MMXV AAR

So, back about a year ago I made a some attempts at a plan for my hobby year, and indirectly this blog.
With my posting frequency reduced of late, I'll at least make a summary of how well my crystal ball musings held up (warning, wall of text lying in ambush behind the cut!):

No news...

... is good news, right?

Well, perhaps not, but rest assured despite the blog living up to its name lately, things has been progressing in the background, although the hobby:real-life ratio has been lower than normal.

However, inspired by my highly productive blogging neighbour Kraggi I've decided to start actually writing all articles I've been mulling over for the past few weeks, starting with my recently finished terrain piece...

[Planetfall] Terrain Notes

So, during the past week I've actually been playing some games of Planetfall (and finishing up my Core Helix, more on that later).

So far, most of my games has been losses.

I'll admit, I've made a few mistakes (I'm usually far too aggressive with my Recons, for one thing), but I'm starting to consider if me and my opponent does not actually play with too much terrain on the table.

Looking at others battle reports, it seems that at most players have at most 3-5 larger pieces and a smattering of smaller things, which is a far cry from the 8+ buildings, plus forests and bunkers, that usually gets put on our table.
That actually got me thinking; what kind of game is this supposed to be, regarding terrain?

Obviously, terrain has a huge impact on both tactics and strategy, particularly for the Aquans, who at once both want terrain, to make use of the Hit and Run MAR and their above average mobility, and wants clear firing lines, to best leverage the long range of their lasers.

Obviously, this means that there should be some guidelines for how much terrain to use, much like the famous 25% rule in Firestorm Armada.
Looking in the Planetfall rulebook, there are only two ways to set up terrain described;

• In a mutuable agreeable way, which can obviously be any which way.
• Random (or 'Tournament') setup, averaging one terrain piece for every 2' section of the board (so 6 in total).

With the guidelines in the rulebook regarding terrain size, we can extrapolate a min, max and average terrain coverage:

• Minimal terrain is two terrain pieces. Although unlikely (less than 1/10th of a percent) it is a possibility, and will mean that vary little of the board i covered (although two 12x12 pieces in the middle could give something to play around...)
• Average is around 6 terrain pieces, which should cover (36"^2 x 6) assuming that the average terrain piece is half of the max size on each side (max being defined in the rulebook as 12x12"). Coverage 216 square inches, or 6.25 %.
• Maximum assumes 12x12" pieces, 2 per sector, so 12 in total, giving 1728 square inches of coverage, or 50 %. 

Looking at these numbers, we can calculate some kind of median, or at least max divided by two (not really a mathematical median, by any means), i.e 864 square inches of coverage, or 25%.

Based on this, I'd recommend between 10 and 25 percent of coverage, at least as a guideline akin to Armadas 25% rule.
Yes, this means that Planetfall is supposed to have less terrain than Armada, which might not be that surprising, considering the larger impact of terrain dirtside (no indirect weapons to fire through LoS blocking or impeding terrain pieces...).

For my next game, I'll most definitely try the something like the median, or at least something close to it (instead of having 2-3 buildings in the same sector... Let me tell you, that really limits the fire arcs, and thus the possible moves, that one can do)

I'll see if I cannot get some photos of the various setups, to get an image of how much coverage these alternatives really gives.

Slow but steady...

Last week turned out to be a bit of a lost week painting wise, but this week looks better:

Locatu WIP:

 The turquoise and green I consider done (might tweak some spots with an even brighter turquoise), what remains is the white highlights and doing something with the purple parts...
With some luck and a few more early mornings I should have them done before this week ends.




Heavy Helix bases:

I've experimented with what I'd like to call MkII of my bases, basically the same as before, but with a AP Green Tone shade added to the sanded parts after the grey highlight. This means that the flock ties into the base a bit better, and it looks a bit like undergrowth instead of grey earth.
I'm not sure it will replace the MkI scheme for all models, but it is a nice alternative for a greener area.

Sedna WIP:

At long last, I've restarted my two Core Helix heavy tanks. Not even a full basecoat yet, but the intent is there. I've not painted the same areas green on purpose, to give these behemoths their own identity, and I'm toying with the idea to pain actual battlescars to further differentiate them.


That's it for painting progress this week...

Link of the day: www.warmage.de/ has recently (yesterday, I think) released a (huge!) set of 10mm buildings, in three different styles, one of which is a very nice SciFi theme. This is something that I could see myself pick up for my growing Planetfall Terrain project (more on that, and my Blotz hoard, in a future post...), painted in the right colours it could make for a very nice Terquai, Terran or Dindrenzi quarter of a larger city.