PorTable

Well, that's an idea I was trying to get right for a while.

To have a table-worth of terrain at home, that would be:

• sensibly compact
• portable (in case I'd like to go somewhere with it, be it to play at someone else's home, or a public place)
• reasonably low-cost
• not overtly labor-intensive to make.

That's what I came up with - as it is pretty much repeatable elsewhere.

• 2x Darpan Xeno-Station Scenery Pack
• 1x Darpan Xeno-Station Expansion Pack
• 1x Micro Arts Studio Terminus Segments Modular Map
• some Objective tokens and Silhouette templates from the Darpan set.

The map has two advantages:

1. Its segments are stackable (being ~30x30 cm squares), making them easier to store and transport than a typical one-piece matt.
2. You can use as many of them as you want, making a 300pts, 200pts or 150pts table (well, actually even two of these) as needed and as gaming space permits.

The terrain, well, I find it a little light in density for a 4x4 table for my taste. Probably a matter of how I set it for the photo. Certainly adding one more Darpan set would help, but I'm not sure whether it would fit in my carry box. Definitely needs more linear obstacles (walls or the like - not necessarily bulky, but long and LOS-breaking pieces) - plus, that'd allow me to use the Darpan buildings as stacked pieces, adding more height to the table. I see a few solutions:

1. Learn how to use the terrain better. I mean, it differs a lot from the terrain set I've been using for years.
2. Try to squeeze in one more Darpan Xeno-Station Pack. Because as far as I see, an another Darpan Expansion Pack won't fit.
3. Add some papercraft stuff, i-Kubes or containers. Maybe vehicles, too. There's enough of that stuff on the net. Or scratchbuild some walls.

That's everything packed into the storage box.
The storage box I chooose is an Ikea's Pansartax container (the largest of them, and in my case, without the wheels). It doesn't fit the large Darpan buildings side-by side, but the MAS map segments fit perfectly into it.

 

Update: third Darpan Xeno-Station Scenery kit won't fit in, as I can't fit four large buildings side to side.

However, nesting one of the large buildings inside the Objective Room, I came to a conclusion that I could fit in - maybe - an another Expansion Pack. Plus-minus the sniper tower.

I'll have to test that.

 

I have checked it up with a borrowed set of Expansion Pack terrain.

Should* fit, though it'll require a serious amount of Tetris magic.

Adding a set of the 1gen terrain (Icestorm-era) is also an option. I might add some print-and-fold containers (Atenociti's or the ones from Topo Solitario's Maglev Train kit back form the Campaign: Paradiso era) too. Or scratchbuildt walls. But that would be outside of the scope of the exact point of this project, as it would require a bit more effort than just buy off the shelf, put together and fit it into the box.

Still, I have to buy an another set of Expansion Pack terrain, assemble it, and have it in my box. And on a test table, to show you.

@Koni I really miss a cardboard set of walls and the like (same tech as the terrain packs) in CB's catalog.

* the set I borrowed from a local players for the test has been modified - all the pieces are glued together, and have their external tabs cut off. Which may or may not make a difference here.

 

First, thank you for giving it a look :)

Second: no, your gen.2 terrain is not made of walls - it is made of buildings. Box-shaped obstacles (which are very fine at what they do, just not all I'd want for my table).
What I mean as "walls" is linear obstacles. Long but thin. Breaking Lines of Sight and providing Total Cover, but not taking a lot of table space (well, and storage volume!). There is some scatter in the basic gen.2 set (like, the Darpan Xenostation Terrain Set) with walls tall enough to do that for S2 models, but I'd love to have a lot more of such walls. And, if possible, longer.

Now, making walls myself is totally not a problem - I've done that in the past, I can do it again - but this very project is about using off-the-shelf CB terrain, so anyone could repeat the same steps and have the same result, regardless of their skill / devotion to terrain-building projects.

 

From a technical point of view, the design will be a piece of a cake: a long piece of a wall, with some supports to keep it standing. Maybe - maybe! - a door here or there (note: for years, a house rule in my local meta says that doors, windows and interiors of buildings block LoS, unless a model is in contact with said door / window).

You can get a lot of LoS block on the table from relatively very low amount of material that way: a building needs 4 walls and a roof, while a wall needs... well, just one wall and some supports. Of course, the downside being you can't climb on top of a wall (as in, to have your model on top of it), so walls aren't the end-all, be-all terrain.

Now, I don't know how did you guys envision your terrain packs to be used.

• Certainly a single basic one is totally fine for a 150pts-sized table.
• Two should do good for a 200pts/250pts table, though there's suddenty more table edge that needs covering. With two and an Expansion Pack, you get the Objective Room (a must-have for some missions! But it eats a lot of space in the cardboard sheets) so it should give a fine density in a 250pts table, I guess. Need to check that.
• As I said above, two basic plus one Expansion packs are, IMO, not enough for a 4x4' table. Also, if I were to add one more basic pack, it'd be a bit repetitive, I think.

In my opinion, you guys need a 3rd kind of a terrain pack to give it all more variety. It would also be nice to take into account storing it all (project it to nest inside each other: the small buildings from the basic set nest just fine in the larger ones - the contents of the Expansion Pack are a different kettle of fish), though I guess it wuldn't be easy. Maybe not even doable. And whether there's actual market for a 3rd kind of a terrain pack.

So, just a thought.

 

Okay, I have tested the 3x4 tablewith the same terrain (2x Darpan Set, 1x Darpan Expansion):

Spoiler: more pics

Is it perfect?
Still no, not in my eyes. But it will do.

It would work better without the Objective Room in the center, and certainly with diagonal placing of the terrain pieces. Otherwise, it would be difficult to avoid LoF across the whole table in some places.

I feel it lacks some small terrain pieces - kiosks, shipping containers, the like. Smaller than the small buildings, but larger than the angled displays. The angled displays are... so-so.

I may end up adding some cardbuilds (either Atenociti's containers, or TopoSolitario ones from the C:P Maglev set), but that'd be outside of the scope ofthis project.


Okay, let's try something else, because I had it at home:

Spoiler: more pics

Of course, these are Gen.1 (2 sets) and Gen.1a (1 set) terrain kits. The paper ones. Gen.1a and one of the Gen.1's have been cut to pieces and reassembled with 2mm cardboard between the printed walls (which makes them a bit outside the scope of this project). The other Gen.1 set I have - years ago - reinforced with the CB miniature boxes, as they were orignially intended to. Please note: that was a bad idea. Especially once I glued these in. But I didn't knew better back then.
Same went with scatter terrain- 2mm/3mm cardboard inside.

This makes the old paper terrain heavier and sturdier.

At the same time, the terrain itself is very good.

• It contains both mid-sized buildings, and smaller scatter terrain (booths and containers).
• it nests for storage: each of the Gen.1a buildings fits 2 booths and a container (or 3 containers), each of the Gen.1 buildings fits 3 contiainers (ok, they stick out, but the roof of the next building hides them just fine. The footbridges also fit in a building.

Of course, it doesn't have the height variability of the Gen.2 - all one can do is placing a booth or a container on a building, and that's about it. The shapes are also all just simple boxes (albeit with printed-on ladders).

All in all, very good value for the money - provided you want to give it some effort and back it up with cardboard.

 

Quick note:

I have bought and assembled a 2nd Darpan Expansion set.
I've just spent ~1,5 hour trying to fir it into the Pansartax box.

It does fit.
However, it took what I can only describe as some dark Tetris magic to fit it all in.

• If you skip one of the sniper towers, you'll have it easy.
• If you skip one of the small buildings (low or tall), it should be reasonably challenging.
• If you skip at least two of the footbridges, you're up to a difficult task.
• Fitting it all... I found it difficult, but doable.

(it would also be easier, I guess, if both of your Objective Rooms are assebled with a floor - I got one of mine with a roof, and that takes out a centimeter or something like that, whch really makes a difference with the entire combination).

I should do a table-fitting test, and also a packing documentation. But no chance of doing it today. So, some other day...

 

Okay, end of year, time to end this project, too.

Spoiler: Packing all the stuff

Bottom layer:
[

Note the stairs nested in large buildings and the Objective Room, and small tall buildings fited by interlocking their staircases.

Mid-layer - 2nd Objective Room. Note the empty space on the left, between the large building and small tall buildings.

Also, the large building in the uper Objective Room is filled with scatter only, as it will be accepting Sniper Tower's external staircase.
Each Sniper tower is housing a bridge inside, ne of them sharing the job with a small tall building.
Note that the other Sniper tower (on top) has one of its tabs in the Objective Room's doorframe.

Topmost layer:


Small low building and final bridge got tucked wherever there was place.

Now, there's more than one way to skin a cat, and given a few more attempts, I'll probably find a better way to Tetris it all out. But so far, this one works.

As for tests of the amount of terrain:

Spoiler: Table #1 - perpendicular layout with Objective Room:

Still not entirely to my liking, but playable. Small scatter (low barricades) is not well-visible in the photos, but there's quite some of it.

Spoiler: Table #2 - diagonal layout, no Objective Room

Much better.

My conclusion: should work. Not my favourite set of terrain, but should work.

If I were to design CB's gen.3 terrain set:

• Less bridges. Finding use for 4 on a full-sized table is kind of difficult. IMO 2 would do just fine. I wonder if it wouldn't be a good idea to make them shorter.
• I'm inclined to say the same about stairs. Save for Objective Room, every building has its own integral stairs, and not every building needs to have two accessways. Though it is nice to have it once every so often. Keep in mind there are also the 2 ladders (originally intended for the Objective Room's gangway) that can provide that 2nd rooftop access. So, maybe swap it around - 1 staircase & 2 ladders per Expansion Set?
• Objective Room is what it is, and this cannot be helped (it has to be 20x20cm square, fullstop). I'd consider, though, saving on the material, and making it out of 4 independent corners, no roof. This also means there's no singel big piece in every Expansion set, but 4 sets of joined walls that can be used as LoS blockers when not deployed together as an Objective Room.
• Buildings - Large and both types of Small. I have a feeling a lot of the problem I have with them comes from the fact they have square footprint. Make them a more elongated rectangle, and they should work much better as LoS blockers. Of course, it would mean redesigning the small ones accordingly, to fit on top of the large ones.
• Give more thought to the storage problem. The Basic Set fits together very well, with low Small Buildings nesting perfectly inside of the Large ones, and there is still aplenty of space for low and tall Barricades (only the Triangular Displays are a bit too wide at the base to fit flush inside the Small Buildings). However, with the Expansion Set, everything goes outta the window: nothing really fits anywhere.
• Add more Scatter, or perhaps Objectives - there is a single Console in the Expansion Set, kinda like an afterthought. Or, if the company's idea is more like "siocast Objective Sets are there, so no point including cardboard ones in the terrain kits", more walls. I've been compaining about the lack of linear obstalces already.

And, I guess, that'll be it.​

 

So, the PorTable got its first, real, practical use yesterday.

Since the local gaming store was busy with a sizeable AoS tournament the whole weekend, we decided to hit a local gaming pub / bar. The place is more boardgame-oriented, but there was no problem with us taking on of the boxes and setting up for a game there.

As you can see, it took the entire width of the table, and we still had some overhang. We were lucky, though, to have a table that was almost 90cm wide. For that reason, I asked my opponent to have a 150pts list ready - a 60x90cm table is way easier to find. But here, we have played a proper 250pts, just keeping it fast & loose with table width - "we play as wide as there's table underneath".

Observations:

1. The box work for carrying the stuff on public transport, although it got a bit unwieldy on the return: the bus was a bit more crowded. The top cover is getting loose at times.
2. The amount of terrain was absutely satisfying - for a 250pts table. We have even skipped most of the low cover barriers - my opponent considered them not necessary. I have a feeling we might find the terran is a bit skimpy for a 300pts table, though.
3. Doing dark Tetris after the game was damn hard, I couldn't do it right. Ended up taking some bits in a seaprate bag, and reassembling everything back at home (using photos in this thread for reference).

Solutions I see:

1. Get a strap. Basic one, with a slider, so I could tighten it down and have it hold the lid in place.
2. Hmm, add one more basic Darpan set...? Finding room for it in the existing box is not posible.
3. Get a bigger box, or - because it is an option - a second Ikea Pantsartax box, this time half-sized (same base, but half-height. They are intended as stackable). It should give me enough space to have one more Darpan Xeno-Station set, and unclog the existing box at the same time.

 

I hope the image is fixed now.

As for terrain - 1 Darpan and 2 Expansion sets - you mean for a 300pts / 48x48 table?

 

There's only one photo, I have reposted it (somehow the original attempt's failure remains visible).

 

We'd be stepping outside of the purpose of the original project, though.

Adding anything past maybe a fistful (or two) of small scatter (like that from CB 2gen. packs) wouldn't fit into the box I've used anyway. Yes, enhancing the set with some freestanding walls, containers and the like (maybe not cars, as choices here seems to be either papercraft, or too expensive to my taste - resin, MDF, 3-d prnt or die-cast) is an option: my opponent yesterday commented on the lack of containers in the set.

As mentioned above, I'm considering an additonal box. And I've done quite some cardboard terrain in the past, so I'm conidering making some here, too. Maybe print some contianers form the MagLev set and glue them on top of the carboard...