Promising Kickstarter and a Question

Secret Weapon Miniatures has a really neat Kickstarter going on right now. Follow the link here to see their video showcasing their idea.

Basically, they're doing a much cooler version of what I had thought to do for a gaming table. They will have 12x12 tiles with different light pieces of landscape, and then they'll sell relevant "scatter terrain" to make up the larger walls, structures etc. Their first set of 16 tiles will be a scrapyard theme, with lots of metal debris and junk around the table.

At first glance, this looks awesome. It's a rather inexpensive way to get a themed table with 0 work on the consumer's end. However, a conversation with a friend gives me reservations about using such small tiles.

In games like 40k where you can premeasure distances, the lines on the table aren't terribly important. But for many other miniatures games, having a grid set at 12" can be incredibly beneficial, and may even be detrimental to preparing players for playing on other tables.

For example, take the Khador Widowmaker's gun. It can fire at a range of 14", which gives you a lot of wiggle room up close (up to 10" for me), but it gets more difficult to gauge the weapon's extreme range. But with a grid to help me, it becomes considerably easier to look at my position from a line and compare it to the location of my opponent's model.

The same thing can be said for melee models. Let's say my Doomreavers have an 11" threat range (9" charge and 2" reach). If I'm in the same tile as my opponent, they're mine. If I'm 2" from the back line of Tile 1, and my opponent is near the edge of Tile 2, it's a safe bet that I will be able to successfully charge him.

But models with long ranges aren't the only ones who can benefit from this. Anyone with a bit of skill in eyeballing short distances can almost entirely circumvent the risk involved in working at a model's extreme range. True it's possible to learn to be accurate up to 1/4" (or less!) with some practice, but having these exact lines almost works against the point of honing that skill.

If you're only playing on this table, then it may not matter much. But having such a game-altering crutch to lean on will stunt the overall growth of a player. Working without concrete ways to measure distances always carries some risk because you can never know for sure if you've advanced too far forward to avoid an enemy. You learn tactics and skills that keep you one step ahead of your opponent, and the best players are those who can use these skills to alpha strike or harass their opponent just outside the range of retaliation.

There are a few arguments that can be made in favor of the table, of course. The first is that it's not a one-sided advantage. Both players have access to this 12" measurement, thus putting them on equal footing. While true, one players army will likely be able to exploit such an advantage better than the other army.

It's also true that this isn't the only way to measure without measuring. If you are standing next to a building that you know is 10", it's not hard to get a rough idea of how far away a model at the other end of the building is from you. While true and unavoidable, this scenario doesn't stretch across the entire battlefield, which is where the real problem lies.

Finally, you could argue for finding ways to cover up the lines. Using flock, placing bigger terrain over lines, or even just trying not to use them are all valid ways to circumvent this. If a board will look fine with flock on it, then I think careful placement of it could be a perfect solution as long as the boards all sit flush with one another. Bigger terrain helps block some of the problem, but unless you're playing a terrain-dense game then the gain is minimal. And while trying to ignore the lines is admirable, it's also difficult to fight human nature, especially since it takes no effort to look at two lines and make a distance estimation.

I am very tempted to back this project, but I can't get past the idea that it will cause issues for me and my friends. I want a gaming table, but the time required to make one is a bit of a turn off right now. And realistically speaking, this would cost less than $100 more than building my own, and this comes with a headache free guarantee!

So what do you guys think? Is the aesthetic appeal of 12"x12" tiles worth the problems it can create? Is there a way to fix this that I haven't thought of? Let me know, because I love the idea of a premade table that isn't just a prairie with a hill or two. Or does being able to unofficially premeasure even matter? I think Secret Weapon Miniatures has hit on something really neat, but I'm of the opinion that it will only work for a few war games (one of which is the bigger game out there, of course).

See you tomorrow!