Battle Boards and Scatter Terrain

I changed things up a bit when constructing the second river board, as I had problems with the glycerin infused lichen reacting with the Realistic Water. I still applied the flock before pouring the acrylic, but waited till the river had cured before adding the rest of the ‘garnish’.

I learned a lot from these boards: use Water Effects sparingly, and do multiple layers to build it up, just as you would with Realistic Water. Make sure to use clean lichen if you’re going to submerge it in the water.

These boards warped ever so slightly when the acrylic cured, despite having been weighted down on all four corners. Not sure what the solution is. In the past I’ve straightened things out by painting the bottom of the board afterward. Then, as the paint dries it pulls the board flat again. I may give it a try.

I’m on to the flat boards next. They should go fairly quickly. I may sculpt remnants of a walk, or building foundations into the foam, but I’ll keep the features small enough so they can be covered with a hill.

It’s been a while since I’ve been able to post on this project. Funny how life gets in the way. As mentioned previously, I’ve moved on to the battle boards themselves, and of course started with the most difficult ones: the two river boards. Needless to say, things didn’t go quite as planned… but I keep telling myself this is all a learning experience and will aid me in building the next set — bullsh*t.

A short entry this week. I’ve moved on to the boards themselves, but in the spirit of potentially f-cking things up royally, I’ve started with the small edge pieces before moving on to the more costly ‘2 by 2’ boards.

The plan, at the moment of conception, was to put duct tape along the edges to protect them from bumps and bangs. I applied it to a scrap to see how it looked and the first word that came to mind was ‘tacky’.

I then moved on to plasticard. I sprayed it with a Hunter Green primer, which ended up being shiny, but everything will be sprayed with a matt sealer eventually, so no big deal.

Lessons learned: Plasticard is definitely the way to go when edging boards. It’s cheap and will protect the board edge quite well. I find that gluing it on straight along an edge is a challenge, but I think applying it in shorter segments might help. You can always trim it up afterward, and you can also sand plasticard, as I found out during this test run.

I went with a complimentary green colour for the edge. I would likely go with a red/brown on a desert board, or a dark purple or navy blue on some sort of greyscale lunar landscape… anything that says “This is not part of the playable area.” It should also be darker than the predominant colour on the boards, otherwise it will draw attention from your meticulously crafted terrain!

Next installment: river boards. Mediocrity is within my grasp.

Overall I was a bit disappointed with these pieces. If I got a ‘do over’ I would have been more cognizant of copse and hill size. On the next set (I have an order for another one) I will likely match each copse to a hill, but still make them versatile enough to be switched up a bit. Next week I’ll post pics of my edge pieces, and my first kick at covering the sides of the boards in plasticard,

Unrelated, but I think I found a kindred spirit at work. Love this doctored ‘Wet Floor’ sign!

That’s all for this week. I hope this fills in any gaps in the process. Next week I’ll move on to the remaining hills, and illustrate the dreaded three ‘P’s of terrain building: piss poor planning.

This week I thought I would go step by step in creating an individual tree and base. I’ve described the process with other pieces, but I haven’t actually illustrated it. The steps are pretty much the same for larger hills and such, so hopefully this will fill in the blanks.

As stated previously, I didn’t think I had planned for enough terrain to stock two 4′ by 6′ tables, so I created half a dozen individual trees to keep the client smiling.

There weren’t many parameters for these bits; I wanted them to still provide cover for at least one model, and maybe have enough room on the base for a second model.

The remaining three copses were constructed with a few factors in mind: first, space for interaction between models; second, I wanted them to have enough cover to be defensible; third, I wanted them to be tall enough be an LOS obstacle (unlike the individual trees I built later); and fourth, I wanted each to have unique characteristics.

On the next hill I glued polystyrene scraps to the edge of the piece before sculpting it. I was hoping to create a more dramatic rock face. As with the previous brick ruin copse, this piece offers good cover for several models, and would be a good anchor for a flank, or a good overwatch position.

One thing I failed to mention with regards to the coniferous trees: I’ve encountered two kinds of bases, one with a wooden disc, and the other with a sloped plastic base. I prefer the plastic base — it can be left on and covered with Spanish moss, as the area under the tree is wasted space anyway. The wooden disc is harder to camouflage, so I remove them and sculpt a trunk out of Milliput.

Overall I was happy with how these pieces turned out, and learned a few lessons about carving polystyrene, and how to design these smaller pieces so that they are interesting and more than just an LOS block.

Next week I’ll post pics of the individual trees I built for this project.