Terrakami’s Container Crane

Today we look at a table center piece by Terrakami! The Terrakami Container Crane!

This will be an eye catcher, we’re sure of it! Measuring 24,4 centimeters in height, it towers above the rest of your table.

Tall, ain’t it?!

Design
The Container Crane is designed to resemble one of the big cranes you can find in any large industrial harbour. If you have to get those big and heavy containers on a ship or train, a crane is your best option.

The crane is designed to go with the Terrakami train, and they fit together like apple and pie. The tow-wagons of the container train fit underneath the crane, between its legs.

The crane’s legs are decorated with tiny wheels, which shows this massive beast is meant to be on land or on a track. The legs have tiny stairs built into them, showing the upper levels of the crane can be accessible too.

The crane’s arms are wide and hover above a large part of the table. This doesn’t obstruct playing though, as it’s so high the models and player’s hands fit right underneath with ease.

These stretch far and wide!

Now of to the best part of a crane; it’s lifting ability. This crane can actually lift too! The Terrakami containers fit right into the crane’s lift mechanism, allowing you to hover big large crates over the table. The hook is meant to be moveable, so you can adjust it according to where you want the container to hover.

This makes the crane a great center piece, as you can adjust it’s LoS blocking abilities by just shoving around the hanging containers.

Playability

Playability is a big part of Infinity terrain. If it looks nice, but by doing so it suffers in playability you need to take that into account. Let’s have a look at the Terrakami crane.. top to bottom!

The upper levels do not allow a AD trooper to drop in on it as it’s too small for the circular template, but is otherwise freely accessible through stairs or deployment. Models, even up to 40mm, can move freely on the upper levels. Enjoy letting your Dog Warriors run rampant up there to dislodge some snipers! It will make a great fight! 😉

Speaking of snipers, isn’t such a behemoth a sniper spot that will dominate the entire board? According to me, and many players during our latest ITS event: No, not really. It seems Terrakami kept the Infinity system in mind during the design stage, making sure there are no big, dominating overviews on the platform’s upper levels. The walkway hangs between the two legs of the crane, blocking the view from the sides. These legs do not allow the snipers to ‘peek’ around the corner on the outer edges.
There are a couple of holes in the walkway, but these, again, do not allow a LoS to be drawn across the table. The crane is very high, but the model can only really shot straight down through those holes.
None of the players had any trouble during the ITS with the crane, and some even commented on how restricted they felt it was when they got something up there.

As seen here, the sniper position is blocked from all sides by its own structure.

The ground levels are also meshing nicely with the Infinity ruleset. The legs of the crane are connected on the sides. This not only makes the crane’s legs much more stable and durable, it also grants the models cover when moving from one end of the crane to the other.

Optional things to consider during play is the fact that the crane looks like it can move around along the train a bit, and it can load and unload containers up and from the train. You could use some terrain rules for the crane, allowing it to move every turn  or adjust the location of the containers it carries, so both players have to take some chaos-theory into account while playing… I feel it’s amazingly funny when you not only have to consider all the AROs/LoS and other things for infinity but also give it a bit of an edge in the terrain section, where a first turn sniper spot can become unattractive in the second turn, but might give you the advantage in the later turn.

The ISS battles PanO for valuable resources aboard the train!

Recap

Great design as usual from Terrakami, that stands on the crossroads between attractive design and in-game playability.

This makes the Terrakami Container Crane a must have center piece for anybody who owns the Terrakami Freighter Train.