Malifaux Musings - Shifting Tables

Written By: Jay Edwards

M4E has a lot of emphasis on terrain, which is amazing. It makes each table feel different and unique, keeping repeated games from being stale. That said, there’s something I’ve been toying with in the back of my head: living terrain. It’s a fairly simple concept; patches of terrain that move throughout the game to keep players on their toes and change the battlefield as a whole. 

The concept itself is simple: each piece that I’ll go on to describe is some sort of shape no bigger than 6” across and moves a random number of inches each turn. Before the game, players randomly pick an edge point and its opposing edge; terrain is placed near the first point and will move towards the second edge throughout the game. It might be easier to explain in pictures

This could be scaled to have as much or as little terrain you may want to have in your game. I personally think 1 or 2 might be enough, but you could go chaotic and add a ton of terrains that all stack on each other. I would recommend that each piece of terrain have a different starting point so that the movements are all different from each other.

Now, with the mechanics out of the way, let’s look at some different types of terrain!

Dust Cloud: Ht 5, Blocking

Sand Storm: Ht 3, Blocking, Hazardous (1 damage)

Steam Plume: Ht 3, Dense, Concealing

Dimensional Fracture: Ht 0, Severe

Neverborn Bee Swarm: Ht 2, Severe, Hazardous (1 damage)

Carnivorous Vinecreepers: Ht 0, Severe, Hazardous (Stunned)

Lightning Storm: Ht 5, Hazardous (Staggered)

Street Goo: Ht 0, Hazardous (Slow)

Shambling Limb Pile: Ht 1, Hazardous (Slow), Blocking, Severe, Destructible

Escaped Thesis Project: Ht 1, Blocking, Destructible, Hazardous (Stunned)

Memetic Fear Miasma: Ht 2, Dense, Hazardous (Craven)

There are so many different things that could be done with this idea and I hope that players give this idea a try!