Dunno, crafting terrain is kind of a hobby in itself. I'm a bit older so I remember when the only option was to build your own, and tbh I still prefer hand crafted terrain than gw stuff. That terrain is pretty, but having a good sized table covered in it isn't really economically feasible. Plus making your own isn't nearly as tricky as it looks.

If you need cheap terrain and have no 3d printer then pick up some aquarium decorations

I'm old enough to remember using felt. Light green felt for grass, dark green for forest, blue for rivers, tan for roads, etc. Nice and colorful as Oldhammer should be.

Step 1: Nick designs more terrain. Step 2: Nick prints, assembles, and paints terrain. Step 3: ... Step 4: Profit!

One of the best things about Marvel: Crisis Protocol is that the starter set comes with enough models for 2 players to play, and enough terrain to play a good game and it can be found for £70. As did the original WarCry box. Really wish that wasn't a limited time box...

I love making, printing and painting terrain It's an amazing palate cleanser between painting minis it's also good for a day you don't feel like painting anything that requires effort It's so chill to just dry brush and colour wash some terrain And you get that completion rush for very little effort It's also a good platform to try new techniques

For me, the problem with terrain is generally storing it. You can feasibly cram a whole army into a shoebox if you do a bit of constructive gluing, but a decent sized building takes quite a lot of space.

Warcry handles it great where it has the preset terrain layouts on the cards that usually end up being pretty balanced

I mainly play historical wargames and those guys take their terrain waaaaaay more seriously then 40k gamers. You'll often see whole cities with roads, huge forests, or sight blocking hedge rows running the entire length of the table. It makes the games much more fun IMO. I can see why 40k gamers don't like it because it would change the game balance between shooty and stabby armies. In historicals that doesn't matter and as everyone plays shooty armies anyway.

The thing to remember about video game maps is the huge amount of play testing and refinement the goes into the map design. I don't think many table top game manufacturers have the resources for the same level of play testing.

Building your own Terrain is the best part of the hobby.

I can not stress how awesome the Covrus Belli paper Infinity terrain is. The newer thick card board buildings are cheap (about $30 US for the kit), come with 4 buildings, come with a bunch of scatter terrain, and a paper game pay mat. The stuff is sturdy. The cool thing is that they are double sided, so even if you bought the same kit, you will get 4 different looking buildings. Infinity is designed for skirmish games, so lots of line of sight blocking and multiple levels for snipers and/or hiding. Yes, they will not look as good as your painted minis, but you get a pay area that you can jam pack with buildings for cheap. IMO the best for any starter.

This interestingly lines up with Eric's Hobby Workshop's video that came out yesterday about Necromunda and how terrain plays into that, especially with line-of-sight and verticality.

Hi Jay, good topic, I’m a 40K and FoW player. I’ve purchased some plastic buildings and some Battlefield in a box pieces. I’m planning on scratch building some woods, and hills. I usually play with a lot of terrain 10-12 pieces, usually lay them out using tournament example. Only had one opponent who said this is the most terrain he ever played with. So in my experience the terrain has added to the experience and made the 40K battles I’ve fought challenging and fun.

We scratch build a lot of our terrain! But we also have a lot of other pieces, old GW terrain, random other companies plastic terrain, and some 3D FDM printed terrain. It can mesh oddly at times but it doesn't always look like butts on the table. A lot of our scratch built stuff is like hills and rocks, and some barriers and a broken down castle so when you mix the hills and the store bought stuff it doesn't look too bad! :) I'm all for making your own terrain. It's a lot of fun ♡

I have a couple of six by three foot folding tables and a neoprene gamemat, that's the extent of the expensive game environment. Terrain wise it's foamcore and chipboard building and industrial style structures. PVC conduit pipes and 3D printed joints, bends etc. Not forgetting the all important plastic aquarium plants. Storage wise, yeah it's a bit of an issue but it just gets stacked up on top of the fridge and kitchen cupboards with all the minis and books. Needless to say, gaming takes place at mine as there is no way I am even trying to transport all of that stuff 🤣

There's one piece of GW terrain I really like, and that's the Ruins of Osgilliath. I have no idea why that thing is so cheap, it looks great and it can be used in a load of settings!

I have to agree I do have a fascination with terrain but the easiest to explain it is from a KZfaqr called Eric's hobby workshop. Particular video titled" buying a masterpiece". He goes through explaining why this particular piece from somebody he watches build terrain is so pleasing. He shares that it's the playability of the terrain that brings the tabletop to life and that's the best way I can describe it for me. Proper spacing enough cover, alleyways, it's all great stuff when properly spaced. Also I find that a minimum of three missions helps build a story starting off in small skirmishes and building to a climax of the whole army or gang involved in one big shootout. For me that's what brings it all together it makes a good evening or weekend on the table top.

Terrain is one of the most fun parts of the hobby for myself. It's the only part of the wargaming that doesn't have to be tied to lore or anything else, so you can be truly creative. Kitbash, mesh together all sorts of things, from 3d printed to any of the multiple manufacturers, to crafting your very own from even "garbage". This is why people like Black Magic Craft exist, to teach others how to make epic looking terrain at home. I feel that terrain is the place to unlock your creativity, the freeing part of the hobby, you can make it look run down, beaten, weathered, use your giant brush and go crazy on it with dry brushing and oil washes and pigment powders and flocking. Terrain sets the theme, the mood, the meaning for the fight. It's where those figures we spent days or months painting and making look amazing will play on, what they "fight" for. Terrain isn't holding back the hobby, it is propelling it forward if we keep our minds open and get truly creative. You have to put in effort and time, and in sometimes more money than we may be willing to spend. It has to serve 2 functions, look great, and provide strategic benefits while still being playable.

Always glad you have more to say! Models N' Memories 4 Ever!

This was a great video. I got rid of a bunch of models as store credit and got models I wanted badly. The saddest was my 40K orks, but I'm alright with it. I played orks for so long it got boring. But they all sold a week after I visited the store. That made me happy. So I agree, if it stresses you out, say goodbye and make some one else's day.

We play on the floor with various terrain from killteam boxes, necromunda, 3D prints, and homemade terrain and it actually looks pretty nice at the end of the day

Best terrain to use is the kind you build from scratch. Unless you're buying specialist materials and/or tools, particularly in large numbers, terrain can be very cheap to build. For example a 4 liter container of PVA glue costs $24 Au from my local hardware store lasts me for 18 months, whereas a 2x4 foot sheet of 30mm XPS foam costs $15 and can either last me a single day to a month depending on what I'm building. Besides that, 3/4 of the materials I use for terrain building are recycled food packaging and items salvaged from hard rubbish and gutters, etc.

I love terrain. I guess so much that I build terrain for a living.

I believe the beauty about making your own terrain is that you can make whatever your mind thinks off. I have so many ideas also from pieces I find everywhere

The way I see it, building your own terrain is the purest form of the hobby. Sure it can be intimidating and there's a learning curve to it, but as with painting there are also tons of resources to go to for inspiration and learning new techniques. Black Magic Craft, The Terrain Tutor, Geek Gaming Scenics, and Eric's Hobby Workshop all do excellent work at de-mystifying the art, and just the other day I watched a couple of videos by Wyloch's Armory about wiring up a piece with LEDs for a little extra panache. I think anyone who's considered doing any kit bashing at all would find a lot to enjoy in it.

the ammount of cardboard you're able to hoard and the sky is the limit. Back in school when I started with a few catachan soldiers, we used to play with books and cans, and I used to always lose. Then I got the Catachan codex. Since then I became obsessed with jungles and forests. My very first custom made table was made of a bunch of styrofoam that had plants and flowers I grabbed from the garden, I tried everything to stop my friend's space marines and tanks since I didn't had a lot of models, basically half my army was booby traps. After I finished that badly painted forestground with way to tall hills, and really tight passways, I finally won my first match. I pity the fool who tries to enter my jungle. Now I love to do terrain... is just something I really enjoy. Now I try to use just modular terrain and a few landmarks, trying to get the most out of a few objects, and of course, I don't abuse the jungles anymore... maybe just a little.

I still have my green felt board lol. I usually build my own terrain. Takes a little planning but you can make some really cool stuff with stuff you find around your house

Last game i played , was a 40k 500pt game. We set up a board assuming either player was getting deployed on two sides, so it was fairly even, both sides had cover, ground which was open but you needed to traverse in order to get to the objectives. The middle point was the middle of a hill/ cliffed which had some cover but forced both players into hand to hand combat.

Me: "H. O. W. COULD YOU POSSIBLY HAVE MORE TO SAY??? " JAY giving the toast at my wedding: "WELLIDO"

I'm probably showing my age but recreating the map Facing Worlds from Unreal Tournament would be amazing!

Terrain is my favourite part, I love making new boards to play on.

Dude talking about MW2 took me back. That was about the last FPS game I really played but it had me recalling, vividly, maps from all sorts of games back in the day. That goes to show how important maps are in a FPS, when I can recall them distinctively after 20 some years. Unreal Tournament, Halo, Counter Strike, Quake, etc. All those games have memorable maps. As for contrast paints, I've transitioned to them for at least half of my mini work. Use them often and you'll discover awesome color combinations. Wyldwood over a dark plumb red. Gryph Grey over a bright metal silver. Contrast leather over an orange. It works a lot like using glazes as color filters but because they have more pigment you can achieve more with fewer steps. There are so many little one-off bits on GW models, all they really need is a simple base coat + contrast paint. No need to waste an hour intricately highlighting a pouch. Put that effort onto the main areas of the model.

Now you might be thinking to yourself "Jay you put out three KZfaq videos a week and you stream every single night" **Vietnam flashback** "HOW could you possibly have more to say?"

I scratch build most of my terrain and have made some stuff that looks really good. An important thing to remember is picking your battles. You aren’t going to scratch build gothic buildings that look as good as GW. But you can make rock outcropping, hills, swamps, and other natural things that are better than anything you can buy. Then buy one GW kit to sprinkle around and bring it all together.

Every group needs the dedicated Terrain Guy.

“How?” The emotion in your voice matches my weekly m&m concern when I question to myself - how? Your capabilities are truly astounding. 9.09 of 10

I've built almost all my terrain for cheap! Almost everything was from the dollar store. Just some foam board, masking tape, white glue, a few plastic trees from my kid's dinosaur set, some aquarium decor and some various bits from plastic play sets. A little sand and a coat of paint makes the whole thing come together. I've made forests, hills, even a cardboard city. It's all unique, nobody has the same terrain as mine.

Not gonna lie, I love making terrain. It's so much fun to unleash the creativity on a batch of foam. And yes, definitely, make a video game map and test it out. Even if it's just phonebooks and stuff. My friends and I set up our terrain pretty simply. We're fighting over X. X may be a farm. May be a hamlet. May be a villiage (we dont uave enough buildings yet for a full villiage tho). May be over a river crossing. A valley. Etc. We choose the terrain that fits the setting the best and one of us will build the table. We make it as balanced as possible for the scenario taking no deployment maps into the equation. After one player has set it up, the other is called in to make alterations or veto some placement if they think it doesn't match the setting or okay the map outright. We're from the age of 90's RTS and FPS titles so mirriored maps are a norm unless it's a farm battle. Balance is an intrinsic requirement in all of our table set ups. Even down the the shape of the terrain piece. The battles are always fun and super thematic. And the table usually has an over abundance of it so it looks phenominal when we have our models on the table.

Something I think is missing in Warhammer 40K these days that used to be normal back in the old days - the really old days of 1st and 2nd edition - is alien planet scenery. Everything looks like a battlefield on Planet Earth. People used to make man-eating plants and various lurid rocks and things out of aquarium decorations.

silhouettes and prone rules in infinity are the best problem solver for line of fire and cover

Speaking of video/computer game terrain/maps, I also like looking at the textures and skins and find they’re also great for inspiration for tabletop war gaming terrain.

I definitely agree with your take on this. That's why I'm making my own Kill Team board consisting of 6 10x11" HDF boards with set terrain features on them, giving my group a sort of semi modular game board. We've already done some test games on it while working on it, and it has really tapped into what you're talking about with the CoD and Halo maps.

I absolutely agree with everything you said about terrain. I have seen very few games that really implement it the way it should be. Ironically the best GW game for "terrain" is the one game that doesn't have it, Warhammer underworlds. The boards in that game are exactly what you are talking about, well thought out to the point that board placement is its own strategic element and completely game changing. Blocking spaces, lethal hexes, and objectives can really impact play in a far more dynamic way than the traditional terrain of 40k and AoS.

I usually have an entirely seperate session with my friends just setting up the map and terrain. It does take around two hours every time, reading up on terrain rules, looking up maps online, the official layout, looking at both our armies making sure no one side gets a heavy disadvantage. discussing, special rules to implement just for that game, kind of a litle like narrative. There is a lot to consider when putting up plastic walls und bushes. And of course the story, every map/ every game of ours tells a litle story, inspired by the mission. Puting that vision on the table is kind of 1/3 of the fun of playing.

that's a really good point about letting the models tell you what process they need, I've also been doing some Legion forces and I've also been relying on my default approach despite it not being the best move for them, I needed to hear this lol

Make terrain objects interactive very good idea for increasing fun and tactic things in warhammer and other war games. Just imagine, what one terrain set can give to you mission for capturing the point or moving a cart? (Necrons monolith, Saint relics etc.). This looks really cool in mind!

at my old hobby shop we would agree on a center board piece then take turns placing 4 more pieces from the terrain shelf, typically making a 5 pattern like a die face although we did agree to more sometimes depending on the model counts

As someone who spends $600 dollars on essentially functioning borosilicate Vases, I don’t mind spending $500 on a table top game. You’d use a single map more than you’d use a single army if you had a bunch of people over. You’d invest in combat patrol and have a bad ass table.

Built my own terrain for a good while, but recently got into 3D printing terrain. Got some spools of PLA for 17 bucks (on sale, yay) and found myself a bunch of good STL files, threw them in my slicer and started printing. Got some fantastic looking pieces of terrain. Files I got were different buildings with removable roofs and floors so could use the interior spaces, with doors that open too. I printed like a half dozen buildings and painted them, and have never been happier with how it came out. For the cost of 3 rolls of filament and my efforts to paint it all, I was able to mix it with my homemade terrain for an epic tabletop. Sometimes, it takes a mix of stuff to make a really fantastic game table. I find that a really well made, planned out map is super exciting to play on, far better than the random placement system so many use

Warcry had a cool system in the launch box. Using cards to ‘randomly’ build the map. The expansion terrain packs also came with cards that mixed with the launch terrain.

I saw an ad for a brilliant set of terrain a while ago, but unfortunately i've not been able to find it again since. But it seems like it could be easily transportable, light weight, low cost and comes pre prepared so easy. And that was some fold out cardboard boards which when unfolded has pop up buildings. And you could put several of them together to make the board bigger, have a selection of different buildings and if you place the different boards in different positions, you can change the layout of your board each time. Not as good as the real, official GW terrain and i'm sure you could make better terrain out of egg boxes and pringle tins. But this was a cool idea for cheap easy, modular terrain and boards

My two cents on a four month old video, so I think warcry catacombs does an amazing job with terrain. You either play above ground with pre set pre determined placement of specific terrain or you play in the catacombs where each player takes turns during setup where you can place terrain such as open or closed doors blocking your opponents movement or re-directing it. Along with terrain pieces that allow for extra attacks when you stand near them or damage you if your too close! This makes for strategic gameplay just in terrain placement alone before the game even really starts! It’s fantastic!

Imo it can be really easy to take some foamcore, xps foam, cardboard and other random trash to make awesome looking terrain. Lots of youtube channels who mainly do terrain too.

Greetings from Argentina. Your channel is excellent.

Eons of Battle drinking game: take a shot every time terrain is mentioned 😂

I agree, terrain is a pain in the ass. I almost with that GW would make card buildings again.

I like the idea of trying to make wargaming maps more like video games. Specifically the idea of balancing lanes of fire and different ranges, at least for skirmish games like Infinity. I think the key thing is to not always be making a setup from scratch but instead get a basic design and refine it, taking pictures and making notes on how it should work.

This is why I opened a game club. I've been building terrain for close to 30 years, and have upgraded to 3d printing to make the best terrain experience I can give my players. I'm hoping people love to play on amazing terrain enough to support my shop. Hard to find out with Covid still keeping people away.

The challenge with terrain is making them game friendly so the bases of the minis fit on them without tipping or falling down. Mini bases restrict placement in sophisticated buildings, so compromises have to be made.

One of the nice things about video game maps is how it divides the play area into a set of discrete locations. I took the good times playing TF2 and tried to work some of that into my Necromunda table. Lots of high walls and blocky blue foam buildings, rather than a mostly-empty floor punctated by towers and gantries. The ground level is divided into nice zones, and the height of the floors limits the value of moving across the high ground.

I just started on this hobby and an FDM printer is making the jog to have terrain so much easier, but I still save materials that I find so I can craft some terrains myself. Didn't make anything myself yet, but someday I will.

You better hope to god Dwarven Forge stays in the fantasy realm. If they start making terrain for sci-fi. We are all going to go broke. I went allll in on their wildlands kickstarter. Probably shouldn't have, but hey now I can build New Zealand in my apartment.

I love terrain and all the awesome stuff that comes out of the community

I have been painting terrain for my FLGS as I wanted more and different stuff. Funny thing is how many people are happy I am doing it, but non of them have donated anything to help or stepped up to help build stuff.

Speaking as someone who once designed maps for video games: I don't think they would translate very well to wargames, mainly for reasons you listed. (Movement, etc) But that doesn't mean you can't apply the process of designing shooter levels to making terrain! Making maps for shooters starts out with these steps: 1. Draw it on graph paper first. Will your ideas fit in the dimensions of the map? 2. Massout - this is often just primitive blocks, ramps and railings. Then the team runs regular playtests and feedback sessions for map designers. 3. Rough-in - Once you decide where the hallways, corridors and half walls are, you start adding art. Often using incomplete art assets, the team can move things around, but the general "flow" of the map is already understood and fun. You think that overturned applecart is there by accident? 4. Final Art - This is where the gameplay for the map is very well understood and you start to get fancy with decoration, and adding in tech to improve map performance.

If you guys recreated like Rust for Kill Team, that video would just instantly blow up haha, but I always find when setting up terrain, I talk to my mates and we make a story, are we fighting in a Hive City? Forest? Then position most terrain to actually fit the design of the setting, rather than just placing terrain to block line of sight

Battlesystems terrain does just maps, cardboard modular terrain with 2x2 footprint. I think terrain crate does as well. The good thing about Battlesystems is that because its cardboard its pre painted and easy to assemble. It looks fine and is affordable as well.

Gorgeous work on those Rebels! I've been holding off on painting those guys, they're intimidating to me for some reason. For terrain, I love printing my own. The cinematic quality of terrain is important to me, I like the visuals on the table to help tell the story of the battle as much as the actual actions themselves. Could be because I'm a videographer for my 8-5 job. That's probably why. But the board has to look good.

I still use felt mats for gaslands and other War Games. Model train terrain is good for gaming.

Contrast paints are great if you don't use them as GW advertises. Thin them down, use them as thin layers, and blend them with other Contrast paints for awesome new colors and tints. Also, through an airbrush Contrast are so good! They go on smooth and easy, very little thinning down, and most of them have great coverage.

No mate for the first time since I started watching your videos I think you're completely wrong about this... ...Models & Memories is a show about good vibes, having fun with our hobby & the fact that Jay/you is/are a legend.

Yep, terrain is a major thing that holds me back from playing my own games on my own turf (stargrave, malifaux, and all the other skirmish games I bought into). Go somewhere else and use someone elses terrain, sure, but then I have to go somewhere and sometimes you just want to host. Also, you should go down the stargrave rabbit hole. Use ANY minis. DUN DUN DUN.

As someone who is an avid rts gamer as well as wargamer I believe terrain/geography is the most important part of both. It dictates the whole game. U can have the same units play different maps and it is always refreshing. If u try to just add more units to the same terrain it can get repetitive fast. Gotta invest in the terrain diversity at the least as a wargamer.

Love the intro, every time, all the enthusiasm!

I spend about as much time on building my terrain from scratch as I have buildings and painting my army. I typically have the board set up the night before. I focus on immersion for a narrative engagement. I don't really focus on 'balancing' the map. Personally, setting up the board is a huge part of my enjoyment of the hobby

I build a lot of the 40K terrain for my local hobby shop, we have two types of tables: narrative tables that look awesome but are kinda clunky to play on, and more competitive tables that are pretty close to the WTC terrain format

If you can ever get yourself an original Mordheim box, the terrain was very, very interactive.

A long time ago... when GW didnt really make terrain... someone in a White Dwarf made a Chaos Trench battlefield from the T'au Fire Warrior game and someone else made a board that was from the first Dawn of War game.

Title: Terrain Me: Still is the same spot, building a 4x6 custom table. You: Star Wars!!! Love you

I use Terrain as modular as possible, because of Room. And is is really flexibel. - And yes, use Maps from the Computer Games, make them smaller, use much clutter and Barriers and play them. We use three Ways to go over hard Obstacles (under , over, or so...). When we play cinematic, we roll bzw. randomite the playing Zone, and yes, you could be srewed but much often it is spctacluar and funny. - We use Nordic Weasel Games supplements, the have much random tables.

Ikea "mini storage box" or moppe Buy one of these , it's not only a drawer system but spray paint it gray and it's a few buildings But 2-3 sets and you have a very modular building set And the drawers can hold small scatter terrain , dice, ect

Nearly every point you mention with regards to terrain, I'm in agreement with you. I've always felt terrain is just as important to the game as the models playing on it. I started working on my own game years ago with preset maps for this exact reason. As to the thoughts of translating fps maps to tabletop, I'm in the camp that it would not work. You touch on this by saying movement is reduced. There are other factors that would not allow for game maps to work on the table. It would make for a good foundation for what can be done, but aspects would need to change to accommodate the game system. If a game system was faster paced and/or had respawn rules then the map could be reproduced more 1to1 to a fps or similar game layout.

We use a draw painted flat terrain. Each color represent a type of terrain. Way more versatile.

3D printing mixing to crafting is the best

If you want to hear something masochistic, I built a dense tableful of terrain by pulling 2 all-nighters, and it looks reasonably professional despite all being made out of trash, so it was basically just the cost of paint on it. When I move I'm gonna see what pieces people can take for free, then just toss the rest. That's probably the best way to go about it for most people, but you're totally right that the time investment is really skewed. I hate playing with books and paint tubes and stuff, it's not immersive unless the models look like they're actually in a place.

I play 40k and malifaux. I also make all of my own terrain. The trick is to make some non period specific pieces, rocks, hills and forests. Then you make a few big buildings. Also shipping containers. Follow the terrain tutor's tutorial. Its amazing.

I custom built a 6’ x 4’ board out of polystyrene & mdf sheet that slots on top of my dining room table. Made my own textured paint with pva & sand & craft store acrylics to top it. Then gmw changed the standard board sizes 😂

Me and my friend spent 3 months before 10th edition building proper city ruins terrain for 40k. We also went thru all out old terrain that was made from literal garbage in a lot of cases and sorted it out and salvage some. We took hardboard and cut it and sanded it, glued our free standing building and pieces we already had plus made some new things with insulation etc. Then found a youtube channel that made a city rubble mixture that you made from grout and a whole list of things with pv glue and then added to it. Then simple paint and drybrush and now with have proper terrain pieces. We did have to actually install wall shelves and extra storage now just for those pieces since we can't just throw them in a giant plastic bin like we used to. We also started with the green felt for grassland and had white felt for snow, then we flocked a plywood board after that now we use the neoprene maps. So all that said terrain building goes hand in hand with wargaming, as I learned to paint models I also learn how to make terrain. We also try to make our terrain usable across multiple games.

Jay I have been having this exact same conversation in my head about terrain for weeks now! I know you love CoD but you should check out the map design for Counter Strike (CS:GO). The more I've been thinking about it Counterstrike is basically just a real time video game Kill Team concept. Also the map design of Counterstrike is Legendary for balance and strategy.

I just spent the better part of the week building terrain for 40k. I only used stiropor, Carbord and some other Things that I "rescued" from getting trown Away. realy proud of my Work. I originally only wanted to build 2 Buildings, then it spiralled. It realy gets my creativity going, finding a piece and Thinking about how to integrate it. Or having an idea in minde and suddently seeing a way to do it, just because you see all your materialls and there potential.

I’m still relatively new to the hobby, but I recently started using contrast paints and I honestly don’t think I’ll look back. I’m going to get some contrast medium to see how it works with my dropper paints, but punting isn’t nearly as stressful now

I always agreed with the description of contrast paints as a tool rather than a revolutionising thing.

Ninjon had a great video about using transparent paints and the contrast medium to mix custom contrast colors on the pallette. You might check that out, probably cheaper than investing in the entire line, and it might be a decent mix between "having control" and "giving up control".

Frontline Gaming does sell wargaming mats along with terrain designed for that mat, if that counts.

100% have been struggling with this as a new player! Thank you for voicing my opinions in a concise way :) i have been collecting pill bottles and small containers and gluing them together and painting them to make little barrels etc. its so frustrating that it is so expensive to build a table as a beginner

Oh man, the green felt comment brought back some memories

A good looking table with nice terrain is the "third army" in any game, and one most often ignored/skimped on because people are either cheap or lazy. A good looking table can be done quite affordably with a minimum of work/effort. Players are in control of how interesting their table is or is not.

Speaking of Call of Duty, I want to actually make a 1:1 recreation of the Shipment map from the new Modern Warfare for kill team

it might not be cheap but amazing and sturdy terrain is aquarium stuff. you can buy whole "mountains" for your board that is strong enugh to hold 5 metal dreads. also if you want to stick to plastic GW you can set up well with a manufactorum box+ the container and scatter stuff box. it is enugh fro 1K point games.