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Post by delta on Aug 23, 2019 10:52:51 GMT -6
My copy of Chainmail (3E, 7th print) has a short section on "Terrain Selection" on p. 10: terrain pieces are 3x5" index cards. Players draw a total of 8 such pieces (4 per player) and put them on the table. Some cards are "blank" and don't represent anything.
This seems very small to me, likely smaller than most unit sizes (smaller than what I'm used to seeing in other miniatures games). On a suggested game table of 6x8' or something (p. 5), at most you'll be covering about 1/60th of the table surface with terrain.
Was that actually used, or just aspirational? (It claims it was used: "we have found the following system to be useful".) Has anyone seen games played with that size of terrain piece? I'm wondering if it wouldn't be mostly negligible in practice.
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Post by derv on Aug 24, 2019 5:30:17 GMT -6
It's intended as a random selection method for players, not actual terrain. They were often using a sand table. So, there would be a deck of cards that could be shuffled and each player would alternatively pick a card then place it wherever they chose on the table. For example, if they chose a card that had "HILL" written on it, they would shape a hill with the sand on the table. If the card was blank, they did not get to strategically place any terrain to their advantage.
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Post by Deleted on Aug 24, 2019 11:34:53 GMT -6
It's the same concept as in WRG, where a very similar card / selection systems is provided. Back in the day, as derv points out, sand tables were the mark of the real gamer, and the rest of us used things like tape and model railway trees for scenery and terrain; it's why the first Braunstein was such a big deal, with the entire table covered in buildings. Actual scenery models were rare - Prof. Barker had The Hill, and his Three Trees. Things have improved, over the succeeding decades I think.
My favorite example of how this system usually falls out was from Origins in 1980, where both players in the HMGS National Championship Game each picked three cards of "SWAMP", thinking that this would give them a huge advantage. However, one player had a Sung Dynasty chariot army, and the other had a French Gen'd'armes force from the 1500s with all heavy cavalry. I don't think they ever made it into contact, and the game had to be abandoned. (Me, I though that it was pretty funny.)
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Post by delta on Aug 24, 2019 21:41:25 GMT -6
It's intended as a random selection method for players, not actual terrain. Then why is the direction given to pictorially draw the terrain on the cards in a particular way, and the cards given specific sizes? Is that just irrelevant, or a typo?
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Post by derv on Aug 26, 2019 5:07:30 GMT -6
It's intended as a random selection method for players, not actual terrain. Then why is the direction given to pictorially draw the terrain on the cards in a particular way, and the cards given specific sizes? Is that just irrelevant, or a typo? The drawings are to add variety of shapes, not exactitude. 3 x 5 index cards were a common and convenient size card to use. Any student doing a school research paper during this time period would have been familiar with 3 x 5 index cards. No luxury like PC's, laptops, or tablets.
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Post by delta on Aug 26, 2019 14:59:54 GMT -6
I can't say as those answers make any sense to me, unfortunately.
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Post by derv on Aug 26, 2019 16:01:52 GMT -6
My point is that nowadays you would just as likely do this on a computer with a simple program. Back then, creating a deck of cards was a great way to randomize a tables layout- something that added a possible new and unexpected challenge for the players.
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Post by creases on Aug 26, 2019 18:59:04 GMT -6
derv I think it's reasonably clear why index cards were used. The question is about how they were used. delta I agree that the text is unclear. It seems to me, though, that the cards are not supposed to be used as the terrain, but only as sketches of the general shape the terrain will take on the table. I have two pieces of evidence. First, context: the photographs of the tables ready-to-play don't have index cards placed on them; they have shaped sand and model scenery. [ETA: I'm looking at the WotC pdf release, which is scanned from Chainmail 2nd ed, 7th printing. The photos are on page 4.] Second, common sense: the whole point of having a sand table is to shape it! Using a flat surface with index cards to represent terrain would fail to take advantage of the most important feature of the recommended playing surface. So, I assume that the shape that players sketch on the cards before shuffling them is an illustration or a guide for how terrain should be formed directly on the table. The sketch is not used as terrain by placing it directly on the table. That's my inference, anyway! I'd love to hear how wargamers played it back in the day.
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Post by magremore on Aug 26, 2019 19:22:07 GMT -6
The text as written is hard to make sense of. It’s almost like "draw" is being used in two different ways. There is a set of 20 index cards illustrated w/ the stated terrain types. The types are then chosen by each player in turn, starting with the weaker/defending side. The choosing player gets to place/make the terrain where desired.
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Post by derv on Aug 26, 2019 20:18:34 GMT -6
"Often it becomes difficult to devise new terrain for a battle, and we have found the following system to be useful."
IOW, here is a method for coming up with a previously undetermined table layout.
Step one- create a deck of 20 cards. Step two- alternatively select a card from the deck, starting with the defending side (or flip a coin). *stick the card back in the deck to be selected again or not. It's up to the players. Step three- place or build the terrain on the table wherever the player with the selected card wants. Step four- shuffle the deck and repeat steps 2 & 3 up to four times for a total possibility of up to eight pieces of terrain on the table.
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Post by Zenopus on Aug 26, 2019 20:45:14 GMT -6
I don't think I've ever looked closely at this section of Chainmail before. It feels sort of like a predecessor of the random tables of D&D. Though the Weather Table is better, as it is actually a table that relies on two die rolls.
I think some of the confusion is resulting from the lack of a guidance regarding the size/scale of the terrain to be drawn/placed on the table. One feels there must be some limit on the size of the terrain, and without that information, it's easy to start reading it such that the card size is providing this information.
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flightcommander
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Post by flightcommander on Aug 26, 2019 21:15:51 GMT -6
I agree with Delta that the text is unclear. FWIW, other miniatures wargames rules like DBA describe a similar procedure for establishing random terrain. In DBA (or at least version 3.0, which I refer to here) each army belongs to a particular broad terrain type (eg "agrarian" or "littoral") with a set of obligate, and another set of optional terrain choices. Defender picks first and players alternate, rolling a die to see which quadrant of the gameboard to place a terrain piece in. There are some fiddly rules about placement that are particular to DBA, but the overall process is a distant echo of that described in Chainmail. I think Creases is right that the shape is meant to be drawn on the card, the orientation chosen by the player selecting the card, and the terrain (somehow!) transferred from the card to the gameboard — in any case the index card is _not_ the terrain piece, just a placeholder. Furthermore I suspect the whole procedure to be more in the Tony Bath school of "here's a thing you can do with crap in that kitchen drawer of yours, good luck have fun don't die" approach to wargames, but I could be wrong.
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Post by derv on Aug 27, 2019 15:09:39 GMT -6
If you read the Introduction to Chainmail it may add some clarity to what the authors were thinking.
Imagine a 4 foot by 8 foot table. Divide this into eight equal 2 foot by 2 foot sections. Using the card system to randomly generate the terrain, one piece of terrain could be placed or built on each of the eight sections.
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Post by delta on Aug 27, 2019 20:10:58 GMT -6
If you read the Introduction to Chainmail it may add some clarity to what the authors were thinking. Imagine a 4 foot by 8 foot table. Divide this into eight equal 2 foot by 2 foot sections. Using the card system to randomly generate the terrain, one piece of terrain could be placed or built on each of the eight sections. That's actually very helpful, thanks for drawing my attention there. I'll point out that your phrasing "Divide this into... 2 foot by 2 foot sections" in almost identical language to that still found later on in Warhammer Fantasy (looking at 6E, p. 219 here, (c) 2000). Obviously, the gist here is that we all agree that the index card pieces would be too small for usable terrain, so I should focus on that. Years ago I actually did try playing that way on a tabletop and of course it wasn't really satisfying. Thanks a bunch to everyone helping to find a coherent interpretation of that page.
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Post by clownboss on Aug 30, 2019 6:10:36 GMT -6
Yeah 3x5'' is so tiny there was absolutely no way in thinking these weren't fit for index cards. Anything else could've been used to randomly decide on terrain, like poker cards or dice or tea leaves. I always draw eight, corresponding to the eight 2x2' sections of the table.
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Post by rsdean on Sept 6, 2019 6:38:51 GMT -6
So, the introduction posits three forms of scenery: individually built hills and trees, etc, 2x2 modular terrain boards, and sand tables.
The terrain effects rules note that wooded terrain slows movement 50%, prevents charges, and prevents movements of formed bodies of troops. It's IMPLIED that these effects take place in some sort of zone (e.g. a loop of string on the table, a furrow drawn in the sand table, etc.) decorated with some trees. That isn't explicitly stated; it's just part of how wargames work. The point is that the size and shape of the woods have an effect on the battle.
If you have 2x2 modular boards, you are somewhat limited in how you can lay them out, and it doesn't correspond to the cards, so you'd have to use a different method of randomizing them if necessary.
If you have a collection of freestanding hills, you will be limited in their geometry and size to what you actually have.
I would suppose that the "draw the terrain" instruction would give you cards that corresponding to specific hills in your collection (because there isn't any point in giving a picture of a hill you can't build with your scenery set). Unless your woods are represented by some system of fixed size (e.g. irregular cut pieces of felt, which could be identified by number or whatever like freestanding hills), a card would have to give some information about size and geometry to be of any use.
The point is that the cards would need to be matched to your scenery creation technology, which is possibly why they use the generic "draw".
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Post by Starbeard on Sept 9, 2019 20:09:49 GMT -6
I agree. The introduction seems pretty clear in indicating that terrain is a matter of personal preference and resource. The utility of having actual pictures on the index cards is tied directly to how you handle terrain. On a sand table, you could redraw new hills on the cards for each game, or you can just use your trusty deck of cards for all games, and if you draw a hill then shape up a hill of some description. You could probably just write 'hill' on the card and be done with it in that case.
Conversely, if all of your terrain pieces are ready made, then drawing them on the cards can be both interesting and usefully expedient.
I'm trying to recall other rulesets from the era or before that indicate visual determination of terrain shapes ('hill, of this particular size and shape'), rather than just descriptive ('hill; must fit within these dimensions'), but none come to mind.
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