The Curious Popularity of Paper Terrain

Terrain in miniature wargaming is an odd affair.

Without doubt, the look of your gaming table, the “feel” of your game depends as much (if not more so) on the terrain you have, as it does depend on your miniatures. Nevertheless, wargames terrain (for a lot of people) only gets a fraction of the effort compared to the miniatures.

Does that explain the curious recent popularity of (pre-printed, no-need-to-paint) paper terrain, in a time with more hard-plastic, resin and quality MDF terrain than ever before?

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#1 – Wargaming Terrain

Back when I started the hobby, terrain was … well …  mostly badly cut styrofoam soaked (and often melted) in something sticky and dipped in modelling grass.

Eventually, Games Workshop started releasing terrain kits in plastic, which were in many ways models in their own right: As detailed, as sophisticated. They are modelling projects in their own right. They are pretty, but hardly a true “time-saver” in getting a gaming table set up quickly.

Other companies jumped at the opportunity and made resin terrain or MDF terrain. Finally, thanks to the costs of technology falling and – occasionally – the fundraising magic of Kickstarter, smaller companies started exploring hard-plastic terrain ideas.

• Mantic Games famously made modular hard-plastic terrain a central element of their current and previous Kickstarter
• Companies like Maki Games pitched interesting terrain-ideas on Kickstarter
• Companies such as Tabletop Workshop launch hard-plastic terrain even without Kickstarter

It’s never been easier to get good-looking plastic (resin, etc..) terrain for your gaming table.

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#2 – The Rise of Paper?

And yet, the perhaps most surprising and unexpected (for me) trend in terrain seems to come from the opposite end (or what I thought to be the opposite end). Not resin or plastic, but pre-printed paper and cardboard terrain, which trades the solidness (does it?) of materials like plastic against the convenience of needing no painting for – often – spectacular tables.

• A large part of the visual appeal of Dropzone Commander is, I think, due to how well their cardboard Cityscape terrain works.
• Tabletop Towns did fairly well on Kickstarter a short while ago.
• Most notably of all however, the current Battle Systems Kickstarter (pic above) is forging ahead and taking the idea to new heights with amazing scenery from cardboard.

The downside, in many ways, seems to be that paper terrain seems incompatible with “traditional” wargaming terrain. A resin and plastic building from different companies can both work fine on the same table, especially if they are painted in a similar style.

Paper and plastic (resin, etc..) don’t really seem to mix well in my opinion. Paper terrain can look absolutely fantastic (DZC, Battle Systems), but it has its own “board-game”-like style to it (details being printed-on, rather than sculpted three-dimensional), that can easily look out of place side by side to an “old-school” piece of wargaming terrain.

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#3 – Are You Using Paper Terrain?

So I am curious. What terrain is on your gaming table?

• “Old-school” home-made stuff?
• Professionally made (plastic/resin/MDF) terrain?
• Professionally made cardboard/paper terrain already?
• Or simply soft-drink cans and the house cat?

And do you see a future for pre-printed cardboard terrain of the kind used by DZC and Battle Systems for your wargaming? Or would you never use paper terrain?

Let me know what you think!

Z.