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<td width="50%" valign="top">Eric has made this sewer board with
Necromunda in mind, but the techniques could be used for a
number of sewer/maze/dungeon type settings.</td>
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[h3]Materials[/h3]
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# Plywood sheet for the base, 4 feet by 8 feet by 1/4 inch thick
(1200mm x 2400mm x 6mm)
# Foam insulation board for the walls (dimensions as above)
# Pine board for the outside walls, 8 feet by 4 inches by 1 inch
(2400mm x 100mm x 25mm)
# Metal mesh
# Cheap black, grey and white paint
# Hot wire cutter
# Saw
# PVA glue
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[h3]Method[/h3]
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The first step is to lay out your
board. This board is 2' x 2' and has entry and exit points on each
wall
The next step is to cut the foam to
the sizes you need. Generally, they'll follow geometric shapes that
interlock with a channel in between to allow for the flow of water.
It's best to design your pieces a head of time
on a piece of graph paper -- especially in a modular situation. You don't need
to though and you might find inspiration by just cutting pieces however it
appeals to you.
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<td width="50%">The pieces can vary
in size and the more varied the better. You can use 1" Foam
Board for walls (like this one) or 1/2" works well too.
Knowing Necromunda gangs would be coming this sewer in search
of archeotech while another gang was chasing them, I made sure
there were plenty of nooks and cubbies where people could hide.
Use PVA glue to get everything together.
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<td width="56%">Paint your board
black. This represents the murky trench floor that never dries
and is always covered with a layer of "stuff" that
makes it hard to see whether there's solid footing or a
man-hole. If you play in a group that enjoys house rules, come
up with a few for models that walk in the trench.</td>
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I'm going to playtest this board a little with some figures I have
handy:
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Yep, that looks good. Time for final assembly and the knick knacks:
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<td width="50%">This is what the
board looks like when it's all finished off. I've painted it
gray and then dry brushed it white. All the paint was second
hand latex from the Home Depot. (The propellant in spray paint
will eat right into raw foam board so stay free of that.) Once
everything was dry, I put on a quick rung ladder in the middle
of the board and some grates on the steps and wetter areas. The
ladder is made from a metal screen cut and then shaped. The
grates are a plastic mesh usually used for repairing rust holes
in cars.</td>
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The finishing touch will be a wall
around the outside that's 4" tall. The wall will be painted to
look like…well… a sewer wall. There will be an entrance 8" in
from either side on each wall to allow for entrance and egress. Also
needed are some sewer pipes coming in at the middle of each board
edge. When the other sewer boards are built, they'll have matching
pipes and egresses.
The nice thing about these boards is
that they can be set next to each other in different fashions for
variety. The can also be stack on top of one another so you could
traverse up and down as well as back and forth. I'd need to get much
more creative about the modularity for that!
Here's a picture of the finished
product along with my Orlock gang and a "visitor".
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