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My mates and I are planning to build a board for 40k. we all have 40k armies and every now and then meet up for a huge apoc game. Recently we decided that it would be more fun to play on a board rather than the floor.
we are basing it around the assault on stalingrad scene from enemy at the gates but we are going to reduce the size of the river and add a couple of bridges over it. Its going to be 6x4 in 2x4 sections. This is our first time making a board so any advice would be most welcome. Also any people in england know where you can get cheep stuff to make it?

Well one bit of advice is to pick up the 40k ruin set you know the old one everyone dissed! get that smash it up cut it up and you have ureself a good pile of odds and sodds even big old pillers so you can litter you board with them.Not to familier with the scene from enemy at the gates you got any pics so we can help you more

ok dont know how to isert pics but Ive attached a rough plan.
Basically the grey bit is city with ruins ect the green bit is grass or sand with hills being darker green and the blue is river. Brown is bridges.
wow so thats how you insert pics i never would have guessed

Our battle-board is plain, with scenery to add on to it, for lots of differing games.
It is based on a smaller table (2x3) with two larger sheets bolted to it to make a 6x4 playing surface.
The legs of the table un-bolt, and so the whole thing can be flat-packed and tidied away.

Are you wanting advice on how to get hold of 3/4" MDF, edging, bolts and drills, and how to make them all fit together, or just on the surface-scenery?
We spent £70 at B&Q on fittings, a circular saw, paint, bolts etc, and got a free sheet of 6x4 MDF that we cut in half for ease of storage.
I'll get some pics, if wanted, and detail how we made it.

could you? It would be really apreciated

No pics as yet ( mate is using camera).

Basic plan for table:

Needed:
Old table with removable legs.
6'x4' Sheet of 3/4" MDF (1/2" will do, and be a bit lighter)
Edging (Architrave?)
8 wingnut bolts
drill
saw for cutting MDF in half
dowel-rods for pinning table
PVA glue (1 litre bucket)
Paint (we used green for one side, grey for other, with black/gold edging)

Recipe:
Place 6x4 MDF on floor
Place table upside down on top of MDF, as central as you can get.
Mark half-way point on long edges
Holding the table very steady (stand on it?), drill 8 holes through table and MDF for putting bolts through later. (Not on your Mum's best carpet! We worked outside on old decking)
These holes want to be quite near the edges of the table.
MARK THE TABLE ENDS AND MDF A and B! Otherwise, the holes won't line up later!
Cut the MDF in half to make 2 3x4 sheets. You should have 4 holes in each sheet
Drill 3-4 holes in the edges of the MDF that will meet.
Cut dowel rods to make Pins (About 2" long, maybe shorter. Holes should be this deep, too).
Glue dowels into one side of MDF. Make the holes in the other edge of MDF a little bigger, for ease of assembly/disassembly.

Put legs back on table, turn it right-side up.
Place one MDF (the one with pins) onto table and bolt it in place.
Carefully place other MDF onto table and slide it onto pins. Bolt into place.

VOILA!
One battle-board!
The whole thing can be disassembled by unbolting the non-pinned MDF, sliding it off, and putting behind the sofa, then unbolt the pinned side.
Take off the table legs and store table tidily away.

Extras:
Paint the upper surface green
Glue and tack Edging round MDF (need 4x 3' lengths, 2x4' lengths. I think it comes in 6' strips, so 4 needed)
Depending what thickness MDF you used, you want the edging a little wider, to provide a lip. Paint it before attaching, and trim to size once in place
Counter-sink the bolt-holes so the bolts are flush with the surface.

You will probably have a 1-2mm gap at the board-join. We are thinking of getting some thin spongy-stuff (like you get round doors?) to put on each side here, to fill in the gap).
We tried to get some cover-caps to go over the bolt-holes so you can't see them in play, but have settled for putting scenery over them.

I hope you can understand this. We made it a while back, and weren't following any instructions, just making it up as we went along!
The pics will probably help.
We were lucky to get both the table and the MDF for free!

OK, just took a few pics. Hope these help:

EEEK! that harsh flash makes our wall look dirty!
#shows it to maid and refuses to pay her#
#realises we don't have a maid#
#shrinks in embarrassment#

The black edging is decorative architrave, painted black and "drybrushed" gold.
We painted the other side of the MDF grey, so it is reversible - this was probably the toughest bit ...
Put the table legs on, place boards on top, pinned but not bolted (as the bolt holes will NOT line up, unless you measured VERY accurate - we didn't measure at all!).
Drill through existing holes in MDF, to make new holes in table.

If you have any questions, let me know, here or in Private Message (here's probably better so others may learn from my mistakes )
As mentioned, we got free table and MDF.
Second-hand shops often have tables like this, and a 8x4 MDF is about £20-£30 i think, from local builders/timber merchant.
They may cut it to 6x4, and in half for you if you ask nice
The rest we bought from B&Q.

And just one more pic:

I agree with spire, the best boards to make are ones that you can do a million different scenarios on. your idea would be a really badass board, but really if you think about it, youd only get to play that one style really. Good luck on making. Ive also seen some people make the board out of that pink foam insulation boards. light and cheap

Easiest boards to do are city fight. Here's what you do.

If you have grey housepaint, Take the board outside (we used 2 4x4.5 boards for this... yes our board is over sized... but serviceable.) and just slather it with grey paint to make it look like concrete (kinda)

Whenever you get a piece of hardware, keep the styrofoam bits that you think will be useful for buildings.

Get LOTS of grey acrylic paint... this should come in at around 1 dollar for a bottle 3xs the size of gw pots of paint.

cover the entire surface of the building with grey paint (you don't need to be perfect, or make consistent coats, 'cause you won't see them anyways)

Get some grey textured paint, and lightly coat the "buildings" with it.

If you really want to, you can add details, but my friends and I made this board in like 4 hours, most of which was spent getting materials. Right now, we have 4 BIG buildings, 3 smaller ones, and enough random terrain so that we never get board... get it? Board!!! .... I need a life.

I made my own board from scratch a few months ago. Took me the better part of a day.
I wanted it to be raised from the floor to prevent any warping or edges raising when leaned on. I wanted the playing area to have a material finish and i wanted all the edges to raised... keeps those flying dice on the board.
I fixed two simple catch locks on either side of the board to stop it from moving. But as i found out after building it. This sucker does NOT move. You can dance a jig ontop of this board and it refuses to budge.

See attached image.

I use a table with a raised edge as well, it holds the 2 inch thick 2x2 foot foam boards we use in place and stops everything falling off!

See below.

Thanks for the advice. Thing is we already have a 4x4 board (or it might be 6x4) so we are going to try to do some thing special. Hmm raised board edges sounds like a good idea and thanks for the city fight board advice as we will use that for the city bits. anyone know how to make good looking buildings as all my attemt have disintergated when i attempt to use them?
btw lovely smashy weapons on the wall Druidic

Thank you, we do try :-)

There is another thread out there with a load more pictures on (the one about storing your minitures)

This is a, in my opinion, better drawing of what we are trying to achieve with our 40k board. As you can se we have a lower grassland, with trees bushes etc, cut in half with a river followed by a slope up to an Imperial City. As Yani mentioned it's kind of like the assault on Stalingrad. It will either be split into 6 time 2'x 2' or 3 time 4' x 2'. Which do you experienced gamers think will be best?

Many thanks,

The OC-D

a ruined imperial city can be made fairly cheap depending on how large you need it.


main coat would be simple, paint black, pva the whole section and gravel it.
used lots of cut up sprues as rubble.
olg ruins that came with battleforces can be picked up cheap
as can the crashed aquillia.

ill have a look on ebay for you later, see what kinda stuff i can dig up.

also, the old kit sprue was nice, contained barrels, ammo crates and all manner of junk along those lines.

small pack of WH barbed wire, and thats the cite done pretty quick, and cheap

I wish I had photos of me and my then-best-friend's tables from when we were kids.

I had a fixed 8x4 table in my parent's huge spare room, with a hardwood frame holding it all up and storing all of my GW stuff underneath. Dad made that for me Now disassembled and all my stuff in the loft these days.

My mate made a games table in Tech lessons that had a 4x4 central area and hinged 2x4 sections that could hand down at the sides when not in use and be raised and supported by the attached swing-out legs for WFB and W40K. Both had pros and cons, but I was always secretly envious of his.

The advantage with a fixed table is "No packing it away when half way through!" :-)

Whilst people are talking about making a fixed table we have decided form the outset to have one that can be broken into pieces because:
1. We can work on one bit whilst another is drying, gluing etc.
2. We can transport it easier, there are going to be six of us, six different houses, that will want to use it, if we had a fixed table we would all just have to keep visiting the same guy's house, and that's not fair on them.
3. Finally, none of us have space for a permanent 6' x 4' table, it's just not practical.

So, back to topic, what is the best way to keep it together when we are playing on it, that is the only problem with the whole board set up I am struggling with. Do we just push it together and hope for the best or is there an easy clip system that can be made?

Many thanks

The OC-D

Druidic wrote:The advantage with a fixed table is "No packing it away when half way through!" :-)

Of course, the disadvantage with a fixed table is that you can't pack it away
Ours takes up the whole lounge, so we have to arrange a time when no-one wants to leave the house for a few hours, and there is nothing on TV!

From what it sounds like you will want a collapsible table like the ones found in school mettings etc, they are pricey but stand up well and don't take up too much space. You can buy one from staples if you have one near where you live (not sure if they have Staples Business Depot ini Britain)

Something like this:


We have one like that that splits in half in the middle as well as having the legs fold under and can then be carried like a suitcase. As for the gaming surface, a solid peice of 6x4 plywood (is that mdf?) is ideal. Simply nail or screw some raised edges onto the side of the board to fit the final parts, the styrofoam board peices.

Now, these are the peices that will actually make you terrain. They are incredibly easy to do so don't be overly worried about it. Just get a bunch of sheets of pink or blue styrofoam (not the white kind found packages) from you local build store. Get about twice the area of your board. (So 2-3 sheets of 6x4 boards.) Then cut all of the boards into 2x2 or 2x4 peices. (if you want thirds or quarters, you can mix it up when you play as they will both fit in the space.) For grass, simply get some of the pre flocked paper you can find a a hobby store and either glue or melt on. (the stuff I have is melted on with a hairdryer) If you want hills then simply cut off a peice of pink foam from the spare boards and use these to build up the hills, use quite a few if you want higher hills or one or two if you want a lower one. to make the slope of the hill, cut the stacked foam boards about an inch to three inches shorter everylevel to make a stepped slope then smooth out the with a knife to make a gradual slope. Cover with the pre flocked stuff and presto, insta hill. For the city parts, to breate rubble piles mix in cut up peices of the Gothic city scenery and lareg grain sand and small pebbles then panit a deep grey and then drybrush codex grey overtop. For buildings, I would use the gothic scenery set. For the ground sections cover the parts with large grain sand (using pva glue to stick it in place) and then colour greyish black adding rubble piles in places. To create a trench system make the hills again and cut inch and a half wide (not sure on the depth) trenches in the foam. Use a sand and PVA glue filler to make the mud for the trench. You can use small wire and tooth picks to make marbed wire if you want.

For the river parts cut the river into the foam levels so that its one or two levels of foam down. I think a steep slope would be better this time. Then make the bridges across them. for paths, pva glue some dark brown sand into place over the Green Flock paper.

For the board you described I would use 2x4 foot sections instead of the 2x2 because of the three large set peices.


Here is a good tutorial using similar methods.

I would suggest steering away from permanent rivers. It might look better but it will severly limit the way you can setup your terrain.

I made a jungleterrain board (8 X 4) with rivers that could connect in a bucketloads of different ways and in the end I just wished they weren't there.

It might not look as good but do yourself a favor and make the rivers on removable MDF or somesuch.

da-chaos-orks wrote:Well one bit of advice is to pick up the 40k ruin set you know the old one everyone dissed! get that smash it up cut it up and you have ureself a good pile of odds and sodds even big old pillers so you can litter you board with them.Not to familier with the scene from enemy at the gates you got any pics so we can help you more

Spend $250 and then smash your purchase into little bits? No thanks. If you want lots of rubble, I'd suggest making it out of plaster, which is cheap (you could cover an entire 6'x4' table an inch deep for about $30) and quick. (The seemingly pointless aforementioned project could be accomplished in an afternoon) Details on doing this and more cool terrain things can be found here.

Druidic wrote:I use a table with a raised edge as well, it holds the 2 inch thick 2x2 foot foam boards we use in place and stops everything falling off!

See below.

That room is amazing!

If your making stuff out of plaster anyway Hirst Arts Moulds, brilliant for terrain, invest in the moulds, and then make as much terrain as you want!

Old Man Ultramarine, Thanks, took a lot of time and a lot of cost, and STILL not done :-)

For the final time, WE ARE NOT BUILDING A TABLE!!!! The project is going to be floor-mounted so a table is not needed.

Thank-you Ratbarf for actually answering my question, if you think 2' x 4' are going to be better then we will do that. We have decided against doing a modular river because I have 6' x 4' of flat grassland on boards and a mate has 6' x 4' on a GW grass mat so we want to build something unique, special and with a purpose.

Secondly, although I thoroughly appreciate the advice, I am no stranger to building terrain. Due to my brothers model railway layout I now have tons of flock, static grass, ballast, sand, trees and lichen, so for me the grassland is going to be easy.

Finally, does anyone in England know where we can get large quantities of paint, foamboard and plasticard, other than ebay? Hobbycraft is an OK shop but is there a better stockist of those sorts of things?

Many thanks,

The OC-D

We found B&Q good for large quantities of paint.
I don't think they stock foamboard or plasticard though.

As you can probally guess ocd is project manager and as such has a better idea of what we are doing than i do
Just to confirm we arnt going to be making a table as no one responsible has anywhere to store it.
As ocd says we need to find paint, plasticard, foamboard ect and at a low cost as we have a very limited budget. Also finding cheep GW buildings would be nice.

btw thanks to everyone for their advice

When you say Foam Board, are you refering to the paper faced stuff or the pink thick foam?

B&Q do the pink foam, but not the paper faced board.

Go into your local ASDA or Tesco and ask, they may let you have one of their display boards for free which is nice foam board, just needs a little more painting over!

Plasticard, try www.hobbys.com, not sure if they do plasticard, but pretty much do everything else!

The other option is do a google for local model stockists, if your brother does Model Railways, ask him he could advise somewhere local.