A New Project

With our upcoming Warhammer 40K tournaments (‘Ard Boyz in September and Village Faire in October), and with the proliferation of historical games at the shop, Carl and I have decided to construction permanent 6’ x 4’ terrain boards for use at the store.

Besides providing a cool place to play, these should help us set-up for games faster and make it easier for Carl and I to play ourselves (I am even working on spiffing up my Space Marine army for use on these tables J)!

So with this in mind, I set out this week to construct the first two tables. Eventually we will have a dozen or more of them (and I rack I will build to store them in), but for now a “…journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

I constructed the basic boards in the same way I build all of our tables and racks – a simple supported box frame with the flat surface firmly attached. I then added some Styrofoam hills, which I covered with a plastic patching compound that really sucked – I won’t use that again.

A Close-Up of One of the Hills

Under Construction Next to One of Our Existing Tables

The Boards With Hills & Patching Applied

After some extensive sanding to prepare the surface, I then coated everything with a thin layer of brown acrylic mastic (caulk). After that dried (maybe 30 minutes) I splashed on watered-down wood glue and covered with flock.

The Completed Tables

The Completed Boards - The Fantasy Table is Closest

The tables turned out pretty good, although there are some things I will do differently next time. I made one “realistic” table for historical games (dried grass, olive greens, etc.) and one “fantasy” field (with bright greens and yellows).

The Historical Table

The Fantasy Table

Some other ideas we have for tables include one or two ruined urban ones, a desert terrain board, and an exposed “dungeon in a hill”.

If you get a chance, make a table reservation for one of the new boards and try them out!

Until next time…

Cheers!

Dan