Woods Terrain Change SSR

Kihmbar

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I'm working on some scenario ideas for the Battle of Attu. I'm trying to figure out how to best represent the terrain under the battlefield conditions. There are some things I'm looking at:
1) The terrain is mountainous.
2) There are very few buildings and almost no trees.
3) The terrain is boggy, but mostly open ground, crag, and brush.

Because of the mountainous terrain, I need to use hill (or valley) boards. The problem is most hill maps have lots of woods all over the hills. Board 9 is the exception, and there is only so much I can do with that. I'd like to open up the map choices and variety by using some SSRs to take care of both items above:
- All Woods are Plowed Fields.
- All Orchard are Crag.

The first removes the woods (which I want) and also has the effect of slowing down movement because of the boggy terrain. (The scenario takes place in May, so the regular grain will be plowed fields too.) The second adds some crag to the map and also removes the trees.

I don't have any issue with the second SSR because Orchard and Crag are both inherent terrain and look similar. This would represent a minor change to most maps. However, I see the following problems with the first SSR:
a) Most of the rally terrain is removed from play.
b) Players will probably forget that the woods are plowed fields when they play because it is a significant map change.

What are your thoughts? Any tips or pointers about how to handle this would be appreciated.
 

von Marwitz

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I have not played Desert, but maybe some of the Desert rules might fit? Sand is boggy, Hammada is not exactly easy to maneuver for most vehicles, Scrub could represent tundra-like vegetation. Crag & Hills can be added by overlays and these can be converted to desert colors in VASL IIRC.

Never have I tried, if desert boards can be winterized by adding snow, though...

von Marwitz
 

Brian W

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I've designed one scenario in the Arctic Circle, and I used F13.1 with board 25.

ASLRB said:
F13.1 BROKEN TERRAIN: If a SSR specifies that Broken Terrain exists on a Desert Board, all scrub becomes brush and is considered Inherent Terrain (B.6), while all hammada hexes become crag hexes that are also Half-Level Obstacles (thus affecting LOS just like rubble; see also 6.412). In addition, each non-Depression Open Ground [EXC: not scrub, hammada or sand] hex Accessible to a hammada (now crag) hex becomes a Broken Ground hex; i.e., it is treated as Concealment Terrain with a +1 TEM (but is neither an obstacle nor a Hindrance to LOS), uses doubled Chapter B Open Ground MF/MP costs, and becomes a Bog hex for all vehicles [EXC: 3.32 still applies for motorcycles]. In all other respects the board is still considered a Desert Board [EXC: F.1A, F.1C and 11.8 do not apply], and overlays may be used on it. See also 12.421 and 12.52.
 

Kihmbar

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I've designed one scenario in the Arctic Circle, and I used F13.1 with board 25.
Sorry, I didn't mention that I had already looked at desert (which would roughly approximate the treelessness). I did consider board 25 of the desert boards, but the terrain restricts movement too much.

I was trying to use boards 36, 39, 50, or 5a and SSR the woods away. My concern is that this kind of SSR would not be well received or would have unintended consequences. Has anyone done this kind of terrain change before? What were the side effects? I've seen city fights where all woods are rubble, but in that situation there are plenty of buildings for rally terrain. I'm not sure how that would work on a more rural board.
 

Srynerson

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Large-scale terrain transformation SSRs are rarely well-received, but frankly there are plenty of battles where they are an absolute requirement so the choice is either include the transformations or pick a different battle. To address the rallying issue, I'd suggest making crags rally terrain by SSR, which is what I've been thinking about as a solution to the similar problem of a treeless hill in the context of a different battle.
 
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