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mj12games.com/forum → Iron Stars → Any thoughts on IS terrain?
I haven't gotten the book yet, but looking at how many little windows everyone paints on the ships, it looks like most starship terrain would be too big (as compared to Starmada where you couldn't even see windows if you painted them.)
Any ideas on proper sized terrain or special pieces that would evoke the mood?
The only terrain I've got are some gas clouds, asteroid clusters, and (of course) minefields, all of which are painted onto sheet styrene. Works well, but I've never assumed it was in scale with the ship minis/counters.
Rich
I always use terrain in miniature games, regardless of scale. It gives a focal point of the battle. Battles are usually over something, my fort, my rock, whatever.
As for scale, planets are out. I usually make one edge of the map a planet.
But small moons, asteroids, or wrecks of ships are easy to create. Brigade Minis makes a simple crashed 'nef. Maybe they could make a crashed ship for Iron Stars.
I use styrofoam balls. Round for moons (poke in lotsa craters), crushed for asteroids (poke full of holes first), and if you wanted a crashed ship, then poke in a model or part of a model into the asteroid and add other bits depending on the strength of the impact.
Stealing from other miniature games, you could add listening posts, variations on the Russian redoubts without guns; airbases (on asteroids), heavy gravity zones, automated weapons, lifeboats, derelict freighters, and ...well that's a start.
frigatesfan.
Terrain and ship mini's are seldom in a related scale. 
I'd have to say that on the whole, any planets, asteroids, nebula and such are scaled way down to fit on the map for easier representation. 
Still...there's lots of ways to make the representation and have fun.
I haven't gotten the book yet, but looking at how many little windows everyone paints on the ships, it looks like most starship terrain would be too big (as compared to Starmada where you couldn't even see windows if you painted them.)
Well, the ships are pretty much to scale. It really is 'Dreadnoughts in Space'. A size 25 ship is about the size of 'Dreadnought' in my imagining.
Tech is the way too magical, but hey, it's science FICTION.... :-)
Any ideas on proper sized terrain or special pieces that would evoke the mood?
Hmmm....
planets - Way too large IMO, maybe marked by an edge of the map.
small moons - eh.. pretty much the same, maybe a really LARGE template in a large map.
asteroids - if it's something like Ceres, then it's a small moon. Smaller asteroids could be made of a chunk of styrofoam.
asteroid clusters - a large template, smaller styrofoam chunk.
airbases (on asteroids) - some sort of multi-hex (or even single hex, I forget just how much space a hex is supposed to represent) model. I know we made a counter for one of the British bases.
nebula - Template - All it would really effect would be firing ranges due to loss of sighting ability.
gas clouds - effectively the same as nebulae...
wrecks of ships - almost too easy - buy a mini from brigade, asemble it in a manner that looks like it's breaking up, use expanding foam and epoxy (make some 'flames' out of epoxy as it slowly cures), paint, and put on some painted cotton balls as 'smoke'. :-)
derelict freighters - find someone who's throwing away some old GW (or other crappy-looking mini) stuff and paint it funny.
For the two above, feel free to make liberal use of Flourescent orange and yellow paint. 
lifeboats - counters...plastic minis if you can find them.
listening posts - tiny little paper boxes..?
automated weapons - counter....
variations on the Russian redoubts without guns - counters...
minefields - ditto...the game comes with templates.
heavy gravity zones - <shrug>
heavy gravity zones - <shrug>
Just an idea of not-mine that's a region of space where it costs double movement points to get through. Perhaps it's Martian technology or something older, perhaps it's a natural phenomenon. Perhaps it's just an area marked out on the board. :wink:
ff
thedugan wrote:heavy gravity zones - <shrug>
Just an idea of not-mine that's a region of space where it costs double movement points to get through. Perhaps it's Martian technology or something older, perhaps it's a natural phenomenon. Perhaps it's just an area marked out on the board. :wink:
ff
If you cover your board with a transparent coating, maybe you can mark it in yellow grease pencil.
Maybe 'chits' - though those aren't child/cat-resistant.
:-)
frigatesfan wrote:thedugan wrote:heavy gravity zones - <shrug>
Just an idea of not-mine that's a region of space where it costs double movement points to get through. Perhaps it's Martian technology or something older, perhaps it's a natural phenomenon. Perhaps it's just an area marked out on the board. :wink:
ff
If you cover your board with a transparent coating, maybe you can mark it in yellow grease pencil.
Maybe 'chits' - though those aren't child/cat-resistant.
:-)
The question is how big is your region?
For smaller effects:
You could use old 40K "vortext grenade" templates to represent a mini-black hole, or use a bigger graphic for the same look since gravity effects don't neccessarly have to be 3-D ... ironically. (Though if you found some sort of plastic tornado, that would work.
For huge sections:
I've been playing with the idea of largeish hex-shaped markers and then rolling for the direction they dift towards. The trick is that you mark the drift by flipping the back pieces in front of the leading edge. If you make each hex like 4 inches wide and use 5 or so hexes, you have real hazard on your hands.
Stealing from Starfleet Battles, the WYN live in this little pocket of space protected by a zone of dirty space that affects all those electronical things that Iron Stars ship don't have, but which would suffice as a "heavy gravity" zone.
As I recall, those scenarios have the zone occupying either the board edges, so that it takes a while to recover before you can operate normally - perhaps invoking the Searchlights optional rules too (it's really thick 'n' dark space), then off you go to get the bad guys;
or, have a zone in the middle of the table, extending the entire length and maybe 6" thick, and place each side's objective on the other side of that morass.
Maybe it's a gaint comet's tail and entering it pushes you sideways 2" for every 1" you attempt to move through it. Perhaps the zone damages your ship (as a x1 torpedo) for every turn stuck in it. Really dangerous to a fast ship, since its hull boxes are few; unpleasant for a very large ship, since it'll be in there for 2 turns or more.
MRB
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