Terrain Workshop: How Much Is Too Much

So nine years ago someone on the Hangar asked about Terrain Quantity/Size and Joshua answered back with a picture from a game at Metatopia two years prior.  The original picture can be found here.

He also wrote "This one has way more trees than were actually useful, so you could probably halve or even quarter that number to much the same effect. It's also good to have open areas so you need to make real decisions about when to run from cover to cover, or stand around in the middle of the street, hoping."

So I count 43(?) trees so that would mean 21 (half) or 10 (quarter) trees.  Add that to the 31(?) walls I count and you'd have between 41 and 52 pieces of Cover on a five foot table.  That's more than I normally have on my tables but I feel like my pieces take up more space on the table.  But in counterpoint the area of my table is 2,166 Sq. In. whereas the area of the Metatopia table is 2,847 Sq. In. so there is that too.  That being said, 74 pieces is plainly too much terrain.  You need things to hide behind but you also need open spaces to get caught out in.  But as I've mentioned before, the ratio of number of pieces of Cover to the size of the table is a variable that is hard to estimate.

How you set up your table is up to you.  From game to game to game it's a learning experience.  There will always be something you -- or maybe one of your players -- are not happy with.  Learn from it.  Carry it over to the next game.  I'm continuously experimenting and working to improve and I'm willing to share what I learn so your table can be as awesome as possible.