Realm of Battle game board

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**njpc**

JonnyDelta wrote:I've found that foam boards can really take a beating.

I recently acquired a RoB, and will begin work on it shortly, the biggest factor included in my decision was space.

She Who Shall Be Obeyed did not grant me a lot of room for gaming and hobbying, and if I am going to host a game then I'll be moving boards and stuff in between rooms, A RoB just moves easier.
Not thrilled with the static hills, but will be supplemented with other modualr terrain.

Beware of the "She who shall be obeyed" I hear their "Siren" ability if fierce!

**chromedog**

For the price, I know I can definitely build a modular 8x6 board (so twice the size) including materials for hills, flock, paint, etc. I know I've made several 6x4s over the years for under $100.

But then, time is something I have (along with the skills to do it) and money is not something I would throw away on it.

And MGS, it sells for around $400 here.

If I wanted a pre-moulded game board I'd buy the Ziterdes SF set. Pre-painted and detailed as well, and for less than the GW one (shipping included).

**H.B.M.C.**

Yeah, what Grotsnik doesn't realise is that Australia pays 40% more for GW products than the UK or the US, and ordering from GW directly in either of those two countries garners us a significant discount (even more when you factor in free shipping and year-round discounts from companies such as Maelstrom).

Grotsnik also thinks that my beef with the Real of Lack of Imagination is the fact that it's so expensive. But that's only part of it.

I hate moulded boards with the fury of a thousand suns. As I said - those hills, they will always be those hills. You cannot move them, shift them, do anything with them. There are only so many combinations that you can set up, and you don't have much choice. Those fething skull pits? Yeah? Guess what - they'll always be those skull pits. You can't do anything them except put some other terrain on top of them. And if you're putting terrain on top them, why not just make your own board that's flat so you don't have to worry about it.

I have a 5X6 table and a 4X6 table. I have GW's green felt table cloth and a few other table cloths of different colours. I put them on the table, and from there I choose where my extensive collection of terrain goes. I don't have to put up with that damned hill always being there, or those skull pits always being there. I can create any theme for any world for any game I want - whereas the Realm of Lack of Imagination Board is always going to be the same hilly skull-filled nightmare no matter what you do.

**Sidstyler**

Did you see the Space Wolves terrain article on the GW site? They filled the skull pits with water effect so it would look like a frozen lake of skulls. I had to lol at that one, they seem to think that's one of the selling points...

**unite all action**

Duce wrote:I'd almost go as far to say it’s just as simple to build your own board as the realm of battle one.

Step 1;

Go to the following link (http://new.panelsystems.co.uk/newsc/index.pl?c=Craftfoam&p=265&a=i) and buy the box of 12 green 600x600x25. 6 of these will make you a 6x4 board, and if you want to use the other 6 you can get two boards worth (6x4) or three 4x4 boards.

Step 2;
Go to your local DIY or hobby shop. pick up a tub of PVA glue, a brush and some paint (Yellow for desert + sand, green for grasslands + flock or grey for city) coat the foam so it is sealed and sprinkle on flock or sand whilst wet. Leave to dry, recoat with watered down PVA glue. If doing city boards then two coats of grey paint (I found masonry paint is perfect and washes off brushes easily).

Step 3;

add any details you want. Also if you want pick up three 2foot x4 foot MDF boards like I did, add a small edging around the board and you can paint the board green, use one set of 6 tiles as desert, and 1 set of 6 tiles as a city, because they are 6x4 total they fit on top of the board and the edging holds them perfectly in place.

You now own an easy to put away gaming table which has three... Yes THREE different landscapes to fight on.

For roughly £70ish

Now, head to eBay, buy some resin rocks for rock outcrops and some model railroad trees, I found a set for 25 for a few quid. Buy them, and if you want some more foam, carve foam into hills, buildings, and base the trees on some thin MDF (Few £ in DIY store for huge board... perfect for basing trees and buildings on). paint with cheap acrylics and there you go. you now own terrain for deserts (rock outcrops and such) grasslands (forests and hills) and cities (walls an building ruins... if you throw in some foam board its even easier)

Total cost for all this is about £50 max and much less if you spend more than a few mins looking.

So what do we have now.

Say 3 nights or a weekend of building (Simple paint this flock that... it’s not hard so no one has an excuse since you would do it for the realm of battle board anyways!!) and you get the following

3 boards 6x4 which are easily storable (I admit a bit more storage than the Realm of battle board but its sill easily hidden under a bed or corner. so no one can claim it’s too much) and enough terrain for all three boards to make fun battlefields.

all for under the cost of one realm of battle board.

add in http://www.amazon.co.uk/Folding-Table-Trestle-6ft-DIY/dp/B000ZJ2TWS/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=kitchen&qid=1250076736&sr=8-4 if you had the room and no tables already and boom, three fully functioning gaming tables (This would work really well for club's since they would be the ones needing tables to put the boards on).

So what have we learnt... spend two days (Don't be lazy, it can be done over a week or two weeks... claiming you can’t do DIY boards is a lie. Anyone can since it’s the same thing you'd be doing to the realm of battle board) and you can build three times as much along with loads of terrain, for roughly £20 or more under the GW board cost. and that £20? buy a bottle of whiskey or some beers and a pizza and play on your new board!!!

Boom you have succeeded in making a terrain board. You have unlocked some new achievements:

-Made own board
-Gave GW expensive stupid hills already in place board the fingers
-Saved money for snacks
-Shown girls you are good with your hands (Don't flock them!! they don’t like that)

Duce tutorial done.

Must admit very impressed, that table looks really good come to mention it the foam doesn't look too bad either. Why is this the project you are currently working on?

**H.B.M.C.**

Sidstyler wrote:Did you see the Space Wolves terrain article on the GW site? They filled the skull pits with water effect so it would look like a frozen lake of skulls. I had to lol at that one, they seem to think that's one of the selling points...

Exactly. If you're modifying the Realm of No Imagination, then you're just making it worse.

**Scott-S6**

Personally, I really like my RoB. For me, it's big feature is portability - I can throw it in the back of my car without folding the seats down and it's not going to get damaged like foam core boards would, even with stuff stacked on top of it.

(that said, I do hate the skull pits. Mine were filled with black sludge and then water effects.)

**skrulnik**

I have thought of the RoB board, but I have a 6x4 tabletop from War Zone.

http://www.war-zone.com/shop/tabletops.html

I picked it up about 8 years ago, and it has minimal damage. I think it was $75 then, which I thought was expensive.
These are worth the price, because you have to put in zero effort and its good to go.

I do wish now that I had the 8' one so I could run 2 games of Warmachine at once.

**pombe**

Scott-S6 wrote:Personally, I really like my RoB. For me, it's big feature is portability - I can throw it in the back of my car without folding the seats down and it's not going to get damaged like foam core boards would, even with stuff stacked on top of it.

(that said, I do hate the skull pits. Mine were filled with black sludge and then water effects.)

This.

I'd love to do my own table, but I don't always game at my place, and I need a board that is portable and durable.

I have a DIY folding 6x4 board made out of insulation foam that folds up, but even then, it takes up the entire backseat of my car (it forms a "Z" fold and ends up as 2x4), and over the years, it has taken a beating. It has also accumulated multiple hand imprints as people forget that it's not a real table and lean on the board (hand of Gork/Mork?).

I know the RoB board is expensive, but I wanted something that would last. Sure, the paint may get damaged, but that can always be touched up (I don't intend on flocking my board...just base, drybrush, and clearcoat...durability is my made concern). It seems to be modular, it appears to be sturdily clipped together, and it fits nicely into it's own bag that looks like it would fit in the trunk of my car. Can anyone who owns one vouch for these observations? And for those who have owned one for a while and have clipped and unclipped it and moved it around: how does it stand up over time?

**Scott-S6**

Modular - yep, clips together - yep, trunk - depends on the car. A small hatchback may struggle. A larger hatch or estate, no problem.

The most important thing is to get some sheets of bubble wrap or similar to go between the hill pieces (the four hill sheets need to have painted sides facing each other in the bag and get scuffed very easily). Given the price it should have come with something...

**chromedog**

My table (and enough terrain to populate it) easily fits into the boot (trunk) of my car. Yes, it weighs a little more, but it also can handle more of a beating.

It isn't a large car (Hyundai excel 5 door), but the table doesn't actually take up any more room than the GW one.

While the Realm of boredom is 'modular' in that each piece can each be mated up to the others in various ways, there are some combinations that just look wrong and won't be used (hill part has to go with hill part, as up against 'flat' bit just looks bad).

My table is more modular. The hills are also modular - and the best part - I can leave them off it.

It comes down to those who want it "now" and those who prefer the satisfaction of "DIY".

**malfred**

I think it's fine if you want it.

However, they are death to Top Heavy metal models. But then
all GW hills are like that.

**delkwon**

I broke down & picked up a RoB Board, i know that it very expensive to say the least.

but on the plus side , i can break it down.toss it the wife's car.drive to my buddies house & get in a game w/o having to load up a 4' x 6' board into my truck.

the one thing i did to to "mod" my RoB , i wasn't really digging that pit full of skulls.

so i had a couple of the craters from the GW crater set & covered up the "skull pits" ,looks much better now!

**Duce**

@Unite, I'm almost done on my board system, got pic son the camera i keep forgetting to post up to support my claim its easy to do and looks just as good. So almost done on the Duce builds himself a gaming board which can be urban, urban canals, grasslands, desert, hive city and swamp. I'm a spoilt for choice lil guy.

To the rest claiming that the ROB board fits in the car and is easy to store. I'd like to point out the foam sections I linked are also the same size and thus would store the same. Along with the fact their hugely cheaper, can be flocked and painted just as easily and as H.B.M.C said, on the foam board you can cut some hills from a piece and put them where you want.

the foam works out just as much in term sof space. Cheaper, is more free in terms of placing scenery and needs the same amount fo work to be usable. (paint, flock, let dry, done)

I'm not being rude but I still stand by my claim that the ROB board is not needed, DIY boards are just as easy to make and use as GW's one.

bar needing a paint brush nd the paint / flock you do not need drills or anything else. The foam comes with a craft knife included, so cut some of the tiles into hills. paint board gree, paint hills green. Flock everything. let it dry.

and if you really want to protect it, put some pva glue on top watered down.

**Sidstyler**

Probably not "needed", but not bad to have around, either. My only problem with it is that the price skyrocketed twice after they first announced it, killing any chance of me forking out dough for it.

That and they thought skull pits would be awesome...they aren't.

**Newt-Of-Death**

I think I'll will definitely stick to my DIY boards then.

Never tried a foam board. Theyd look great and Ive seen many, but the Hand prits are one thing, and then your getting back to the whole permanent terrain thing.

I just got 3 2x4 boards of 15mm ply, covered them in loads of glue, sprinkled a good load of a mixture of modeling gravel, builders sand, and modeling cork onto the whole thing, sprayed the crap out of it with black, then a little bit of white (before the black dried), Then for the ultimate finish and increase of durability, I got some cans of textured spraypaint http://www.plasti-kote.co.uk/Product/pcode---4651/pccode---3620 (the dark grey one) and sprayed heavily. (but as you can see theyre as full selection of various terrain capable colours)

The result was a nice city waste land, that was flat, but not that awfully boring green sheet, and not just completely texture-less. Its also durable and can be stored horizontally flat against the wall of a garage, or behind the bed as somebody mentioned.

The realm of battle board does look nice, but I want loads of boards, and if everyone had their own selections, you wouldnt need to transport them.

Planets cant be transported so why should the boards?

Take your minatures on holiday!

Automatically Appended Next Post:
Also, as many have said;

Foam terrain is definately the best for hills and bases, tho bases should definitely be MDF or hardboard. NOT cardboard as it just isn't in the slightest bit flat.

**Newt-Of-Death**

Ok... change of plan.

My Granny just informed me that my home made gaming board has just been accidently thrown into a skip and taken to the dump last weekend, when my family were clearing out her garage.

.....

Looks like im at the beginning of an other DIY project after all!

Im actually looking forward to it.

So what do you's think;

Foam / No Foam (flock and gravel go without saying)

and

Urban (again) / Dirt / Jungle / Sand / Arctic

To use with the armys of Dark Eldar, Orks (bad moonish), Tau, Crimson Fists, Cadian IG.

**CadianXV**

Newt-Of-Death wrote:Ok... change of plan.

My Granny just informed me that my home made gaming board has just been accidently thrown into a skip and taken to the dump last weekend, when my family were clearing out her garage.

.....

I shouldn't laugh at your misfortune, but that is hilarious!

**Eldar Own**

If i had the money i'd get one but id rather spend the money on models. If you have the time and skill to create your own, go for it!

**Newt-Of-Death**

Tis hilarious!

Any suggestions for new terrain style?

**CadianXV**

Heavy Industry. Lots of pipes, cooling towers, raised walkways and cheque plating.

Never seen one and it would be incredible if done right!

Failing that, how about a remote bridge crossing? My FLGS did one of those and it was really effective.

**Platuan4th**

CadianXV wrote:Heavy Industry. Lots of pipes, cooling towers, raised walkways and cheque plating.

Never seen one and it would be incredible if done right!

My FLGS in Baton Rouge had one done(originally for Necro, saw lots of 40K use, too). It looked amazing, but took up so much room, they eventually had to take it apart. I think individual buildings were cut from the board and saved.

**karimabuseer**

Platuan4th wrote:
CadianXV wrote:Heavy Industry. Lots of pipes, cooling towers, raised walkways and cheque plating.

Never seen one and it would be incredible if done right!

My FLGS in Baton Rouge had one done(originally for Necro, saw lots of 40K use, too). It looked amazing, but took up so much room, they eventually had to take it apart. I think individual buildings were cut from the board and saved.

When 5th Edition was realesed, the WD issue around that time had a pretty good picture of a manufactorum area. Looked nice

**Newt-Of-Death**

Sounds good!

Always went for the urban oiley space factory look, so this time I've decided I'm either going to go for Ice world, or Rugged Mountainous Desert.

Ice world will envolve light blue undercoat with white spray and snow flock and glaciers and steel bridges and a radio outpost. Desert world would envolve Orky Shacks, oil riggs, GW ork barricades and that sort of stuff.

May be tempted to do both and also do a Jungle world with hints of Jurassic Park in it! But the boards would probably have to be 4x4. I ike the IDea of having variation.

Probably will buy one piece of GW scenery for each as a centre piece. Still have a 2x4 left of Urban that survived the dump!