Modular Hex Terrain Theory - What to Think About Before You Make Hexagon Tiles for Tabletop Terrain

Are you thinking about making hexagon, or hex, tiles for your tabletop gaming terrain? In many ways, modular hex terrain is the "holy grail" of gaming terrain (whether you are making terrain for roleplaying games like Dungeons & Dragons [ DnD, D&D ], skirmish games, warband games, or full-fledge war-games) because of the amount of flexibility they provide in layout the table setups. In this video I go over the theory and principles of hexagon terrain design. This is what you need to think about before you even start your terrain project.

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There's a more general principle: If two edges of two tiles are supposed to go together, then
A. the terrain along the edge on one tile needs to match exactly the terrain along the other edge
B. features crossing the edge must have matching angles - the simplest is just to always use 90 degrees.

The tiles at 15:25 clearly doesn't quite work well together, and it is because they violate the above rules. First, because the shoreline doesn't come together at matching angles, the shoreline has a strange and sharp angle where the edges meet (violates B). Also, there are stone features at the bottom of the left tile along the edge, but there's grass along the edge of the other tile, so the terrain has an unnaturally shaped line that separates the stone from the grass (violates A).


Then there's a third principle
C. if you can make the features along the edges symmetrical across the middle, you should do it.

In the example of a two roads joining up, the road is symmetrical across the middle, and there is grass on either side of the road. If one had stone on one side of the road and grass on the other, one would have to find a tile with a matching asymmetry to join them. Thus keeping things symmetrical increases the flexibility.

But with a shoreline, there's water on one side and land on the other, so it's impossible to make it symmetrical. (C) cannot be followed.

[johnhartsock]

The best hexagonal modular terrain of all time is from Heroscape. The 3D aspect makes for awesome looking battlefields and the rules of the game make the map design hugely influential on gameplay. The best part is that you don’t have to make anything from scratch, but you can customize your tiles if you want. If the currently ongoing crowdfunding campaign goes well, Heroscape should offer a great option for players looking for out of the box hex terrain options.

[WhisperingWisp]

Doubt this will be read, but I definitely enjoy passage features (roads, streams, bridges, etc) to cross the edge, but prefer geographic features with elevation (theoretical or actual 3d terrain) to cross the corners. It allows paths up hills or down to beaches to work much better in my opinion. You do have to make sure to make a legend of sorts while crafting though. 😅

[collin]

Very informative! Thank you for the video, this has steered me in the right direction. I was thinking of building a hex map of Scandinavia, but since it will be in a specific arrangement I will build it in squares.

[terrywilliams]

Advanced Squad Leader, my favorite game.

[howland]

Id love a mini version for a games I’m making

[gman]

Possible thing you could do with flowing water, only have a visible current on straight pieces. Since those have the same function in either orientation you can always make sure those match eachother in the same stream. You should probably also include shapes for 2 or 3 streams converging (functionality just a straight piece with one or both sharp turns also added on) and depending on the scale of the game you're making tiles for a water source hex (like a spring or even just a place where rainwater might gather) could be useful as well. Just some ideas.

Edit: and i see you used all those ideas in the terratiles you show off.

[scottyoung]

Check out your local makerspace. I can cut perfect hexagons on the laser cutter or 3d print them

[ALEXGAYMAR]

Hexagons are good only when you machine them in some way like lazer cutting wood or 3d printed or something like that so that they are all equal

[murgel]

Personally, I have made Hex terrain with 50 mm hexes for my Battletech games and used it extensively. The "error" I covered by glueing the grassmate over the sides, allowed me some flexibility on the fitting.
When it comes to regular dungeons etc. I would always use the tiles suggested by the game system and I only know of and actually possess only one RPG system (Ilaris - an RPG alternate for the world of Aventuria) that actually does use hexes for the regular movement and combat.
Hexes are restricted to strategic movement in almost all RPGs as far as I know.

[christinecameron]

If you don't mind the weight, ceramic hex tiles are readily available and very affordable at thebig-box home improvement stores in the flooring department.

[GreySectoid]

I'm new to tabletop gaming and building terrain, this was a very nice explanation for a beginner like me.

[rylandrc]

At 16:02, the terratiles didn't line up.