FE20488_zpszmckbwli.jpg

Same table different angle.

 

 

http://i1299.photobucket.com/albums/ag67/NovemberIX/New%20NIX%20thread/0E044801-943F-47C9-8B76-054F75A3A51F_zpserbl4r6q.jpg

Just a big ole Apoc game. 6X8 Table.

 

Another Apoc game, this time the 6'x8' table was bisected by a 2'x6 'raised section meant to break up line of sight, and add visual variety. 

 

 

 

Just one of my favorite pictures I've taken. Models and building to the immediate left are by Honda. Sometimes if you get lucky, you get to take shots like this.

 

I think this was our last game of 7th, offset L shaped pair of  6'x4' tables. The desert tiles are going to be repainted soon, and all the buildings have since had zenithal highlights and shadows added, Admittedly there is still more to go, and new terrain pieces are being added regularly. 

[War Angel]

Thanks, those are really cool! The offset L looks fun to play

[CommodusXIII]

I play a few Apocalypse games every year with different groups. I've found it better to have large, LOS-blocking terrain than smaller ruins. Manuevering infantry through terrain takes more time than around it, and units need to be able to hide from Titans and other superheavies. It also (IMHO) looks less cluttered and more thematic.

[Mendi Warrior]

The old Cities of Death boxes sometimes pop up on eBay but tend to be quite expensive. The Pegasus Hobbies are nice alternative.

I'm looking to use GW's terrain, not other substitutes.

Even if not really in line with your requirement for no substitutes, I would keep the door open for some use of insulation foamboard, polystyrene (sometimes coming with interesting shapes in various packagings) and other specific items that could be diverted for terrain (e.g. old computer fans, pvc pipes as already mentioned, ...).

Here are two examples I made. For the first I used old CD boxes, insulation foamboard and various GW terrain pieces (imperial bastion and CoD components). For the second, so far only polystyrene and cardboard (which I plan on replacing with 3mm MDF).

[War Angel]

Oh I like the look of that, do you have any other pictures of it?

[War Angel]

I'm willing to be convinced into buying alternate lines, I just haven't see. Anything that stokes me.

[Mendi Warrior]

Here are a couple more. As you can see this is still very much a work-in-progress (I started it years ago, then put it aside as I was not having time, maybe one day it'll be complete). It is not a readily available alternate line you can buy. My message regarding terrain is that you can achieve nice results by combining different things together. I tend to keep things which have shapes or textures I find interesting for a terrain modeling project. Things that can be combined with GW terrain (or alternate lines like Pegasus Hobbies).

Here you have elements from the old Cities of Death terrain, the imperial bastion and the defense line, these are/were GW terrain. I combined with old CD boxes for the main tower structure (more detailing required), the top of the main tower is insulation board cut to fit the shape of the defense line elements. I used polystyrene to elevate the structure, soda cans to support the floors, old floppy disks for walls. I also try to keep things modular (currently experimenting with magnets for Adeptus Titanicus terrain).

I keep my eyes open for inspiration and when I see an interesting shape or texture I try to imagine how it could interact with GW or alternate terrain.

Combined with the polystyrene part to give a massive bastion.