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I am currently making a gaming board with a Desert theme. This board will be 8x4 feet. I want river and wetland/lake terrain. I basically have two options: 1. Make modular pieces that can be picked up and rearranged between games. 2. Use a router bit on my Dremel tool to make a trench in the board, paint it, and fill it with clear resin.


Option 1 would give me more option for play

Option 2, however, would look more realistic.


What would be your preferred playing board?

If you were making a diorama, option 2 would be a slam dunk. But you're building a gaming board. More options are better for gaming boards.

Go with #1.

Option one if you want more versatility.

All my terrain is modular this way. Hills, rivers, etc.

Option 3.
Rout lots of rivers into the board as per option two.
Fill with resin but ensure that you underfill slightly.
Make removable fillers/lids/inserts from plasticard or whatever to cover the rivers and be flush to the table top as you see fit.
The fillers could be made to look like paths, roads, dried river beds or to match the rest of the table.

If you're going from realism, should a desert themed board have rivers and wetlands?

I'd go with Alex's option 3.
Do Option 2, but fill it in for adaptability.

Pegasus modular river sets are the tits!

I'd recommend this route over putting a river right on the board. If you go that route it will really limit options for terrain placement and really hinder density of terrain placement.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
Option 3.
Rout lots of rivers into the board as per option two.
Fill with resin but ensure that you underfill slightly.
Make removable fillers/lids/inserts from plasticard or whatever to cover the rivers and be flush to the table top as you see fit.
The fillers could be made to look like paths, roads, dried river beds or to match the rest of the table.

If you can do it, this is best.

If you do go down option 3 or 2 then save your router some work.
I think it would be easier to make the board from two sheets.
Cut the rivers out from the top sheet and the inserts should be ready to drop back in as needed.

 Alex Kolodotschko wrote:
If you do go down option 3 or 2 then save your router some work.
I think it would be easier to make the board from two sheets.
Cut the rivers out from the top sheet and the inserts should be ready to drop back in as needed.

That sounds like a really good idea. My terrain-making/tool skills are rather lacking, but I would go your route if I was confident I wouldn't mess it up.

Could you make 2 sided tiles?

Side A with river in
Side B plain

I've done this with modular hills - 1 side has a flat surface for wilderness boards and the flip side has a concrete lined trench system dug in for fortified boards

Incidentally I've also done this with 2 foot by 4 foot MDF boards - one side the standard deserty brown sand style and the other side is painted to look like concrete for city games - saves having 2 lots of boards

Rivers look nice, but they don't always make for the best games, especially when they're running across the middle of the battlefield. They tend to bottleneck everything onto bridges, which isn't always fun. I would definitely recommend going with a modular set up, that way when you get bored of battling for the bridge for the Nth time, you can get rid of it.

If you're going for "realism" I'd go with an option 3 as well.... You could make a board with a lake/pond/river/delta system, etc.

Then, when/where water features aren't really appropriate, have large hills to simply place over the water features... I mean 2x2, and maybe only an inch or two thick at the thickest. I suggest that thin, because the slope at 2x2 square should be shallow enough that with just simple flocking you should have enough friction to hold whatever other buildings/rocks and other terrain.

Modular boards look best, but removable terrain is definitely the easiest to do and the most practical.

Yeah for variety it's probably better to go modular. That being said I have seen some pretty nice tables where everything is integrated.

If you integrate a river, definitely design a cover piece in advance.

Integration looks better. That's what I meant.

I mean, you could always just do lots of different boards, some with and some without rivers. Storage is the problem then.

However I think that modular movable terrain is probably the way to go - it's much easier to store, much more flexible, and can look almost as good if done right.

Joyboozer wrote:
If you're going from realism, should a desert themed board have rivers and wetlands?

Modular boards or molded terrain = more storage..

Best option imo is fully removable terrain and FatMats (or similar).

 Smacks wrote:
Rivers look nice, but they don't always make for the best games, especially when they're running across the middle of the battlefield. They tend to bottleneck everything onto bridges, which isn't always fun. I would definitely recommend going with a modular set up, that way when you get bored of battling for the bridge for the Nth time, you can get rid of it.

One way around this is to make a shallow river, have several bridges and fjords across it and alternate what it means from one game to the next.

1 game say the bridges are the only way to cross, next game say bridges and fjords are crossing points, next game say the whole river is shallow enough to be crossed, either with special rules for models that find themselves in it or just call it open terrain.

Then you can have modular boards with the rivers carved in so that you can alternate between the rivers being in the middle to the rivers being down the sides.

Removable rivers you rest over the table are obviously the best from a game perspective, but they look terrible compared to ones actually carved in to the table, so I guess it depends what you care more about.

Go with option one. Rivers really can limit player options during games (which can be good) and lead to folks getting bored with the river terrain or complain that it crimps their playing style once they have played on it a lot.

My two cents,

CB