How-to Tuesday: Simple Linear Obstacles (for NOVA Open)
Howdy folks, I have something a little different today: Terrain!
One of my duties as an Event Organizer for the NOVA Open is to construct terrain for the various games. All the EOs get together on the weekends and blitz terrain so that we can get all the pieces done on time. Many hands make quick work of things, and that leaves more time for hanging out and beer!
One of the unique challenges of WM/H Event Organization is the difference in our terrain needs, compared to those of 40k / Fantasy, Infinity or Flames of War. While 40k tables like big sets of ruins and multi-tiered hills, WM/H terrain us usually more sublime. Where Infinity tables need a cityscape with lots of LOS blockage, WM/H tends to have plenty of open space. Hills need to be 1″ tall, so they don’t block LOS, for instance. We also need several linear obstacles (per table) in order to break up said open spaces, and we gotta have lots, and lots of trees! Forests are a huge part of any WM/H encounter, but they’re far less frequent in, say, the Grim, Dark Future.
Today, I want to send you over to the NOVA Preparation Blog: The Road to NOVA. Two Terrain sessions ago, Bob (The Minister of Terrain) and I sat down to build some 30+ fences and barricades to use as linear obstacles for some of the WM/H tables. He liked the design I had come up with, and wrote a tutorial on how we made the fences. Check it out here, or click the picture below.
“You can’t beat cheap, good looking terrain!” is the motto around the NOVA shop, and it really holds true when you have to make terrain on convention level scales.
The Barricades we made use the same pieces as the upright posts in the fences. 1/8″ x 1/8″ x 1″ balsa. (These were 2 1/4″ length sticks purchased from Michael’s that were simply cut in half). You take three of them, and glue them into a star pattern, and then toss three of them onto a 1″ x 4″ base with some scale razor wire. BAM: Barricade.
I hope you enjoyed this little change-up with some terrain, I’ve certainly enjoyed working on terrain lately. I’ve learned all sorts of nifty (and thrifty) ways to do things.
If you’re interested in checking out what is available at the NOVA, be sure to checkout their website: www.novaopen.com The NOVA is in less than a month!
These are great looking. Are you playing them as impassable or just a regular obstacle? When I’ve made bulk linear terrain for Games and Stuff I’ve made just rock walls, usually by mass-cutting pink foam and then basing it. We play the obstacles as 1/2 inch wide though so you can still melee over it and just need pathfinder to cross it. Curious if your play group uses different rules.
These look great though and would add real variety to our tables too.
These are considered standard Linear Obstacles – 1″ x 1″ x 4″, can walk or run over, must have pathfinder to charge over, may fight over if you have reach.
We will also have stone walls, and wrecked stone walls.