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I see loads of pics of models and stuff here, but nothing on gaming tables. So, seeing as I'm about to start a new games table, I thought I'd share it. Here's some basic requirements..........
Must be big. We play at a minimum, 3k points worth each and usually 4 of us on 1 table. So we need to be able to break up LOS otherwise the game doesn't really progress further than shooting each other from deployment.
Must be portable and easy to store. Its got to go into the back of my car so we can play at each other's homes. So I have x4 6" x 2" Tables to give me a total board of 8" x 6". This I can get in my car if I stack them (So they must Pack up Flat) and can be stored easy. This also means it needs detatchable legs. 16 in total, cause I need x4 per board!
Must be sturdy and 'bomb' proof! When you've £1000's worth of models on the table, you want it level and not subject to falling to peices and smashing your models everywhere.

Before I start, essential 'tools' need to be in place.
1. Beer / Cider.
2. A living room large enought for me to take over for a few days.
3. A Living room with a 1970's carpet that your girlfriend knows is going to be replaced when we decorate the room, and will allow and 'minor' damages to go without too much fuss.
4. Beer.
5. A Girlfriend who'll fetch the beer.
6. A good tool box.
7. BBQ with half a dead cow on it, and some beer.

Each photo is in order of what I described below. So... notes 1 = Photo 1. Simple. The plan was to build a ruined city. I wanted the terrain to fit in with the board, rather than just be plonked onto the board, and look like a ruined building that's sitting on a black / grey textured table. It also needed to pack flat, and I wanted to be able to move the terrin around, so creating a different look each game. So, I figured if I built a 'grid' on the board, the grids would be pavements surrounding a building, the buildings would then slot into the pavement frames. I decided to make up some buildings first, on 23cm x 42cm boards, to help me visualise this. I used 6mm MDF for the bases, so the pavement frame would have to be 6mm high as well. Here are the explanation of the pics's to help you go along.

1. The board. I've used 9mm 6" x 2" MDF sheets.
2. Under the board ! I've made a frame using 2x4 inch wood to build the frame. Each baton is screwed in every foot, and the middle sections in the middle and at the end. A total of 46 screws for 1 board. It ain't warping or going to break!
3. When screwing the batons on, its important to countersink the screw holes, to give a flat finish.
4. Here's the basic plan. Make a frame using 6mm deep, 35mm wide pine strip wood. The building has a base which will slot inside this frame.
5. One of my test buildings inside its frame.
6. PVA glue and a few nails fixes the pavements to the board.
7. Filler the joins in the pavements. These will be sanded later to give a smoot finish. Don't want any Imperial Citizens sueing the Administratum for tripping !
8. Here's 3 of my pavement frames, with 3 buildings, so you can get the idea. the rest of the board will be painted as road, and the other boards I'll move the frames around, to break up LOS so when joined, we don't have long streets to shoot down.
9. Roads. I've gone to Tesco's (a cheap UK sumpermarket for you people unfortunate enough not to live in the UK) and bought a load of 40grit sand paper. This, when painted makes excellent tarmac, and also will have a different texture to the pavements to break up the boards. It's glues with PVA and looks awful when drying, but once dry and painted, its great.
10. Craters. Three 'Doughnut' shaped cardboard cut outs on top of each other, stuck with PVA. Then, add some filler and voila ! Craters. I will be flocking these next (not done this yet - keep reading in future days!).
11. 1 Completed board ready to paint. Only 4 more to go!

I'll be updating this as I work on them, so check back if you're interesting in the progress. Any questions, I'll try to answer.

Really nice stuff! Im planning on building some terrain too, but Ill just make terrian to place on a table. Not actually building the table too! Awesome crazy nice. And sand paper. Clever. I was planning on spreading PVA all over and cover with sand. Might try your sand paper thing... What Im afraid of is that when I stack/store/transport my pieces that flock or sand or whatnot will be scraped off. How are you gonna handle that?

Like the craters. Perhaps have craters of different sizes? Other things to break up the flat surface. Will you add debris/rocks/whatnot here and there to make the ground a little more uneven?

The table won't be flocked. the sandpaper provides the texture, and some masonary paint over the top of that works fine (hopefully). The roads will be broken up more with the other boards having more buildings on them and the buildings portrait, rather than landscape. The only flock on the boards will be on the craters and some small patches around the roads. I'll glue this on with PVA, and then it will have a heavy coat of masonary paint over it. This will keeep it in place, the flock is only there to provide a different texture, not colour.

I also plan to make some baracades that can either extend from the buildings, or just put in the middle of the roads. I'll also have details like lamp posts & signs, which will have pins in the bottom, to fit into small holes on the pavements.

Did you think about textured paint instaed of sandpaper ? What was the road size based on , I always make sure that 2 leman russ can travel side by side when I set up my buildings. Nice start anyway. I'll be watching with interest.

That carpet is fraking awesome. And the table looks like it's coming along too; looking forward to updates.

I cant wait to see this finished! GREAT idea about the center option terrain objectives. I love it!

I've used textured paint before, and I didn't like the results too much. Also, by covering the area with sandpaper, I've covered all the screws and nails. I'll be flocking the craters over the next few days. I can only do a close group a day, as if I flocked them all, when the board tipped up, the flock would go everywhere !

So I'll do a few buildings. I've done 4 already, I bought x2 Imperial cities.

Will the ripples in the sandpaper flatten out?

mate that looks awsome maybe i wont sell up just yet cant wait to play on em c you soon

Lormax wrote:Will the ripples in the sandpaper flatten out?

As it dries, the sandpaper flattens out. There maybe a few bumps, but this is a city that's been bombarded and wrecked !

TheSecretSquig wrote:

Before I start, essential 'tools' need to be in place.
1. Beer / Cider.
2. A living room large enought for me to take over for a few days.
3. A Living room with a 1970's carpet that your girlfriend knows is going to be replaced when we decorate the room, and will allow and 'minor' damages to go without too much fuss.
4. Beer.
5. A Girlfriend who'll fetch the beer.
6. A good tool box.
7. BBQ with half a dead cow on it, and some beer.

This project looks like it's going to be awesome. Great start Secret Squig.

It's also nice to see that you've go your priorities in order

i wonder did the understandig gf type all the instructions

So your going to have 4 of those small tables together to make 1 giant table right? Looks good man, seems like you know what your doing. Looking forward to seeing this project come along.

That carpet is amazing! Looks like a beach towel. Trying to envision the gal who was delusional enough in her martini-house madness to think that that would make her desirable to her friends. Breath-taking! And um, yeha, can't wat to see the board when it is done.

The carpets the original one from when the house was built in 1978! They sure don't make em like that anymore. We've only had the house 2 years now but you have dilemas.......

New carpet for the living room V's Forgeworld Reaver Titan.

If you think that ones bad, I'll try and dig the pic of the Bedroom one before we chucked it, imagine the yellow, but electric blue!

The board has been designed to be unfriendly to Super Heavy Tanks. They can fit on the roads, but take up the road and some of the pavement. This is supposed to be an enclosed city, not an open battlefield. I've built 11 out of the 14 Buildings I need so I'll post some pics on them. I've flocked the crater's tonight, so they need to dry and harden for a few days I've been working on a few barracades which can just be placed around the board on the road sections. Here's a Pic.

This looks really good so far.

Can we see some pics with all your building so far on the table? I'd like to see how packed the buildings will be when you finish.

good luck!

So you live in a house and not the lobby of a motel? Surprising!

I like the layout so far. I was thinking of something similar, only usinga table top that was pretty much a box, so I could put foam terrain sections into it. Perhaps a little too ambitious though; so far your idea accomplishes much the same things, but much faster.

Done quite a bit on the tables, rather than the buildings. Going to concentrate on knocking up some buildings at the weekend as I'm gettign bored of the 3 I've done. I'll do the numbers again, so comment 1 is Photo 1 and so on . . . . . . .

1. Table now painted with some Black Masonary Paint and dusted with some white Spray.
2. Pavements sprayed with this stuff. Its a textured stone finish. This seperates the pavements from the road giving them a different look and feel. All the building bases will be sprayed with this stuff, so they fit in with the pavements....
3. Like so ...
4. I decided in order to put an extra level of realisim, I've painted a yellow line around the pavements. Also added a crossing which looks cheesy, but as I add more of them and more road markings, they should fit in rather well.
5. Here we have all 4 boards made, but at different painting stages. This gives you an idea of the total size (6 ft x 8 ft) and placement of buildings. The LOS is broken up well, but with the two end tables being as they are, there's still plenty of deployment room.

I've also ordered (my many many thanks to Kid Koyto! or I would have never had seen them) four of the raised walkways from the 'Flying Tricycle' web site. These are approximately 4ft long and 6" high. I'm looking to form some sort of snake going through the board and using them as a Mag Rail system. Need to get them and have a look first. Also had 2 tragic events...... 1. Run out of PVA. 2. (Far more important!) Run out of Beer. Girlfriend off to ASDA tonight to get me another pack of Strongbow Cider.

Oh man... that is looking good! I like the idea of the inset blocks for buildings... consider it stolen for when I *eventually* do my City board. Nice work!

I've used that textured paint before when I made my Urban Board got it all over my DC's somehow...

Sweet board, love the idea

I need more Buildings for mine, all i've got are some barricades, a bunker and those FW Roads (straffed ones too )

Bah, we've only got Fosters here.. it tastes like Kangaroo Piss :( Keep up the excellent work!

Hey Squig,

I'm going to move your blog over to the appropriate forum (P & M Blogs).

On Topic though:

Looks really great. I was a bit hesitant about the amount of space between each building at first but seeing the paint down and everything, the roads actually look very well sized. Maybe some models on everything could give a bit better sense of scale.

The painted road markings are something I highly suggest to anyone making a cityfight board. They really add a lot of character and life to otherwise boring sections of board. A quick drive around town and you can see there are a ton more markings than you would have thought on the ground.

Some other things you could add:
No parking
Gas Markings
Stop lines
Turn only lanes

Great job so far.

Its all in the detail, I totally agree.

So far I've painted up 24 lamposts from the GW Building sprues, got knows how many ammo crates, drums, boxes etc etc. I'll be doing some signposts and stuff. Toying with the idea of painting some parking bays. I think it will come to life when I get the raised walkways and convert them to a ruined Mag Line. Got to find some sort of futuristic train or something.

P.S. What does the 'P&M' stand for in P&M Blogs ?

PPS. Girlfriend returned with 18 cans of Strongbow Cider

I've done some cityfight work in the past (which is still unfinished as of writing this >.>...some day...). I put up most of the pics I have up in my photodump thread. Might be some help as you move forward.

ps. P&M stands for Painting & Modeling ^_-.

Coming along nicely I see.

I like the inset board idea. I'm doing a modular setup for my CoD table. I'll have 1' x 1' squares that my terrain will be based on. I think on some of those squares I might do some inserts that I can fit smaller terrain pieces into. I figure these smaller pieces could also function as regular throw terrain to use on a generic board.

Something you should do to the craters for that added oopmh of realisim: dust or drybrush a darker black/grey in the bottom/center. Beneath the sun-bleached roadways is an almost pitch-black layer of, well, pitch. If you ever see some roadside construction, you'll know what I'm talking about. It should just take you a couple of minutes at most, and will really break up the monotone gray you have going even further!

My raised walkway's arrived today from the 'Flying Tricycle' mail order store in the US. I have to say how impressed I am with these, I can't sing their praises enough. Made from Lasercut plywood, they fit together nicely. Each set is about 4ft long, and I've got 4 sets. Need to add some texture to them, like rivets, pipes and things. Here are the pic's.

Wow those walkways look great , I'm going to check there site later I think. The whole board looks great by the way. Oh and please could you show less of that carpet , it give me a headache.

TheSecretSquig wrote:

PPS. Girlfriend returned with 18 cans of Strongbow Cider

++PLUS++ A well trained girlfriend!

--MINUS-- The aftermath of checking your build angles while sober

I love the3 idea though, I have bee planning 9and putting off something similar) though your plug in buildings is a neat idea and your sandpaper road trick is officially now stolen.

Somke warnings though.

1. 8'x6' has partical problems, regarding reach, this is copounded horribly when you have tall terrain and expensive models such as the forgweowrld Reaver on its way. That model is not only especially expensive, but is also horribly top heavy, I saw it totter after the gentlest nudge of its cabinet.

I would not go beyond 5' for the smaller dimension. 8'x4' is a traditional wargames table size, 6'x4' traditional GW tablesize. 8'x or 7' long tables add enough space witrhout extra width. I am planning 8'x4'4". traditonal board length with a widththat allows a little room at the back of a deplotyment area to ensure space for big stuff.

2. unless you are '40k all the way' You might want to keep obviously 40K Imperium references, and obvious technology to some of the model plug ins, and off the roads completely. This way your battlefield could representing defending an Imperial planet from the forces of the 13th Dark Crusade one week, defending industrial suburbs of Caspia against Menite incursion the next, and freeing Stalingrad from the fascist invaders the week afterwards.

What do you use to glue the walkway together?