When Games Workshop announced pre-painted plastic terrain for Warhammer 40k, I was surprised at the technology, but not the luxury. We 40k fans have proven we’ll pay through the nose, even for stuff that’ll be out of date within months – so a tableful of good looking, zero effort terrain that’ll last forever? Hot cakes.
When GW subsequently soft-revealed its prices on that painted terrain, I was even a bit shocked it wasn’t more. But, as we dawdle through this sedate honeymoon period for Warhammer 40k 11th Edition, a quieter, pleasanter surprise has been GW’s pointed nods toward the lost art of ‘making stuff out of card for your games’.
Most recently, on Tuesday, Uncle Geedubs’ Warhammer Community advertorial site announced free, downloadable, print and play versions of its official 11th edition terrain templates. Four different, themed art versions, in fact, designed to match jungle, snow, city, and, er, hellish worlds – and/or your basing theme and favorite Warhammer 40k factions – take your pick! They’re meant to be printed onto A3 paper, cut out, and stuck to heavier card for use in your games. Yes, with scissors. Get an adult to help you.
A couple weeks before that, GW released a free PDF it’d made to go with the Kill Team: Exodite box set, providing detailed instructions, layouts, and to-the-millimeter measurements to make six different mystical Aeldari stoneworks, out of regular old cardboard. They look rad, too, especially the big, sweeping ‘Nexoliths’. Will it be easy to construct something out of card that straddles the Eldar’s subtle blend of ritual angles and organic curvature? Nah – but I sure as heck want to get my fingers sticky trying.
None of these little freebies are world-shatteringly thrilling on their own. They’re not exactly big investments by the Great Beast of Nottingham, compared to the squillion megabucks it must have spent on terrain-painting machines (or the several squillion it expects to make back by selling crates of premade loveliness at over 340 bucks a pop).
But they’re not nothing, either. They’re minor indications – to me at least – that GW still recognizes the value of inspiring and encouraging scratch building and kitbashing. Our own Cat Bussell is right when she celebrates the “simple joy of building a mysterious space elf monolith out of what would otherwise be recycling”. It’s good to know that, at least from time to time, GW celebrates it too.
You know what, it’s made me think Wargamer should make some print and play, cutout terrain templates too! What do you think, should we do it? Come join the Wargamer Discord community and let me know which you’d want to see.
Source: Wargamer
