N18 Zone Mortalis setup question

[Fest_mkiv]

Hello comrades, I am just getting back into Necromunda after a 15 year break from Games Workshop. Currently I'm working on a Zone Mortalis board, as we already have a Sector Mechanicus setup from Infinity.

What I can't seem to figure out is how many wall sections/terrain pieces I need and how to set them up. Are there specific scenarios that I need to be using?
For normal board setups (Necromunda or otherwise) we'd just put some LOS blocking stuff, some cover and some difficult ground so the board was nicely spaced out... but with Zone Mortalis all the illustrations I've seen have corridors leading into a central open area... surely all the extra corridors leading away from the central area would be superfluous?
What do I need to make/look for in a Zone Mortalis setup?

 

[TopsyKretts]

You can do it exactly how you want to! There are no rules on how a Zone Mortalis battlefield (or any other battlefield) should look like. It's up to you and your friends and the terrain you have available.

With the latest rulebook, they are now shifting towards everything being 3d, and 2d/ZM is reduced to "legacy" rules.

If you want some reference, here is the battlefield from a couple of games with me and my friends:

Unfortunately, we discovered some of the doors don't allow a mini to stand in it when opened:

I'm planning on making 3d terrain for all dangerous terrain effects. First off is chaos ritual, as seen in bottom left corner here:

 

[TopsyKretts]

On a side note, I'm very happy to fit all of this junk (all terrain, my minis, all tokens, all cards and all rules) onto my scooter:

 

[Fest_mkiv]

You can do it exactly how you want to! There are no rules on how a Zone Mortalis battlefield (or any other battlefield) should look like. It's up to you and your friends and the terrain you have available.

With the latest rulebook, they are now shifting towards everything being 3d, and 2d/ZM is reduced to "legacy" rules.

If you want some reference, here is the battlefield from a couple of games with me and my friends:

That's a good looking board, and I can count the number of walls/columns I need too which is handy. With your setup you have stairs going to the walls, but there's no cover up there. Is that by design? I.e better angles for shooting but less protection?

 

[TopsyKretts]

It is how the mdf terrain came out of the box If you want cover, on walls, you can make it so On this particular board, it is the same for all players. So if anyone wants to take the "risk" up there (limited cover), they are free to. However, they will always get light cover from below, because fighters on the floor can never see the feet of a fighter on higher ground!

 

[MusingWarboss]

I’m using the same MDF walls as TopsyKretts, so can vouch for their quality and so far durability. Haha, I even have the same game mat!!

I’m also impressed to see the packdown on that scooter!!

@Fest_mkiv if you’re looking for a set then you can get it here:

Iron Labyrinth Ultima Complex

The most intense fighting in the Iron Labyrinth happens at the conflux of the different sectors, infrastructure long since forgotten by the world above hums, bubbles and grinds, covering the sounds of combat. Most of this area of the labyrinth is structural support, with reinforced wall sections...

ttcombat.com

And further expansion stuff here:

Industrial Hive

Unique miniatures games RUMBLESLAM, Carnevale, Dropfleet & Dropzone Commander & MDF wargaming scenery and terrain for Warhammer 40,000, Batman, Infinity & more.

ttcombat.com

If you want to make up your own walls then check their photos and descriptions and you can see how many of each come in a pack.

The card tiles in the N17 boxed set have the same wall designs as the old ForgeWorld resin tiles, which you can emulate if you wish or just go freeform.

As for stairs... I prefer to see Zone Mortalis as claustrophobic tunnel combat, so have it on one level - I.e you can’t go up onto the walls. My house rule is that if you go up a set of stairs you effectively leave the table. I see them like the stair tile in HeroQuest, especially for thematic games. They’re literally the way in and/or out of that tunnel/bunker.

This helps to differentiate between Mechanicus and Mortalis games. You can use the walls in Mechanicus games too to add even more LOS blocking. In that case, yeah, you can go on the wall tops.

My ZM walls:

It’s behind you!!

• MusingWarboss
• May 16, 2020
• zone mortalis

Zone Mortalis is looking good!!

 

[TopsyKretts]

WTF show us more, that paintjob looks insane!

 

[MusingWarboss]

WTF show us more, that paintjob looks insane!

I started a thread for my terrain a while back. Will be posting up stuff as and when.

MusingWarboss’s Scenery (Currently: Phase 2 - Necromunda Terrain)

A thread to show my scenery (once I’ve got it done). Inspired by @Kiblams and also partially because I’ve been meaning to do this for years now, I’ve decided the time is right to crack on and get some scenery built and painted!! Also due to lack of storage space this stuff needs to be packable...

yaktribe.games

 

[Fest_mkiv]

As for stairs... I prefer to see Zone Mortalis as claustrophobic tunnel combat, so have it on one level - I.e you can’t go up onto the walls. My house rule is that if you go up a set of stairs you effectively leave the table. I see them like the stair tile in HeroQuest, especially for thematic games. They’re literally the way in and/or out of that tunnel/bunker.

This helps to differentiate between Mechanicus and Mortalis games. You can use the walls in Mechanicus games too to add even more LOS blocking. In that case, yeah, you can go on the wall tops.

My ZM walls:

It’s behind you!!

• MusingWarboss
• May 16, 2020
• zone mortalis

Zone Mortalis is looking good!!

That was my thinking too. I'm putting the final touches on my walls, I'm 3d printing them in Vase Mode, so if I decide I need more at a later date it's a PITA to change the nozzle... Currently I have 28 small walls and 26 corners, yet to print any doors etc.

 

[Jacob Dryearth]

To answer the original question: the Zone Mortals battlefield setup rules in the core book are intended to work with just the contents of the 2017 core box, and so they use a maximum of 6 barricades, at least 3 doors, 5 loot caskets, and 2 tunnel markers. My group started ignoring the barricade limitations and just trade off placing scatter terrain until both pass, because we were getting tired of the heavily structured setup rules and chance of only have 2 pieces of scatter terrain.

 

[iggy23]

yeah, I'm not a fan of the "roll some dice and set up the board randomly". I'd rather an actual map tailored to the actual scenario you're playing (probably a hangover from old Space Hulk days). If you're raiding a vault, it's either going to be a) undiscovered, in which case why would it have defences? any cover being co-incidental underhive rubble, or b) defended, in which case it would have defences *everywhere*, barricades, traps, sentries. If that makes the board slightly unbalanced, well.. no-one said life in the Underhive was fair lol.

GW used to publish board maps, but then when they came out with campaigns they decided "do what though wilt shall be the whole of the law". So do what though wilt, I guess. I still like to at least sketch out a map first though.

(Saying that, I'm also not a fan of boards that have so much clutter on them that you can't even move your models without everything falling down like a Jenga tower. All the more case for carefully thought out and planned maps.)

 

[almic85]

This is probably the most useful image of both sides of all the cardboard tiles produced and gives you an idea of the possible set ups that can be achieved.

Zone Mortalis tiles

A quick reference sheet for all Necromunda: Underhive and Badzone Delta-7 cardboard tiles

yaktribe.games