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I'm going to second the notion that GW hills are the most irritating piece of terrain. Your models will slip, slide and topple all over the damn place. Stupid things.

Not if you flock them well.

Please do not buy that board. Also who lets there kid work but wont let them use power tools? I kind of fear for that generation. Any ways buy some tools and do it any ways. You are seriously hindering yourself in this hobby if you are not allowed to use a hot knife, dremmel and maybe a skill saw. A jigsaw would work just as well. But hey it is your money spend it as you wish. Board looks great but I could built it for a fraction.

My question is this.

Why are you not allowed to build one? but yet your allowed to spend 500 on a game board?

that trows up a huge WTF flag to me.

Can we get a definition from OP please?

What does 'building your own board' entail?

The GW board looks great. If you have the money and are not wasting 99% of your earnings then go ahead and buy it. Personally I would suggest a battleworn/scorched conrete paint setting and decorate with lots of ruins and buildings

Personally I would just buy a gaming mat, some pro painted terrain pieces from ebay or something and play on a large wooden table. If you don't have a table, get some wooden board cut to size at a hardware store.

building your own board.

Hmm. should I define.

what you've said to me is to get mdf (which is harder version of chipwood/weak planks, no?) and make that into a board.

my mother (being my mother) doesn't want it to be anything that might damage her coffee table (being the only thing big enough to accept a game board comfortably.)

what I wanted to know, is the board suitable for up to four player games, of a reasonable size. (2000-ish points)
I didn't want suggestions for what I can do instead.

as for the extra terrain, I already have 4 extension plates (the add-on ones) so I could have a nice 4'x10' or 6'x6 and one board for display.

I've played Apoc games on the standard 4x6 RoBB. If you want large points games, just be more considerate when placing terrain.

THANK YOU. GOOD ADVICE THAT I ASKED FOR.

Have fun with your board! Guess you have to flock it somehow so that miniatures don't slide off the grades. I prefer desert colour for 40k.
BTW here are some cheaper alternatives that I use a lot:
Hotz Mats (felt, I use European Fields and Western Town mat without streets and grid): http://www.hotzmats.com/felt_purchase_mat.html
Sabol just discontinued a nice battle mat "Sand" (60US-$ regular, 20$ discount), but you have to tolerate the big white letter advertising on one small side.

How big's the coffee table if you are gonna have 4 player Apoc games on top of it?

Being the wrong side of the tracks our coffee tables were about 4x2feet and stoot a couple of feet high.

You'll all be shuffling around on your knees

I know I will be when I make up a board from 2 bits of found hardboard t make a 4x4 table cos that is the max size my pokey gaff will allow and it will probably have to go on the floor

Captain Solon wrote:THANK YOU. GOOD ADVICE THAT I ASKED FOR.

No offence but it sounded like you had made up your mind and just wanted to hear someone say go for the board and mention how much you were spending. I may be wrong but thats how it looked to me.

its your money, but you could do much better than blowing 500 on a board and terrain.

Duce, first of it's deuce.

second off, my question was

"is it suitable for"

yes, I had made my mind.

I didn't ask

"what are the alternatives"

because I didn't really care.

Hah. my coffee table is 6'x8'x2'6", it's got four couches around it. (it's basically a small hall, not a lounge room.)

and, flocking isn't an issue. as for the hills, it's not like I couldn't put some kind of porch thing around the edges using balsa wood and a few paper clips. (with the aide of a hobby drill.) but, it really doesn't concern my if my models don't fit well, I'm a fan of weighted bases, and generally, all my bases have a big enough slab of metal to stop them being top-heavy and tumbling, even on an angle.

I made my own board for 60 Oz Dollors (£35) and you have a lot more options than the ROB. It folds in half and fits behind my desk.

Here is a picture. I just need to paint the river.


They are very easy to make, and you can even add a hinge so they fold out. They did not the table top and do not damage the furniture.
You just need to convince your parents that you are old enough to carry a couple of pieces of wood around.

or you can completely ignore the rest of this post.

You can easily build a game board that's the same thing to what GW sells for less than $100 with some wooden boards, some dry wall plaster, foam board, and some spray paint. I just finished one and it's an easy process (and I was being fancy, having the hills as part of the board. You could just take a piece of wood and put some hills together with some foam board and it would probably cost less than $50.

The GW boards are not worth what they cost. They never will be. You're still doing all the work of putting the board together yourself at 6x the cost.

If you want a cheap board, just find a sheet of mdf or ply wood that fits your needs and buy some
Textured spray paint. Captain its not to hard to find mdf as everyone else said just head down to
your local home depot or whatever you got down there, and ask for mdf. Then after you get your
mdf, ask for spray paint. Its not that hard bro!

I can post pics if you want of the finished product just ask.

The GW board is

Expensive
Not flexible
Can scratch tables -- get a protective table cloth to put under any board GW or home-made which you want to put on a good tabletop.
Needs a lot of work to finish it.

However you need no craft skills to complete it. Just slop a coat of PVA on top and put a load of rough sand and flock on it and you're done.

And everyone keeps ignoring the OP: he does NOT want to make a board like RoB, and has stated this many times.

Yes, you can grab MDF and a load of scenery, and make a flat board - but LS doesnt want this, apparently.

RoB board does look very, very good, is very sturdy AND easy to paint / flock to look good, as the textured surface helps a lot.

edit: I meant to say the other "comparable" plastic board products from other vendors are *hideously* flimsy, as they are all vacuum formed - meaning eggshell thin terrain features. Having had a metal Warjack go through a hill when it was placed there (not dropped, placed) on a board set costing £120 for the same size, the extra £30 seems very much worth it.

It is also fairly flexible - there are a good set of configurations that work.

The club we have has a load of polystyrene board pieces, and while these are relatively cheap and flexible, they chip very esaily, especially around the corners - perfect for losing dice through. Hence theyve just bought a metric ton of battle mats instead!

I've got the RoB board, the most iv'e fit is 6000 points of models (3000 vs 3000) on the 4'x6', but There was penty of room for more. I normally play 3x 1500 point games with 4-5 of the cities of death building's + baricades + craters ect and there is still plenty of room. I got all of it out of lazyness but its perfectly sufficient, I cant see myself building my own now I have it. Its easy, quick to get to a standard to game on. If you can afford it and don't mind having the fixed hill's (I normaly just put them in the 4 corners and ignore them most of the time ) then It's not as aweful as most others seem to be saying

Thanks for some real question answers, I'm glad someones finally read my post.

thanks for the tip about the protective cloth, I'll have to remember that, @kill.

As for the surface, I was going to go:

Skull white SP for the hills and such
Textured paint for the hill edges and little crops where the land is scarred.
snow static for the flocking and burnt grass/snow static to stimulate ground that has been damaged/had explosions and such. but I like the board, and I'm relatively okay with the small number of configurations, I like the idea of four corners hills or plateauing hills. I'ts all good for me.

I bought my RoB because I wanted tough portable gaming board. It does that very well. It also sits well on a substantially smaller table. (3x5 is more than enough support)

However:
Dice bounce all over the place.
Tank and metal models slide down the hills
lack of flat space means that terrain pieces cannot be placed on much of it
OMFG the skulls!!!!

If transporting it isn't a major requirement then I would not recommend it.

BTW, you will need something to put between the layers of board sections when you pack it up or they scratch the crap out of each other just being put away. I use sheets of bubblewrap but anything would do.

One of my former housemates got one of these boards back when they first came out. They seem pretty sturdy to me, and I was seriously considering buying one a couple of months ago when I moved to Virginia and was looking to get a board for our new house.

I wound up making a simpler one, which has turned out to be a good decision since I've yet to host a game at my place, but if you have the money and like the design of the thing, I say go for it!

Just got one of these second hand, seems pretty cool

problem is no clips lol -_- and GW dont sell or provide spares!

Sup threadnomancer? Look at the date of the last post before adding your own.