Hendriks modular gaming table and terrain

[hendrik]

Inspired by amongst others badgers lovely terrain I finally started working on my own proper board to play on, No longer will my battles be fought upon a simple non decorated table!!
I started out getting 8 mdf plates (24" by 24", 6 mm thick). Of these 4 will have fixed hills ala realm of battle board while 4 will remain plain, alloing us to change the board quite a lot.

Anyway, since pictures say more then a thousand words:










Tonight I have to fill in my taxes but after that I hope to start undercoting/sanding the whole thing

[3ff3ct]

BOOO!!! TAXES!!!!

Great start, I like the detail you've added to the foam, it's things like that which make the finished product look so much better

[hendrik]

so yesterday i did the texturing, using a mixture of brown paints, sand, PVA glue and some water to dilute it a bit. it was a nice mixture to work with and proved super easy to remove from my hands (because well, one can't make terrein without getting dity yourself can you?!) since the glue made sure i could just peel it all off. I'm not sure if my shorts will be as easy to clean though...

Anyway, the surfaces are now textured and they feel great! I still have to trow some dice on them to see how much they bounce, but it should not be a factor.
Now on to the pictures!
I ran out of the right paints to use so the panels are all a bit different. The final earth colour will be something similar to the upper two tiles.
Featured on the board is the fast setup for an apoc game i'm hosting in two weeks, should be great fun!













Tonight i'm going to the DIY store to get some more right paint,and more pva glue.
I don't think i'll need to varnish the board since the paint/PVA micture seems pretty solid and hard to damage

[macknight]

wow, very nicely made boards! looking forward to see it finished.

[hendrik]

so i got back from the hardware store,and apperently forgot 1 paint to buy to make the light brown sand colour. However, since we're on a budget for this board i decided to continue on with the paints that I did bought.

Some dirty clothes, hands, and a flocking session later this is how the board stands:







Besides some smaller touch ups (the rocks etc) this board is pretty much finished.

[littlemac]

Looks great! Have you devised a way for the individual squares to lock together, or do they just sit on top of a table?

Edit: If you're open to suggestions, I would suggest adding some small patches of sponge-like flock as shrubbery. Woodland Scenics is good stuff for that.

[BG. Foster]

Looks good so far.

[hendrik]

littlemac, I'm always open for suggestion and it's a good one! i think i still have some sponge like material that could work as bushes, however, I also want this table to be extremely modular, hence I opted to include as little detail as possible in it (in fact, i almost didn't want to add grass since this could make the placement of the buildings seem odd.
What i do have is enough material left to create a big amount of individual scenetic pieces such as hills, craters etc
As for bushes, would you think it best to mount them on larger terrain pieces, or put them on small 1" bases?

[littlemac]

I see your point about modularity. If you use the Woodland Scenics sponge flock, it will make "bushes" that aren't much taller than a guardsman's ankle/boot, almost like sagebrush. It's more about texture than actually offering a cover save. I would put the sponge flock in the areas that you've already flocked with grass. It will provide more of a "prairie grass" look.

Since the sponge flock is small enough, you should be able to set terrain pieces and models on top of the little clumps without too much trouble.

I would take larger bushes or brushlines and mount those on bases. Personally, I usually allocate a 6+ cover save to those, so the base is helpful.

[hendrik]

Oh, now i understand what flock you mean! I was thinking about something completly different!I still have some of that left so might add it in tomorrow! great idea!

[hendrik]

let's go BIG!!!

[hendrik]

so after 6 hours of work this is what i've got!



the picture quality is crappy but it shows most of the work so far.
Right now i'm working on some plasticard hydra turrets to go on to of the towers.

still to do:
-fill the holes with plaster
-decorate by adding extra edges etc as seen on the forgeworld model
-make a gate, i'll have to get more plasticard for that though.

[treadiculous]

awesome.. I want to come play!

[hendrik]

my first attempt at a plasticard scratchbuild, still a lot more to learn, but i must say i quite like it. i need to get some thinner plasticard for the detailing though!


alligning the barrels was a bit of a problem, better luck with the next 3 emplacements!

[hendrik]

it's official,

I absolutly HATE imperial design! all those damned tiny rivetheads!

The hydra platform:






and the now textured fortress!




the gateway battlements


these battlements can hold over 20 guardsmen, which should be sufficient to kill something with their flashlights
and on the opposite side of the battlements there's room to place 1 line of models, which allows the opponent to place things like assault marines there!


a squad advancing inside the walls


hope you all like it!

[3ff3ct]

This is both insane and brilliant. Dancing on the 'genius' side of that fine line at the moment mate! Keep it up!

[hendrik]

only a minor update.
I've added doors to the towers and now only need to finish the second hydra turret.
However, since i didn't feel like finishing the hydra i made this emplacement:

[3ff3ct]

Thats stunning

Are you using anything for reference? I wouldn't know where to begin with that!

[hendrik]

I actually get most of my patterns from a Papercraft website that has a lot of models on it. When I'm on my desktop I'll post a link if that's allowed?

[hendrik]

here's the link:
www.papercraftsquare.com/topics/warhammer-40k-free-paper-models-collection-topic
if it's not ok by board policy please delete this comment

[3ff3ct]

Thanks mate. I might have a go at some of these!

[hendrik]

make sure you post pictures then! i think this will fit your orks just fine!

[3ff3ct]

I'll have to buy a metric ton of plasticard first

[AshotNINJA]

screw that paper website... it just links to ilivid which is alerting my antivirus... and it keeps asking me to download and run unknown exe files...

[hendrik]

that's weird.I always klick on [mediafire] which opens the link to the rar file, have you tried doing that?