Wyrdscapes Quarantine Zone Pathways: Lay Out a Board

By Wyrd Games Official Store | Tabletop Games & Miniatures | Published: 2026-11-04

Category: Handleidingen

Use Wyrdscapes: Edge of the Quarantine Zone - Pathways to link separate ruins into one playable district. A step-by-step layout process with checkpoints and common mistakes.

Quick answer

Build your board around the Pathways stairs first: decide which elevated ruins should connect, place the five staircases to create those routes, then fill gaps with broken walls so every building feels part of one district. Test movement before you glue anything permanently.

Why Pathways changes the layout conversation

Most terrain sets give you buildings; Pathways gives you the spaces between them. Its hard plastic pieces include five staircases and ruined connecting structures, so the set is less about adding another stand-alone ruin and more about turning a row of separate buildings into a single traversable district. That shifts your planning from 'where does each building go?' to 'how do models get from one to the next?'

The trade-off is that Pathways rewards planning more than drop-and-play scatter terrain. If you scatter the pieces randomly, you get attractive rubble but not necessarily usable routes. Spend the extra ten minutes deciding which structures should link before you commit glue.

When a simple scatter layout is the better choice

If your group prefers open fire lanes and minimal verticality, Pathways may be more structure than you need. The staircases and connecting walls naturally create raised routes and tighter movement channels, which can slow a fast, shooting-heavy game. In that case, use only one or two staircases and leave the rest of the set in the box for a denser, more narrative board later.

Also skip full Pathways integration if you are building a board that must pack flat into a small case. The connecting pieces add footprint and height. For travel boards, keep Pathways for home tables and use flatter scatter for club nights.

Step-by-step Pathways layout

1. Mark your building footprints: Place your existing ruins and buildings on the bare board first, without Pathways. Leave 3–4 inches between structures where you want connections. Common mistake: crowding buildings together, which leaves no room for stairs or broken walls to bridge them. Photograph the footprint layout before adding Pathways so you can reset if the routes fail.
2. Choose connection pairs: Pick two or three pairs of buildings that should be linked by a staircase or broken wall. Aim for at least one low-to-high route and one high-to-high route. Common mistake: connecting only the tallest buildings, which leaves the ground level disconnected. Every connection pair should give a model a reason to use it, not just look good.
3. Place the five staircases: Set each staircase so its base sits on the table and its top meets a building edge or platform. Spread them across the board rather than clustering. Common mistake: forcing a staircase to bridge a gap that is too wide, which leaves an unstable-looking span. If a staircase does not meet both surfaces cleanly, move the building rather than shimming the stairs.
4. Fill gaps with broken walls: Use the ruined wall pieces to close small gaps between staircases and buildings, or to create low cover along ground routes. Keep at least one ground-level path open. Common mistake: walling off every ground route, which turns the board into a staircase-only maze. Leave one clear ground lane at least 3 inches wide for larger bases.
5. Walk a test model through the board: Before gluing or painting, move a representative model from one table edge to the other. Check that stairs are wide enough for its base and that no route dead-ends. Common mistake: testing with a small-based model and missing that a large-based model cannot use a staircase. Test with your largest-based model, not your smallest.
6. Lock in and label the layout: Once the routes work, mark the base of each Pathways piece with a small numbered sticker or pencil mark on the underside so you can rebuild the same board later. Common mistake: gluing stairs to buildings before you have tested the full loop. Keep Pathways pieces removable from buildings unless you always play the same scenario.

Product facts

Wyrdscapes: Edge of the Quarantine Zone - Pathways: The set includes five staircases plus broken walls and connecting structures in hard plastic. Five stairs let you plan multiple elevation changes across a board rather than a single central tower, so you can spread routes instead of funneling every model through one choke point.
Wyrdscapes: Edge of the Quarantine Zone - Pathways