Gaming Table Project

With the construction of our Armies underway, it became apparent that we needed some kind of gaming table in order to reap battle in the 41st millennium at home...
I had one of those fabric mats slung over a dining table and although it was better than nothing, it just wasn't cutting the mustard.

A trip to a local GW store gave the inspiration for the following design:

A Gaming board with a deep canyon running through the centre, a bridge over the void, a ruined city to one side, a barren but progressively greener landscape at the other. For the ruined city I have picked up the Cities of Death Imperial City from Gamingfigures.com which should make a good starting point.

I realised that the only available space (in the kitchen!) will hold a 6x3' board max.
I set to work, firstly grabbing some 3x3' 9MM MDF board and two sheets of 75mm thick polystyrene insulation (8x4'). The Poly sheets were cut to create four 3x3' sections, the remaining parts kept for spares.

The plan is for the surface of the first board to remain flat so that the second board can sit on top of it - this will allow transport in the back of my small car!

I used PVA glue to hold the first sheets of poly to the two MDF boards, with a few nails in the bottom for good measure. I left these stacked on top of each other with a load of weight, on the kitchen floor for a few days to dry.

Next I used cocktail sticks and more PVA glue to stick the second layer of 3x3' polystyrene sheeting to the first layer. Again both boards were stacked and left to dry for a few days.

Finally both boards were laid out side by side giving the total area of 6x3'. Cutting of the Polystyrene could begin!






We set to work cutting out the canyon and access ramps from both boards. One one side, a structured ramp for an imperial road, the other, a steep sloping track/hill down from the plateau at the other end of the canyon. At this stage some of the spare sections of Poly were fashioned into rough hills and stuck on the second board.





I jumped the gun a bit and dug and filled a lake with water effects BEFORE colouring the surface underneath! Needless to say I will be either digging this out and re-laying or painting over the top (ooops).





Next jobs include using polyfilla to fill some of the cracks / create rock faces and sealing the Polystyrene with PVA glue.

Progress updates to follow. I will take some photos of the boards so far tonight.

Signing off for now.

Sounds great IMF2000. Looking forward to the pictures

pics look great - i cant wait to see this progress.

check out my Acid Lake (WIP) in the "Do you have any projects on the go?" Project Log Sticky.
(its on hold at the minute so i could build and use my Tau, but i made some progress)

cheers

~ Tim

Looking great. Size wise, are those ramps big enough to take a super heavy? Land Raider? Also, I personally would have adjusted the edges of the hills so they weren't quite so steep, or had "steppes", so that figs could be placed on them, with the steeper rounded edges you'll likely find models will fall over.

Looking good imf. You may want to consider having some "roaming" hills (i.e. not fixed to the board) so you can vary you terrain a little before each game.

In fact, have a read through this thread by Grey_Death: http://warseer.com/forums/showthread.php?t=113351

It'll give you some great tips and ideas i should think. It's 80 odd posts long but good all the way through.

mattjgilbert: Thanks for the tip, I'll check out the link. I am planning to have some movable stuff for the centre of the second board.


Spack: Hard to see from the photos but the width of the ramp is actually quite large - it is the same dimensions as the 10' road that GW produce and that swallows up a Predator. If anything the canyon is too narrow but that can easily be fixed by moving the boards further away!
Figs falling over could be a problem and I think I'll end up cutting access paths into the fixed hills on the board.


LMTRK: Had a look at that, project is looking good!


Cheers all for the feedback so far!

Thats a most delicious and yummy table.. sillly question on my hills and pyramid I have problems keeping models upright (even ones with 2 pennies stuck underneath) how, in such intricate terrain, do your models stay upright halfway up that hill? (Main thoughts being the nicely sculpted one)

Project Update 18/06/2008

Sorry for the number of photos..

It has been a busy few days! We took on board the advice to shape the hills and I got to work with the Polyfiller:







The Lake mistake was filled in








Next the city board was covered in two coats of smooth grey masonry paint (B&Q own brand) in order to seal the polystyrene:






The polyfiller was given a final sanding and the second board was then painted with two coats of Textured Sandstone Masonry paint. The images below show the first coat while wet - I only applied the second coat this morning and it does look a lot better when dry (photos to follow)
















I'm probably going to take a break from working on the terrain boards now and focus on getting some scenery modeled for the boards.

Updates as they happen.

Looking excellent IMF2000

yes, this is looking great!

cant want to see it progress.

cheers

~ Tim

Project Update 20/06/2008


On Wednesday night I cut and glued GW road down to the city board. Over the last few days I have been busy ordering bits of scenery from different places and today the first items arrived.

The first order was a selection of the CoD buildings but had been pre-made and sold by someone on ebay - I knew we had a game planned for Thursday evening and figured it would be nice to have some CoD scenery ready, I think it will take me months to get cracking with the bits I have..

The part I was most excited about was the TECHNOBRIDGE, this arrived today and you can see this little bridge in the photos below .

I'm left waiting now for some bits from Antenociti's Workshop and Forge World which I will upload some images of when I do something with them.

Needless to say I think I have way too much scenery now but atleast I can have a bit of variety on the boards.. On with the photos.

Was that like half a roll of the GW road?

Ben wrote:Was that like half a roll of the GW road?

Pretty much finished off the whole roll, there are just off-cuts left over.

WOW! that looks really good.

i bet its going to be an absolute pleasure to play on. i think thats the firs time ive seen the GW road roll actually look good, too.

one question: where did you get your Technobridge? was it second hand?
(its just im having difficulties getting hold of one new, so if you have found a supplier with some in stock i would love a link)

cheers!

~ Tim

LordMalekTheRedKnight wrote:WOW! that looks really good.

Cheers

i bet its going to be an absolute pleasure to play on. i think thats the firs time ive seen the GW road roll actually look good, too.

We had a three-way game this evening but we only played on the hilly board (CPs). Was a lot of fun. I was very worried about the road when I cut it to shape but I am quite happy with it, never seen it used before.

one question: where did you get your Technobridge? was it second hand?
(its just im having difficulties getting hold of one new, so if you have found a supplier with some in stock i would love a link)

I bought mine from ebay but when I just checked now I can't see any! If you google for technobridge, there are a few US and other retailers, may be worth emailing them to see if they have stock? Good luck!