Batman interacts heavily with the terrain on the board, not enough terrain, and it is a shooting gallery, too much, and it is impossible to move around. Setting up a fair, and fun board can be pretty tough, so we thought we would write some quick guidelines to setting up a BMG table. This are not Hard and fast rules, but are solid guidelines for generating a fair and balanced board. We are more than willing to tweak them as we get responses, but we wanted to keep them as simple as possible, and give a lot of flexibility.

In long form (non-tournament) competitive play, players can even take turns placing pieces of terrain in accordance to these rules to control their terrain deployment.

We have set up this example with some basic terrain that anyone could have, to show how easily it can be done!

Start with a 90cm x 90cm board

Many of BMG’s balance and design elements for the scenarios require the game to be played on a 90cm board. You certainly can play with a larger or smaller play surface, but you may find that your games have unusual outcomes

Determine scenery types

Scenery must be larger than 30mm (3cm) in order to qualify as an “element”. Scenery that is larger than 20cm in length or width is considered multiple pieces of scenery. Other Terrain that obviously is more than one piece should be considered as such.

Elements of scenery that a model CAN see through (either because it is less than 30mm tall, or of a non opaque design) are considered “1 point” scenery, or “small”. Small terrain is small pieces (like obstacles, benches, fences, low walls, and other little terrain). Small terrain can give PINGs, inhibit running, and give defensive positioning.

Elements that a model CANNOT see through, or can hide behind, are considered “2 points” or “large scenery”. This could be walls, buildings, containers, smoke clouds, pillars, or even a stack of boxes. This terrain must block line of sight on the “ground level” so guard towers, or other things on narrow legs do not count.

Determine with your opponent the “value” of each piece of terrain before it is deployed.

No 3 pieces of scenery may “touch”, that is, if 2 pieces are touching, any other pieces should be a minimum of 5cm away, leaving an alleyway for models to pass through.

Divide the play area into 9 Zones

Divide the play into nine different 30cm x 30cm “Zones” to help with scenery deployment. When Deploying a pieces of terrain, the majority of the piece of terrain must be in that “zone” to count as within it.

4 “batclaw” items first

These are places that models can BATCLAW to and from. They must be at least 10cm tall, no taller than 30cm have space to hold at least 3 models on top (about 6cm x 6cm). More terrain that fits these rules may be placed later on in deployment, but this terrain is required as a minimum, and follows special deployment rules.

At least 4 pieces must be placed on the board for characters to batclaw to, and from. Place the first “batclaw” terrain in anywhere on the board touching the centre “zone”. Each other piece of “batclaw” terrain MUST be placed according to these rules;

•Select any Zone on the board that does not already have a “batclaw terrain” in it.

•Place the “batclaw terrain” in the zone, but as close as possible to make a “perfect batclaw”. A perfect Batclaw is exactly 30cm from each batclaw location. This means that the two locations cannot be too close, or too far away. (see above)

Fill the rest of the board

Now that the “batclaw” items are on the table, regular terrain can be placed. Any combination of “large” and “small” terrain can be placed into each zone, until there are 5 “points” of terrain in each zone. This could mean 2 “large” pieces and one “small” piece, 1 “large” and 3 “small”, or even just 5 “small” pieces of terrain. If placing many small pieces, remember you can cluster them to make gameplay more interesting. Gotham has never been the CLEANEST city, so a good amount of terrain is important.

Place terrain until there are 5 “points” in each Zone.

Space to play

While a board can certainly be TOO open, a board can also be too dense.

Once all terrain has been deployed, make sure that there is an open space in each zone. There must be at least a Explosive Template (10cm diameter) area of OPEN terrain in each square zone, for objectives and movement. This may SLIGHTLY overlap other zones, but not more than a CM.

This gives many different options to set up a board, with a lot of flexibility- Here are a few tables that follow these rules-

What do you think? Do your boards follow these rules? do you think you will try this method? Have you build a board that follows these rules- send it to us and we will post it here!