BattleTech Terrain Ideas - Official & Unofficial

hello there Chaz Marlar from paradise paradise here with another video about the tabletop miniatures game that will always have a soft spot in my heart battle Tech piloting your midnight metallic blue thunderbolt across your homeworlds familiar grasslands is great and fine but I know mech warriors and they will inevitably yearn to explore and conquer exotic distant lands as well that's why in this video we're gonna take a look at a half a dozen different suggestions for different types of terrain that's compatible with battle Tech some of these are official battle tech products and others are just gonna be home brewed solutions but regardless of which solutions resonate with you the goal of this video is to present some options that either didn't know were available or inspire you to experiment in a new direction that you may not have previously explored either way let's get started let's begin with the basics the maps that come included with the tube based sets of the game and the two current sets are the battle tech a game of armored combat and the battle tech beginners box the maps in both sets feature grasslands on one side and kind of a desert terrain on the other side these are the traditional paper mats with the terrain types the elevation and the hex numbers printed on them and you know while they are nothing fancy they're completely functional and if you simply want to add more of these maps to your library you can find more of them on the battle Tech section of the catalyst game labs website which I recently discovered also has digital printable map packs available for just a couple bucks a piece the site also has a digital printable world wide event 2018 map pack which is free so yeah of course I want to got a copy of that one when you purchase it you can download a 50-page PDF file which includes a cover image page of instructions for various printing options followed by 48 pages of map tiles and even though that aspect does make it a little bit of a do-it-yourself assembly project it's still kind of nice because these are official battle tech maps so you know they include the terrain types and the hex numbers as well and make note that in the description of this video I'll include a link to this free printable battle tech map pack as well as links to all of the other resources that I'm going to mention in this video so we can which so continue on if you're not much of a do-it-yourself well the catalyst has also released a set of fresh new maps in a grasslands map pack which includes six two-sided maps creatively named foothills number one foothills number two rolling hills number one number two number three forward base lakes open terrain number two and three streams woodland and River comm center this map pack is an official Battletech product so they're pre-printed with all the terrain types the elevations and hex numbers they're also of course a really simple way to add a lot more variety to your gaming environments but they are still printed on the standard paper that the maps from the base game sets are printed on which you know it's fine what I would really love is if some day they were to print a Battletech map on one of those neoprene play mat surfaces oh that would be nice well now you can recently I discovered a set of official double-sided neoprene play mats for Battletech I have wanted something like this for years decades even over the years I've experimented with lots of various third party map mats but most of you will lack the features of official Maps or feature Texas that were the wrong size or featured hexes that weren't hexes at all so I was really excited to try out these Official neoprene mats and had exfoliating lay high hopes that they wouldn't completely totally suck hardcore each map is 34 by 22 inches and features a different map on each side one side of each one features a never before published map set neither the desert lunar alpine or savanna environment and the other side features a unique grasslands map I think these mats appear to be the standard gaming mat thickness and durability and are as of the time of this recording currently only available on the catalyst game labs online store they do say that if the demand is strong enough for these that they might send them to retail outlets in the future so let's hope so because I really could easily justify investing in the entire set of these four maps without even blinking an eye and as nice as all of those mats are they are still all flat so when I'm in the mood for a three-dimensional terrain my go-to is still heroscape now granted ya heroscape has unfortunately but on a print for several years at this point but bundles of terrain can still continually be found on eBay Paris escapes terrain while a little bit off it's still a scale I'd totally considered to be compatible plus includes multiple training types maze elevation really easy to visually track and also have some expansions containing trees and rocks albeit those are among the more expensive sets that you'll find on the after market these days now I suppose at the other end of the spectrum from a train set that's out of print would be a train system that's currently going into print which would be the magnetic system being developed by sovereign gameworks which is currently running a pre-press campaign on Kickstarter through August 13th Magna hex is a magnetic 3-dimensional interlocking tabletop train system a couple of weeks ago I kind of stumbled bass-ackwards into meeting the designer of the set online and they sent me a prototype set to evaluate this magnetic strain is designed to be fully modular allow for fully customizable layouts be resilient and reusable now I got to admit I am a huge fan of magnetic train I just I love the concept because if there's a carefully constructed map within 57 yards of me you know I'll find a way to accidentally drop a catered lunch on to it during my research and testing of the magnetic strain I found it to be sturdy durable nicely textured and pardon the pun a snap to put together and disassemble the only potential issue that I found was the same one that you encounter with any gaming component that incorporates magnets that being the potential issue of conflicting polarities that could prevent two pieces from lining up and connecting exactly how you want it to but this was an extremely minor issue and it wouldn't even come close to preventing me from using this type of magnetic train system of course if you're still looking for more ideas for terrain that's compatible with Battletech well one of the other approaches that I've tinkered with in the past is to repurpose model train components Battletech is designed at a one two hundred eighty fifth scale so there's generally two gauges of model trains that I consider when looking for compatible train pieces the model train Zi gauge is the closest to battle Tech's dimensions at a one 220th scale but at least in my experience Zi gauge models and parts can sometimes re pretty difficult to find so an alternative choice would be the end gauge models which I consider to be close enough to still be compatible with a one 160th scale proportion roughly 150 percent the size of Zee gauge models so they don't blend in quite as seamlessly however n scale models are reportedly second in popularity only to h0 scale potentially making a wide variety of trains and accessories available in n scale rather than Z honestly I guess it also depends on the design of the specific n gauge component as some structures and terrain pieces will certainly blend in better than others in my experience the biggest potential drawback to this approach is the lack of a hex grid on the terrain so of course the approach of playing with rulers and measurements will most certainly need to be used instead and if you'd like to just brainstorm even more Battletech train ideas well here are several online resources that I have found to be really useful first I recommend the Pinterest board Battletech train ideas by user what's-his-face this board is just full of a wide variety of eclectic component ideas from professionally manufactured components to repurposed objects to do-it-yourself items it's just a great place to find some general ideas and inspiration I highly recommend checking it out and once you've found a great custom train idea on what's-his-face is Pinterest board if you happen to own a 3d printer well then you can create it on demand which would be awesome and I'm sure that some people out there are saying yes that is awesome so if you do do that please share your experiences in the comments below so that I can justify eventually getting my own 3d printer but in the mean time you'll find even more custom terrain and component designs on a variety of the websites dedicated to 3d print designs I have found battle tech print designs on make XYZ Yogi and Thingiverse but as for me I always find myself drawn to the offerings that I find on shapeways comm the most but regardless of which site you prefer it is great to see a battle tech community in each of these places and of course no list on this subject would be complete without the mention of the gaming terrain message board from the forums on the battle techcom website in a way I'm ending this list with the place that it might be worth beginning first this form is just chock-full of great ideas and discussion all about them so whether you're looking specifically for ideas to expand your Battletech universe or just looking for tabletop train ideas in general I hope that this list has provided some ideas and new leads for you and if you have a favorite product or resource that I've overlooked on this list please please let me know in the comments below and maybe I'll cover another batch in an upcoming episode in the meantime though - Chaz Marlar from pair of dice paradise thanks take care [Music]