Sunday Sermon: Scenery

One of MAS's awesome looking Wolsung boards at Salute 2012

Well I guess given some of my biggest articles in terms of hits have been about scenery, it shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that I'm doing a sermon on scenery eventually, now should it? Don't worry I don't think I'm going to pimp you anymore scenery products... or at least that isn't my primary intention here. No, I want to talk about why scenery and terrain is, or should be important to us all. You see we often 'throw down' with our miniatures and we very rarely think about how our battlefield looks, or how it adds to the ambiance of a game. Sure we might check that it blocks Line of Sight or that there isn't too much cover for one side. But, rarely I think will we as gamers take a step back and say 'does it look good?' By which, I mean is it pretty, does it evoke the atmosphere of the game, is it adding to the visual appeal of wargaming and thus the overall pageantry of the experience? Because lets be honest here about our hobby, part of it's allure is the theatrical aspect of having armies on display, isn't it?

The awesome looking freebooter's Fate board at Salute 2012

You see, I wrote an article about how the battlefield or scenery could affect how the game plays out. Of course in many respects that should almost certainly be our first priority as gamers. That the table on which, we are about to enact our battle with toy soldiers, is suitable to the game we're playing. It shouldn't however be our only concern I think. There is a tactile, and a visual element to wargaming that many other hobbies don't quite achieve. I suppose model railways are a close relation in this regard. The mechanics of the set up can be great, but if it looks good it's just so much better. Think about all the really cool tables you've seen in wargames magazines, or on websites and blogs, possibly at trade shows, first and foremost they look good don't they? They make you want to put fully painted armies down on them and play games. There's an artistry to them that I think we can sometimes overlook and ignore. In game play terms you could almost certainly replicate their effectiveness with bland designed geometric shapes, but it's the details that separate out the great tables from the good. They create a miniature world for us to send our little toys to their deaths!
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