All good things must come to an end... Seven years does not seem like a long time in wargaming, but for my Epic scale terrain boards it was long enough and time they were put out to pasture. Since I constructed them back in 2001 for UK Games Day, they have been revised, expanded, torn down, rebuilt and lugged around the house for impromptu battles and campaigns more times than I care to remember and they have served me very well indeed over the years. But like all things eventually, they were long over-due for replacement and so it was with a somewhat heavy heart that I removed the parts that could be salvaged for incorporation into future terrain projects and laid the boards to rest at the local recycling tip late autumn. They were not alone in that respect either as a set of rather battered 40K boards also followed suit as well, between them freeing up a considerable space in my workshop, not to mention relieving a not inconsiderable weight from the poor floorboards which have been straining under the weight of all that MDF for quite a few years now. So now that I had made the space, what to fill it with and, more importantly, what should I use as a replacement? Out with the old.
The second problem was their size. MDF is not a particularly light material, at least not if you are going to either reinforce it to stop it flexing, or buy it in thick enough sections to be robust enough on its own. By the time I had added the hills, roads and textures I was getting a mini workout every time I set a game up. Not a bad thing in itself I admit, but the novelty did start to wear off after a bit I have to be honest. Out of the two requirements, the first was the easiest to solve; just go back to using lots of scatter terrain rather than stuff modelled directly onto the boards. Simple, but not as effective looking as a bespoke board to be fair. The second requirement; weight, was a little more troublesome. There is an old adage that says "You get what you pay for" and this is just as true with gaming boards. A 'lighter' solution is to use very thinner sheets of MDF and cover it with a layer of foam or polystyrene sheet and indeed this is a method I have used in the past many times over the years. It is cheap, very light and easy to work with. The trouble is it is also not hugely robust or resistant to damage. The finishing quality is also a bit questionable which means to get a good result you have to cover it with a layer of finer texturing and detail which rather defeats the purpose. Perfect for making cost effective and flexible boards that you can replace easily enough as they get worn, but not really what I was looking for. Another option was to see what pre-manufactured boards were commercially available. This was something I looked into a few years ago with 'Warscape', who made vac-formed plastic modular boards and even picked up a sample set. Initially a superb idea, unfortunately they just didn't quite hit the mark as they were unsupported underneath and just flexed too much for my tastes. Nothing that couldn't be solved however with a little reinforcement, but that did rather defeat the purpose of buying them in the first place. However, as Warscape sadly appear to have ceased trading a few years ago that ruled them out. Another option I looked at was the textured silicon 'Ash Waste' mats produced in the US by Zuzzy which certainly looked to be a worthy product and made it onto my potential short list. Other possible options included various 'hex' tile solutions of which there were numerous, however I am not a fan of hex tiles personally so although they ranked very highly in the flexible stakes and ease of storage they just weren't what I was looking for. In with the New. At this stage I was all set to give Zuzzy's silicon gaming mat a try out due to its ease of storage and clever design, however much to my surprise Games Workshop threw their hat into the modular gaming boards arena metaphorically speaking with the release of the 'Realm of Battle' boards. Obviously showing how much I was out of the loop recently, this caught me totally off guard as, although I knew it was something they had explored in the past, the final product was actually a lot more substantial (in more ways than one!) than I had expected. Now, there is no denying that Games Workshop's modular boards do carry a sizeable price tag and judging by the amount of hostility on certain forums, it is an amount many are not prepared to pay for their gaming table. For me however, I considered them entirely on their merits as an investment into my hobby and how they stacked up against my criteria above. Even weighing in at a hefty 30lb in total when in their carry case, they were still substantially lighter than my original MDF city boards and an awful lot more flexible. What clinched it for me in the end however was seeing them in the flesh and just how solidly constructed they were. There was no denying the quality and ultimately it was that, plus their ease of transport and storage which convinced me to give them a try. So now I have decided on the format of my replacement gaming table, on to how to make best use out of it. As I mentioned at the start, I decommissioned two sets of gaming boards; 8' x 4' of Epic scale terrain including the cityscape and a 6' x 4' generic 40K scale board. This left me with a bit of a conundrum, how to paint the boards so that I could use them for both scales and maximise their use. I considered various colour schemes, but the one I felt was most neutral was a cross between light desert and scrub wasteland. For a long while the classic ash wastes grey was a front runner, but, having done that to death over the past few years I have to confess I also wanted a bit of a change and fancied gaming on something new. As this was all a bit of a theory however, I thought it wise to test it out first on something a little less expensive than the boards themselves rather than paint up six 2' x 2' boards only to find out I didn't like the colour. The candidate I chose to be my test subject was the Citadel modular gaming hill as it was of similar construction and texture to the boards themselves. That plus if it worked they were designed to be used in conjunction with the Realm of Battle hills anyway, so it wouldn't be wasted. Cunning stuff. The test hill.
I started by grinding up some reddish brown artists pastels which I then carefully brushed into some of the cracks and cuts in the rocks to deepen the shading and give the rocks an outwardly reddish tint as if they contained deposits of oxidised metals. Being pastels they had to be sealed onto the surface to stop them being smeared or brushed off. To do this I gave the hill a couple of light coats of hair spray which is perfect for the task. Once fixed in place, I then added the light grass textures which were a combination of static grasses and flock. Overall the look I wanted to achieve was that of a semi-arid wasteland, almost but not quite desert. This meant I couldn't use a flocking material that was too verdant or green. I started by mixing two of my static grasses together with some Woodland Scenics harvest gold to create a more suitable bleached out golden brown mix. I then applied this in very light patches on the hill before adding a few areas of mixed turf flock to finish. Once the flock was stuck down I fixed it in place with another light coat of hairspray before sealing it with a fine misting of watered down wood glue applied with a spray bottle. This was then left overnight to set properly. As a final task I blended the green and browns of the flock into a more sun bleached finish with a very light dry brush of rotting flesh and bleached bone. Satisfied with the colours I made a start on the boards themselves following exactly the same process as I did for the hill |
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Anyone who knows me well, knows I like
making wargaming terrain almost as much as the armies
themselves. For me it is a fundamental part of the hobby as
there is no better sight than a painted army fighting over
spectacular scenery and having one without the other just
doesn't work for me. it was for that reason I expended so much
effort producing a set of dedicated gaming boards for Epic in
the first place. With the benefit of several years hindsight
however, there were a number of areas I definitely felt could
have been, well, better. The two biggest irritations for me with
them was their inflexibility and weight. The city
sections and hills did look great and were certainly fun to game
over. However, they never really changed and that became an
issue. No matter what campaign we were fighting, or what armies
we were using, it was always the same city and the same layout.
Beginning with a black undercoat I pretty
much followed Games Workshop's own recommended desert palette as
the starting point and gave the entire hill a coat of Bestial
Brown first of all. Once this had dried I picked out the rocks
crevices in Dark Flesh followed by a 50/50 mix of Codex Grey and
Graveyard Earth which I dry brushed on followed by two lighter
dry brushes of Fortress Grey and then finally Bleached Bone. For
the rest of the hill I dry brushed Vomit Brown up to the rocks
taking care to blend it into the already painted rock overhangs
for a more natural finish and finally a 50/50 mix of Vomit Brown
and White. Once this had dried fully I started to add some
further colours and textures to help break up the uniformity and
make the hill appear a little more interesting.