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Can anyone recommend a good alternative to the Citadel Realm of Battle Board?

I live in Australia and dont really want to fork out the huge price they are charging for them down here. I have seen them from overseas sites for reasonable prices but most dont ship a package that big to Australia, or if they do the shipping prices are astronomical, which is understandable considering the size and weight.

If anyone knows of a similar product that I could purchase within Australia (or overseas) as a cheaper alternative I would love to hear about it.

Thanks!

I don't believe there is a similar product to the battleboard, with similar being defined as a modular, 6x4 rigid plastic 3D gaming board.

There are many, many alternates, however.

1.) Roll your own. You can get insulation foam (blue or pink) from a hardware store and create your own very similar board, for much less money.
Pro: Much cheaper then ROBB, can look as good. Con: needs skill or it's gonna look much worse.

2.) Hotz Mats. A felt mat you can roll up. Comes in many different patterns.
Pro: Much cheaper then ROBB. Nice patterns. Cons: Very much 2d, and due to a bit of errata, they are slightly smaller then a legal 4x6 board.

3.) Sabol Battle Mat. Similar to the Hotz mats.
Pro: Much cheaper then ROBB. Good patterns. Legal 40k size. Cons: OOP so hard to find. Have an annoying logo printed on them. Very 2D.

4.) Zuzzy mats. These are mats made of latex rubber, and so they are sort of 3Dish. Nice designs. I have one of these and like it, b-b-but... see the cons.
Pro: Much cheaper then the ROBB. Can look very nice indeed when painted. Legal 40K size. Cons: Super slow production and shipping, so expect that. The mats smell very, very strongly of latex. Allegedly over time the smell decreases but I've had mine laying out for a very long time (over a year) and it still reeks. That may or may not be a problem for you. Dice bounce a little on this, so you might want to use a shoebox top to roll them in if you go this way. Although I put a lot of cons for this one, I do like the one I have a lot, but you should be able to make an informed decision on it.

5.) Citadel Battlemat. By all accounts, this is a very well made mat.
Pros: Much cheaper then the ROBB. Well made. Cons: Very 2D, and kind of plain. You get what you pay for with this one.

Thanks for the fast reply Ouze, I have two battlemats already which I should have clarifed in my first post. Sorry!

I'm after a modular gaming board as you described it :(. I also find the mats very 2d and not very portable which is the reason I'm looking into a modular one at the moment, mainly so it can be transported and still look awesome at the end of it.

I did a bit of searching myself and couldn't find much similar, I thought i'd try the forum as see if anyone had found something I hadn't.

Pretty sure the Hotz mats can be bought at 6x4 size if you email them. The sizes on his site are just the default sizes his printer does.

If you don't mind investing a couple of weekends you can make up a modular board and some terrain for it for less than £60.

Don't know how you feel about it, but some thin plywood boards (I got some 120x60cm so I just need to cut them in half to make two 2ft by 2ft sections), some 1 inch thick insulation foam glued on top and some sand glued and/or painted on top and you have yourself a modular surface.

You can also cut into it or build it up with layers of foam to make fixed terrain features, or leave it plain to just give you a nice sturdy surface to play on.

Then a few hills on plywood bases, some terrain pucks etc and you are good to go.

I have thought about making one. The only problem I see is its durability. I have done quite a bit of foam moulding for hills and other terrain features but I dont see this sort of thing lasting very long if its throw into a bag then rattled around the boot of my car a couple of days a fortnight.

Maybe I shouldn't be such a tightarse and fork out $450 for the Citadel board, it is perfect for what I want, hell it even has a carry bag but its a hefty price tag. I just want to see whats out there before I invest.

Fiberoard, jigsaw, PVA, paint, and sand. You could pick all this up for about 50 bucks, much less if you already have a jigsaw or could borrow one or simply ask the lumberyard to do it for you. Insulation foam and a hot wire cutter would allow you to make more 3d.

I always think it's a typo when I see how much the ROB board costs.

Oakenshield wrote:Fiberoard, jigsaw, PVA, paint, and sand. You could pick all this up for about 50 bucks, much less if you already have a jigsaw or could borrow one or simply ask the lumberyard to do it for you. Insulation foam and a hot wire cutter would allow you to make more 3d.

I always think it's a typo when I see how much the ROB board costs.

vossyvo is Australian. A decent jigsaw would be $50-$100au itself.

Has anyone used one of these?

http://www.ziterdes.de/ziterdes/en/produkte/listview.php?catID=69&subcatID=

Looks good, not much cheaper than the Citadel one though.

vossyvo wrote:Has anyone used one of these?

http://www.ziterdes.de/ziterdes/en/produkte/listview.php?catID=69&subcatID=

Looks good, not much cheaper than the Citadel one though.

This is much cheaper, only 130euros as far as i can see, might have to look into it, although i do question the quality.

I would consider making something modular before buying that board, $450 is quite a lot of money, i plan to get around this by making a frame that fits 6, 2x2 boards in a 3x2 format, so i can lay the frame down and throw in the 2x2 sections to make a 6x4 table top, might even be worth trying to figure out how to make the frame modular too. Texture and paint the 2x2 pieces and your good to go

When it's not in use hang it on a wall somewhere out of sight(like the garage/shed) with the small pieces tucked away somewhere.

Ps. Bunnings cut wood rather cheap IIRC, don't know if that's an option for cutting?

Ziterdes is the original, RoB the copy. Ziterdes board is thinner, less stable (edges might break) and has very marked edges between the pieces. That's why personally I switched to Hotz mats. They ARE portable (just roll or fold them) and the 2D effect is covered by the modular terrain I place on top.

Wow, I didn't even know that Zieterdes one existed - nice find!

Anyone have any pictures? Their site is.. not good.

Here is a link to a blog with a really good tutorial for building a modular gaming board. He does his in 2x2 sections, which is very much like the citatel board if I recall correctly.

http://lifeinthemancave.blogspot.com/2011/07/how-to-make-modular-wargaming-table.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+LifeInTheManCave+%28Life+In+The+Man+Cave%29

Yeah I think the only alternative is to make it yourself. I need to work on a table as well, although I'm thinking of using a couple of fold up aluminium tables and a mat - there are some very good ones out there but they can be expensive - either that or I was going to buy a neutral coloured felt. I reckon I could get the tables, mat and scenery for the same price as the battleboard - it's a project for the future anyway

There's the ex-illis modular gaming board.

http://ex-illis.com/main.php?goto=store



CAD$99.95

Well worth investigating.

Now they have a new financial backer, this looks like a good product!

Doesn't seem to be as robust as GW's board, nor as hilly, but you can buy 2 for less than 1 of GW's. And its modular.

Osbad wrote:Doesn't seem to be as robust as GW's board, nor as hilly, but you can buy 2 for less than 1 of GW's. And its modular.

You're gonna have to buy 2 - it's 3x4. Still a very valid, nice looking option despite it's lack of a cranium-based substrate.

vossyvo wrote:Can anyone recommend a good alternative to the Citadel Realm of Battle Board?

Literally anything else.

Take the money you would have spent on the RoBB and use it to buy a 6x4 piece of MDF and terrain to put on the table. Cut the MDF up if it must be 'modular'. Or buy two 2.5'x5' fold up trestle tables from bunnings (they're $20-$40 each), a Citadel Battle Mat and a stack of terrain.

Osbad wrote:There's the ex-illis modular gaming board.

http://ex-illis.com/main.php?goto=store



CAD$99.95

Well worth investigating.

Now they have a new financial backer, this looks like a good product!

Doesn't seem to be as robust as GW's board, nor as hilly, but you can buy 2 for less than 1 of GW's. And its modular.

I have been considering this. MiniMarket has this for $69.99. Considering that price point, do those who have experience with the board feel it is worth it?

On the bright side the Ex Illis board is completely flat (as in, no hills), so you get to choose the terrain rather than just choosing where the hills will be this time.

-Loki- wrote:vossyvo is Australian. A decent jigsaw would be $50-$100au itself.

Wait, are you saying that something else besides GW costs more in Australia?

Ouze wrote:Wow, I didn't even know that Zieterdes one existed - nice find!

Anyone have any pictures? Their site is.. not good.

A buddy and I went in on them together and have 12(?) of the ziterdes board sections and a RoB board he later got on the cheap off eBay so I can offer some direct comparison opinions if you like.

Major differences:
RoB is significantly heavier and more durable (its has an internal lattice structural support that the ziterdes does not).
Ziterdes lets you order section by section (or pick when ordering a bundle) and has something like 8 or 10 different tiles, so much more variety (and cheaper to add to).
RoB also comes with convenient carry-all which is nice.
Ziterdes boards are NOT 2'x2' they're 60cmx60cm which doesn't matter to me but gets some folks panties in a bunch over the lost 1/3 of an inch

We spent some money to reinforce the ziterdes sections with metal 'L' brackets at the corners and also magnetized them for ease of setup (as well as repainting them from their generic green brown paint scheme), but I still dislike how much they bow down under weight so I've been thinking about filling them with foam or some-such.

Here's a pic of them in use:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/26705545@N05/6150127847/

As noted the joins are very obvious which might offend some folks.

Let me know if you have any specific questions.

Jack

H.B.M.C. wrote:On the bright side the Ex Illis board is completely flat (as in, no hills), so you get to choose the terrain rather than just choosing where the hills will be this time.

Aside from it's ridiculous price the other thing I've never got about the ROB board is why people would prefer integral hills over ones on hardboard that can be placed anywhere you want.

That's one of the things I really dislike about it. I love terrain, I love building terrain, and I love making up interesting and themed terrain setups.

The RoBB goes against that by putting hills on the table that cannot be removed. But it's not just the RoBB that has this problem - I dislike all moulded tables, like the ones that have trench-works built into them and so on. I like tables to be flat so that they act as a canvass for whoever is placing the terrain.

@ HMBC: But... did you see the skulls? THE SKULLS?

On topic: I was thinking about making a modular wooden board, shouldn't be too hard. Just grab like 6 2x2 sections, blamo. For added fun, model some hills or something.

What really blows my mind is people that buy ROB and COD stuff, drop a ton of money on something prefabricated and don't even go through the effort of painting it. This is a board full of terrain I worked up in 2 nights and for about 25 dollars. It might now be gorgeous but it's painted and textured and gives the game a setting.


This is someones setup from the gallery where they've obviously spent hundreds and hundreds of dollars on the ROB and official citadel terrain, but it's still all ugly grey plastic.





Different strokes i guess.

Cryonicleech wrote:@ HMBC: But... did you see the skulls? THE SKULLS?

Those skull pits are ridiculous, but keeping true to GW's traditions. 1)Make a product 2)Insert skulls 3)

Everyone needs a rich seam of Skulldanium in their lives, but we needn't have immovable hills to do it.

H.B.M.C. wrote:On the bright side the Ex Illis board is completely flat (as in, no hills), so you get to choose the terrain rather than just choosing where the hills will be this time.

That is not entirely true, they have trees stumps and other things molded on. If I have time tomorrow i will take some pictures of mine because I don't think anyone has good closeups of the board out of the box.

More Skullz than lulz with a Realm of Battle Battle Board!

At least the acronym is appropriate.

Am considering making a modular set up with some cheapo floor tiles and some foamboard. The edging is the tricky bit so the pieces fit snuggly as mentioned above.
iirc the tiles come in packs of 10. So that is 2 packs needed for a 3x3' layout =£2
Not sure of the cost of the foamboard but maybe a tenner? I would used the blue/pink inulation foam if I could get hold of some.

The idea is to make a sandwich of the foam between two of the self adhesive tiles.
Coat with my prefered mix of PVA and universal filler and away I go.
Whole thing wiill cost a song
Might even make the tiles reversible for different terrain types.

note to self needs to be expanded to 4x4' for Anima Tactics.
but that won't be a problem

-Loki- wrote:vossyvo is Australian. A decent jigsaw would be $50-$100au itself.

Jigsaws a common tool of bushwhackers and highway robbers have a stiff tariff imposed on them to reduce crime.