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When building my gaming board I tried to make it as good looking as possible while still staying as flexible as possible. I wanted to combine two important aspects of gaming table design, that seemed to be important to me. First I wanted to have submersible sections for rivers and second I wanted a sectional gaming board that didn't take a lot of room to store. |
| While I have completed a flat green Warhammer battlefield, the jewel of my collection of gaming boards is the Mordheim board. When designing those tiles I asked myself what floors would show up in a ruined city section? On one side, streets with flagstone or wooden floors and on the other side broken and burned areas with dirt ground. This should give Mordheim a dark and sinister feeling. |  |
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After some calculating and the obligatory pilgrimage to the craft store came the interesting part: All tiles were built using Hirst Arts Castlemolds(TM) sets. The board tiles consist of 5 different molds: flagstone floor (1x1" and 1,5x1,5"), cobblestone floor and normal floor tiles. To fill a 40x40cm tile with flagstone floor I have to cast it 26 times. Hmm. |
| An important feature of the board is that it is completely flat. This might not add to character but sure helps keeping your miniatures upright. It also adds to flexibility. I wanted to add lots of little details to the earthen areas, skeletons, branches, wooden doors, skulls, weapons and other things - these areas had to be as flat as possible, too. |  |
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All buildings and floor tiles were painted using
the same outdoor latex dispersion paint from the craft store.
Most pieces were spray painted black prior to this to avoid the
paint softening the glue and especially the buildings
subsequently would start to fall apart. I tried waterproof wood
glue, but it wasn't as waterproof as stated on the bottle... The paint techniques are the same as in all my pieces. I use 3 shades mostly, a dark undercoat and a medium drybrush followed by a highlight of a very light grey. |
| After the first test game our experts discovered
that it was fairly easy to guess distances on a board that is
composed of 1x1" tiles. So I left the normal floor tiles
out and went back to flagstone, cobblestone and wooden floors.
Flagstone must be assembled in a way that does not form an
easily recognizable pattern. |
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Then I felt ready for the river sections. The
width of the river gave me something to think of, a wider river
would give an interesting bridge ensemble, but the question
arose, would such a terrain be gaming-friendly? So I settled
with a nearer river, about 10-15cm wide. |
| Every river segement has at least one bridge
assembled with it. A gaming board with areas that are impossible
or hard to reach (which is practically the same) would lead to a
one-sided game. All bridges are modular, they can be taken out
and replaced with a railing section. Additionally this allows
for some interchangeability at game setup, I planned to make
different bridges in different styles. The railings come off,
too, this helps with storage. |
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I also added a pond, the water was made by filling gloss finish into a trough on the tile. The finish was added in several layers and I used up almost half a litre for the complete pond. The ponds bed consists of sand and stones arranged in a natural fashion and was painted and drybrushed in browns. It has been completly finished and painted before the the lacquer was poured in. Some areas of the finish were covered with watered down brown paint to indicate dirty water. |
| It took me about a year to complete the whole table and gaming board. But it surely paid off! Enjoy some photos of our games in progress (click on the image for a larger version). | |
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| If you want to see more pictures of games in progress, visit the Mighty Pages' Mordheim section. | |
