Terrain Boards - Building better worlds, on the cheap!

So as it was, I had recently embarked on a grand quest to create myself a whole host of new modular gaming boards, after having played with the same three boards (beautifully crafted by a good friend of mine, Bjarne) for over two years. And, well, I was getting a bit tired of having to set all of my games in the same desert area, with the same fixed areas of rough ground, slopes, wadis and what not.

As I live in a two-room apartment (which thankfully includes a small basement for storage!) I'm forced by circumstance to always consider how much space any of my terrain projects ends up taking. Which is why I went the modular route; the individual plates are easily stowed away until they're needed and I can create multiple set ups without taking up more space!

However, I also wanted to make modular terrain board-tiles that I could easily expand upon in the future, without having too much hassle in doing so. And remember the part about the two-room apartment? Well, this becomes important now as I also need to take into account that I have no work area, except for my living room. So no power-tools, no band saws, and thus ruling out the most commonly available construction material - wood!

Behold! The future is here!

As you can see, I then picked up a couple of these babies; having been inspired by Rodney Smith's Watch It Played videos on YouTube wherein he demonstrated the board that he had bought from TheTerrainGuy.com. First off, I had a quick look at just such a board. But the cost was just out of my league; especially when you consider shipping & taxes which could easily run up to double the amount! So, while I'm not saying it's too expensive, it is definitely out of my league.

But, wait! What's this?! Locals on a board games group over on Facebook were more than helpful to spot the very same tiles, for cheap and available at a local shop! So, off I went to immediately purchase eight 2' by 2' tiles that would interlock beautifully!

As with all experiments, I made a few initial errors on these boards. They are made from some form of foam-ish structure which makes them flexible (part of the reason as to why I wanted these boards in the first place) but this also becomes problematic when using the tested and true wargamer method of smothering the boards with PVA and throw some sand at them (or lightly sprinkle, whichever you prefer). So, that is exactly what I did, with an end result of the boards cracking up whenever they were ever so slightly bent, thus ruining the elasticiy that I wanted to get out of these boards in the first place!

But when I realized that the jig was up, I had already made the first four tiles, leaving me with little other option than to simply soldier on and keep at it. After all, the paint would hide the worst of these cracks, and as soon as I was able to buy some more static grass (as is typical, when I finally need the stuff for terrain, then I've run out!) that it would hide the rest. But I had some edges lying about the place...

On the edge!

Aha! I tried out the New Wave Terrain method of applying acryllic caulk  mixed up with the tiniest bit of water and some black paint, all over these boards and then sprinkle it with sand before it dried. And it worked! Perfectly I might add! It dried up just as fast as PVA (well, almost, anyway); the sand stuck to the caulk even better than before and best of all - it retained its flexibility! (huzzah!)

Just a bit of showcasing how the terrain boards look. The puzzle effect itself isn't too noticeable, but I'd prefer to hide in on future project tiles!

So there I am; I've got myself a new 4' by 4' board to play on (or rather it is 4' and a smidgeon by 4' and a smidgeon) and a gigantic mess in my living room. Ah well, c'et la vie as they say. Incidently, the colors used are my new go to brand of paints; available in Denmark from: CC-Hobby - I buy the big tubs of course. The best part about these paints is that they dry up matt, unlike most other cheap paints on the local market. Highly recommend them and they have some wonderful hues for terrain.

Oh, and I've finally learned how to drybrush after all these years. It turns out that I have been using the wrong brush all along. Or, at least, it was the wrong brush for me. After I saw Wargaming For Fun's video series on how to make your own modular terrain board, I had to try out his method of drybrushing instead; a big soft brush, a ceramic tile (or, well, I used some aluminium packaging, but hey!) and then gave it a go. It worked beautfiully! Well, it worked a whole lot better than my previous terrain tile attempts at drybrushing, so, cheers and thanks for that WargamingForFun!

My new best friend!

Cork City - Paint & Putty, Oh My!

So, I had myself a complete suburbian settlement on my hands, but it look a bit too much like raw MDF (what a surprise!) and who wants to live in houses made of MDF, eh? Thus I embarked on a grand adventure of Putty & Paint to bring some more patina to the houses of Cork City!

The MadMechaGuy houses are still brilliant bang for your buck, but like all MDF-cut stuff, with interconnectors, these houses suffered from too much of a "model kit" look, once assembled. Undaunted, I gave it no nevermind until I had undercoated the first building and decided, that, well, it still had that look.

This meant that I now had to experiment (yay!) with an easy method on how to hide these connectors and turn the MDF look into more of a concrete look - suited for suburban housing. My first call to port was Acryllic Paste that I bought on the cheap at a local store called Søstrene Grene (The Sisters Grene) for around £3.

Now, while it did work, to an extend, it wasn't exactly easy to apply and the drying times are horrendeous (for a member of Generation X-Y anyway). Still, as an added bonus I now have an easy-to-use plaster-like material for my houses!

So, next up I tried to block off the corner with pieces of card to hide the joins. While this worked beautifully, I would like to remind my dear readers that cutting, drawing and gluing anything resembling a straight line just doesn't work for me. At all. So, it worked out okay, but it will become too much hassle for me in the long run.

Another experiment, was to puchase something called plastictree from a local hardware shop. This increased the budget by £5, and so far I'm not entirely convinced. It's hard to get out of the tube and even harder to apply - but it looks like mud (or anything but wood really), so that's a bonus!

I then tried the Liquid Green Stuff method, courtesy of Games Workshop and hideously overpriced, as per their standard. However, as far as I can tell, then this stuff is actually the best of the methods I've tried out for now in regards to ease of appliance, drying time and overall effect. I will test out some Acryllic Gel instead in a near future to see if it'll work better.

Unless, of course, I just decide to just paint them all up nice'n'proper and ignore these seams in the future. I am, after all, more interested in quick and easy fixes rather than complete and complex modelling projects, akin to dollhouses. After all, I didn't bother with the interiors of these buildings for a reason!

Cork City - Sci-Fi Suburbia

Having always (just ask my Math teachers in 5th grade) been an utter idiot at drawing, cutting or sawing anything in a straight line has naturally posed some limitations for me when it came to constructing wargaming terrain over the years. Give me any organic shape, a lot of random sizes and we're good to go! But ask me to build a small wall, at a ninety degree angle and watch me flee in terror! Try as I might, I have therefore avoided building any sort of city layout for my miniature forays.

That is until I recently stumbled upon Mad Mecha Guy's offerings of lasercut MDF buildings for 15mm science fiction games. As you may gather, these buildings look the business! And they won't put you out of business either! For me, being the thrift-gamer that I am, most other resin (or other materials) buildings in the same scale have always been just beyond my price-range; at least for the amount of houses that I envisioned for my near-future/sci-fi cityscape.

So I ordered up some through a, somewhat, archaic method of emailing my order, reviewing my order and having a nice chit-chat about my order with Joseph, the proprietor and designer - being along the whole way from start to finish. Not only was the conversation super friendly and easy to follow, the shipping itself was speedy as well! So, roughly a week later, shipping from UK to DK, I had my very first parcel of MDF buildings in hand.

A word of caution to those who haven't worked with laser-cut MDF; this stuff reeks of soot! Take heed!

This was then how I recieved my initial parcel; within there were 6 x Two Storey buildings, 5 x One Storey Shopbuildings and 2 x Large Shopping Centres; all of which for the small sum of £24. Now, it may not look like much in the picture above, but...

It definately does the part! For £24(!) I now have a 2' by 2' city center. Or, well, at the very least a surburbian hell-hole, worthy of any firefights. I'm hoping to get them painted as soon as possible; my mate Thorbjørn will join up for a quick test of my Rosetta Skirmish System in 15mm; we're going to pit some X-Com look alikes vs. some Green Men from outer space!

Well... best get painting! And yes, I will show off all of Cork City as I progress. And I will do a post about why it's called Cork City in the first place. Stay tuned!