Hello gents,

While discussion are going on regarding ETC 2019 rulepack. I'd like toraise another subject : terrain.

We all have seen this years table, we barely managed to get them fixed. But I don't want to see this anymore.
Pizzaguardian told us what the issues are and I would like us to be more involved in guiding the orgas regarding fow table set up.

So here is my thoughts :
1. We the captains gather pictures of standard fow table (10 or so) andbuild up a charter/guide for table setup each new orga has to comply with.
2. We should get together with sponsors/BF to see if terrain can be lend/rent every year for the orga to have proper tables and no more discussion/issues about orga1 can't stand orga2 and so asks overpriced shipping for his terrain.

This is a repeating thing so no special disscussions here just finding a way to make us all responsible and give any orga right away the compulsory setup that is needed and has to be taken into account/fullfilled in the bid.

Hope this will help
Cheers from France
Seb

Canada will be able to bring 6 tables worth of terrain to the event.

Hi all,

first of all I would like to say that this was one of the most enjoyable ETCs for me and I will probably write my impressions in another thread, so I'll just stick to terrain issues we had this year. Considering the terrain, I would like to thank the judges for doing the best they could with the given resources. A lot of effort was put forward from them and I can only thank them for spending their free time in making the ETC as pleasant as they could for the players. Secondly I would like to thank Alberto from Your Command for sponsoring the last referee and Team Italy and France for donating some of the terrain along with us. The matter of fact is that without all of this donated terrain the tables would be unbearable. For reference I am attaching a picture of the amount of terrain we donated to this years ETC.



This is where my thanks stops and criticism turns on. Before I criticize I would like to say that the venue was nice and that the food was good (much better than on some of the previous ETCs, looking at you Novi Sad). However, this years organizer:
- clearly doesn't understand what it takes to make good FOW tables and without the donated terrain from the three nations, I can't imagine what a catastrophe the tables would be,
- failed to communicate the terrain problem in a timely manner to the community,
- did nothing to remedy the situation after they saw the situation with the FOW tables,
- only stated that the captains should be more involved next time with the terrain.

Now, let me just start by saying that it's beyond my understanding how the organizer thought that we must be more involved with the terrain if he can't even communicate that he has a problem with it? Are we fortune tellers or mind readers? We as players and teams, pay the organizer to organize the venue, tables and the TERRAIN! It is not our responsibility to do that and it's only our good will that we do it.

Team Slovenia always donated terrain when the tournaments were in Serbia or Zagreb with expecting nothing in return, because we try to help the community as much as we can. This year was most probably however the last one in which we brought our own terrain. This is due to the fact that we donated the terrain to the organizers in agreement that our terrain is put together and not mix and matched with other terrain. This was our only term for donating the terrain and it was immediately broken without COMMUNICATING IT TO US. If they told us beforehand that they didn't have enough terrain and had to mix it, we would have said yes, because we wouldn't have a better choice anyway :). So imagine our surprise when we came to the venue. The terrain we have in Slovenia is the product of many long hours/days of labor, gluing, painting, assembling, etc... and I can't stress enough what it means to a small community like ours. The attitude of the organizer just wasn't where we expected it to be. To be perfectly clear I have to stress that the judges have nothing to do with this and they did the best they could do (Carolus, Marko, Matt, you're awesome!). The only one to blame here is the organizer for failing to communicate their problems with the community. This wasn't the first time the organizers disregarded our agreement that the terrain mustn't be mix and matched. It happened in Serbia one year as well.

I personally agree with Lynx's proposal and suggest we move forward with it. All future bids must comply with the terrain standards that the FOW community puts forward and no excuses should be tolerable. In case of lacking to comply with our standards we should seriously consider on involving money penalties... or some other type of penalty.

Kind regards, Milan (Team Slovenia)

Guys,

the terrains issue has followed ETC's since the start, and although this year we have had the list of terrains needed for the tables, it bore little fruition. Therefore, I have talked to the Novi Sad orgas about next year's terrains. I was told that if we can provide exact numbers of terrains needed by October, we can expect to see terrains in numbers we provide. Mind You that Serbia also has a bigger FoW community than Croatia, and that we already have two ETC-s under our belt, so I sincerely expect little trouble with terrains. Mind You, terrains will be of lower than BF quality. Expect cardboard houses and the stuff we have already seen on previous ETC-s, I am talking about quantity, not quality. There are some terrains in Serbia and the surrounding area which will probably be loaned to the orgas, and as I see, team Canada offers a row worth of terrains, so I would expect to see a mix of good, high quality terrains and poor quality, but highly "populated" tables. It comes down to us, to provide the list of terrains per table, and then to the orga to provide.

There is also an idea of renting/purchasing terrains from battlefront, which could improve the quality of tables, but would also increase the entry fee greatly . . . Everything has to be discussed in detail and decided on very quickly, so the orga will have the time to prepare accordingly . . .

Cheers,
Marko

I tried to be polite and i was polite until so far. But that doesnt seem to work, here you go.

terrain on etc 2018

We asked for terrain count, in may when we had more than enough time. We had the resources to produce 500 house per day if it came to it, and buy all the doormats and print out roads properly.

So make what you can out of this

Sorry Pizzaguardian but I don't see the sens of your post. Except to make things worse...

As for the slovenian post I don't know what happend to your terrain but I don't think it was intentional by the orga and we French made some rearrangement might be our fault too.

We discussed about this in the short meeting and we will find a solution for this (all captains). But the main issue stays: orgas can't produce terrain in numbers every year so there is a need to get a secured amount of terrain available each year.
To answer your telling Pizzaguardian: if problems between orgas occure that isn't our business neither our responsibility (and I know what im talking about I have such similar issue in logistics). We are the customer so any supplier issues with the orga ain't be our problem.

But because I know how difficult this can be for someone I want us to give a hand and sort this out. So if this means getting terrain rented by BF and paying 5-10€ more per team I would go for that.
If we need to give table examples to the orga to refer to and ensure he is able to produce everythings that's even better.

So that's why I want the captains to compile some "standard" FoW tables to be used. (Btw the gencon tables show on FB looked very nice).

Again there shouldn't be much discussion, just gathering table pictures and everyone telling if you are willing to add some money for "premium" table quality.

Cheers

I think all we can do now is to look ahead.

As we discussed on site, we have to define a more detailed terrain plan and reglement for next years (and future) orga. This should be part of the ruleset discussion.

The tournament is over. We can learn from past mistakes, but to hold any grievances is a mistake.

Hi,
in order for us to try comply with your wishes, I would need real specifications. That amount of buildings that are size x/y, that amount of fence, that amount of fields, forests.... It would be ideal if there are some shematics how table should look like. Keep in mind that none of the orga so far were FOW players and we dont know what do you need. Also keep in mind that function is ahead of estetics. I mean, although we would all like to play on dioramas it is not realistic that we make or buy that for 104 tables (that is for 26 teams). We allready have some terrains from previous years and we will make more, but we need you to be more specificon what you want. :D
And time to think about it is right now, while we have time to prepare and make things.

Hi Vladimir,

Thanks for hopping by and giving us the intel. The committee is working on this matter and will establish a guide sheet for a functional fow table.
For now our thoughts are to create a reference sheet with amount of each terrain typ needed for a table and we are planning to lay down some generic fow table layouts scheme for the orgas.
This will take some time... hope we will be ready with this latest by end of december (will try to see if earlier is possible).

Cheers.

Quote: Lynx wrote in post #9

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a reference sheet with amount of each terrain typ needed for a table and we are planning to lay down some generic fow table layouts scheme for the orgas.

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Hi there.
I do appreciate your problem, I have been involved in 'mass producing' terrain' for a major vent several times (but all a long time ago). You will obviously want to get started early.

It is not really up to me to say what is/is not enough terrain but I am going to post a few suggestions with explanations in a VERY broad brush sort of way. Other people will give a more detailed description but I am offering a sort of minimum to get you going.

I suggest you think of the amount of terrain you need as being for one run of 6 tables. The density and type of terrain should vary a little between tables (variety is the spice of life).

For each group of 6 Tables I would suggest the following

30 Hills, 30 Houses and 30 Woods.
I have grouped these together as these will block line of sight and you do need somewhere to hide. Hills need to be big enough to cover a 5 inch by 7 inch piece of paper and should fit complety within a n 8 inch by 13 inch piece of paper An inch is 25mm if you think in metric. A few bits of the odd hill can have a cliff face (useful if a bit has fallen off and you need to repair it) and the odd one can be rocky (stick a few stones on the top) but go easy on that sort of thing, to make the game flow.
Houses should be a bit smaller say 4 inches by 6 (artistic licence a bit here) so that you can fit at least 2 medium sized infantry bases inside but not more than say 4 on one floor. Some can be 2 or even 3 stories high but try to leave some space around them as they are completely impassable to vehicles. Woods should be a bit larger, especially under the new version of the rules (you can see into the first 2" ) so at least covering a 5 inch by 7 inch piece of paper and preferably will fit onto an 8 inch by 13 inch bit of paper (same as hills).

45 Enclosure or crop fields or scrub. I have grouped these as they are all short terrain so can be seen over but add to the difficulty in aiming shots. These can vary in size quite a lot but look for an average size of about 6 inches square. Make some surrounded with walls or hedges but with at least 1 preferably 2 or 3 gaps of about 1 inch.

3 streams average length about 80 inches, squiggles and the odd fork are fine, a bridge every 25 to 40 inches or so helps the game flow. They can be anything between 1 inch and 2 inches wide

At least 4 and possibly all 6 of the tables should have a road net. The minimum should be enough road to go once across the table and once along it, some nets can be up to twice this. The odd bit of hedge or wall attached to a road is fine but leave plenty of gaps and subtract such length from the next item

Hedges and walls about 150 inches in irregular lengths between 4 inches and 8 inches these are also short terrain so help with cover but slow up vehicles.

Say 3 Lakes or other impassable terrain no more than 7 inches by 9 inches for playability.

There are all sorts of other bits you can add or substitute but I think if you start on the above basis you will have a reasonable base.

Ideally woods will have a flat base with two or three trees on their own base that can be moved around as they are representational. You can also model scrub in the same sort of way.
Houses are helpful if the roof comes off so you can put the infantry inside (I have used solid buildings and just put my infantry base leaning against the side so not a big deal)

Cut up doormats are often used for crop fields.

Hope this helps a bit.

Mike

Adding to what Mike said I would like to point out door mats (coir mats) when cut into 1cm wide strips make effective hedgerows.

The number of hills can be reduced to 2-3 per table, increasing short/tall terrain by 2-3 pieces, otherwise any nearby short terrain (coir mat fields, hedges) is negated.

I would feel happier if members of other teams made some comments/alternative suggestions/or just agreement with my proposals - I do not want 20+ teams moaning about the terrain density/mix which I suggested

Come on guys, it doesn't have to be the Captains but at least comment.

Mike.

I think your suggestions are a good start Mike, and would offer enough pieces to make 6 varied but good gaming tables when put up with some thought

Providing terrains is one thing and I will do my best to provide what is requested, but also there is a thing of terreein setup so it would be really cool if you would form some gropu that will be a day ahead of the tournament and help us set up terrains properly.