Campaign Prep Shopping: Forests, Terrain Ideas, and a Big Batch of Movement Trays
We had one of those very practical hobby chats recently: a bit of terrain inspiration, a bit of campaign planning, and finally an actually useful purchase that should make our games much smoother.
At first, we were looking at terrain ideas for mats and tables. Wilini dropped a really nice forest setup and honestly, it immediately got us thinking about how much atmosphere a good wooded area adds to a board.
The chat quickly moved from “that looks cool” to actual campaign usefulness. Wilini mentioned that while these ready-made terrain pieces for mats are great, Michał had also said he wanted to build terrain specifically for the campaign. That feels like the perfect mix for us: some convenient table-ready pieces, plus custom-made elements with more character and scenario potential.
A second terrain example showed up right after, and that one also looked great.
The immediate reaction was basically: these are amazing. The only concern was scale — they might be a bit too large for what we need. And that is honestly one of the eternal terrain-shopping problems: something can look fantastic in isolation, but still turn out awkward once you imagine it on an actual campaign board with units, movement space, and all the other scenery competing for room.
Then came the most important part of the conversation: Wilini went ahead and bought movement trays. A lot of movement trays.
In total: 31 trays.
That should, in Wilini’s words, set us up for the rest of the campaign — and honestly, we hope so too. Even better, this was not just a personal buy. Wilini already said that if anyone needs trays, he can lend them out. He also grabbed extra 4x4 and 5x3 trays for Ender, since apparently they were only available in that format. Ender can just pick whichever ones fit best.
It is not the flashiest kind of hobby purchase, but it is exactly the sort of thing that pays off once games start happening regularly. Good trays make movement faster, keep units tidy, and generally remove a lot of small annoyances from larger battles.
So this little shopping update leaves us with three nice takeaways:
- we found some cool forest and terrain inspiration,
- we are still thinking seriously about campaign-specific boards and scenery,
- and we now have a healthy supply of movement trays ready for use.
Sometimes hobby progress is not a painted army or a finished table. Sometimes it is just making sure the practical stuff is handled before the campaign begins. And this time, we think we did exactly that.