The Too Fat Lardies games use Troop Blinds to represent an unscouted force of unknown size & composition moving around on the board. So, I decided to create Terrain Blinds.
They are non-descript terrain placeholders that allowed me to show the players that something is in that area of the board, but that their figures can't tell what it was until they got closer. Otherwise, if I just left the "hidden" terrain piece off the board, the empty spaces would look funny & be a bit misleading to the players.
Here is the intial board set up. The terrain blinds are the flat green/brown patches circled.
Here is a close up of the blinds.
& once the players' figures got close enough to the blinds, here is what replaced the group of blinds in the right center of the initial picture.
I sure I'm not the 1st person to come up with the idea of hiding terrain from the players. I know I've seen fully laid out 3D dungeon crawls where the unexplored part of the dungeon is covered up to prevent the party from seeing what's ahead. But in all the wide & varied wargaming reading I've done, I've never seen the use of actual Terrain Blinds placeholders like this.
So please let me know if you've seen this kind of Terrain Blinds use before, & what you think of the idea.
It is certainly a clever idea, the terrian blinds. How were these received by your players?
ReplyDeleteI've contemplated doing a Hallowe'en-themed game with squares of terrain covered by cotton-batting and only the central feature (a castle) thrust above the ground fog. Haven't gotten around to it. This looks more practical! How did the players receive it?
ReplyDeleteBecause of how small the board was, they reached & revealed the 1st set of blinds (shacks, still & truck) on the 1st turn. & they never got to the 2nd area of the blinds because they just stayed fighting around the shacks.
DeleteSo, the players didn't have much time to respond to the blinds. But it's a concept that I plan to use more in similar games.
I do a similar thing where I set up the battlefield and then take a photo which is sent to all players to plan their strategy. For example on the photo I would have a wheat field standing tall but come game day I replace it with a harvested\ploughed section. The result people tend to plan arouond having the field for cover while planning their strategy and then oh surprise no cover. The same with buildings and bridges on the photo intact and on game day ruins. This just simulates that life and the battle continue after intel was received.
ReplyDeleteGreg, consider that (terrific) idea stolen, with full attribution, sir!!
DeleteIts a brilliant idea certainly where a GM has control of the game. Would make some seriously good fun for a zombie apocalypse table. with bands of survivors trying to scavenge supplies etc.
ReplyDeleteBrilliant idea. Great for Colonials, VSF, Darkest Africa or any other game in the "empty bits" of the map.
ReplyDeleteAbsolutely terrific idea, Black Cavalier. I've tried, with modular terrain, making a number of alternative inserts for a single terrain board. However, your idea is even better and has loads of applications. It's incredibly simple, flexible and a really great idea. Thanks so much for posting.
ReplyDeleteI also re-blogged your post with a borrowed photo. Hope you don't mind :)
DeleteThanks for the honor of being reblogged. I certainly don't mind since I stole the idea from you guys to begin with.
DeleteVery nice ideea
ReplyDelete