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I am going to start building my gaming table finally, and not quiet sure on how to paint the foam. I am useing the Large sheets you can buy from Lowes/Home depot ((insulation foam board pink and or blue)) Should i base coat it with a actuall house paint ((latex) or perhaps use a air brush with GW paints? (Acrylic base) i have done a bit of experimenting myself and so far ended up with alot of glues, and spray paints eating and melting the foam test chunks.

Seal the foam board with PVA before you spray or glue anything onto it. this will prevent the foam from melting. It can also strengthen the foam.

I use a latex house paint (flat) with a 2" or 3" brush (whatever's handy). I start with a black layer of Rustoleum, then layer of whatever color I want (last one I had Lowe's color-match Goblin Green), then drybrush on cheap acrylic craft paints like Folk Art or those type of brands (Like $2 for a pretty darn generous bottle, plus as much of a color range as you could ever want at my local hobby stores).

Durable and looks good, although you do need to watch out for sharp things punching holes in your board.

One thing I like to do is add a sand texture. I just paint a smallish area and cover the wet paint in sand. Then let it dry, shake off the extra, and paint the 2nd layer of color right on top of the sand. It really helps your painted foam from looking like painted foam.

As long as it isn't from and arasol can and you just use PVA elmers glue, you will be fine.

Thank you for the help so far folks. What i plan on doing is creating a City type table, but only a small corner of the table will actually have buildings. The rest will be one massive crater from a Orbital Bombardment, then pock marks of tons of tiny craters everywhere. Atleast this is my first draft of a idea on paper. Have not decided yet which type of buildings (home made or 25$ a pop from GW) I have a lot of chunks laying around i am going to test different painting styles with. Although i do have another question. I see textured paint talked about alot. How thick is it /and or difficult to work with? Within the city area i would like everything to have somewhat nice clean sharp lines and such(And yes much battle dmg with rubble and all) But on the crater side i want the look of torn up earth, but without the uneven playing surface. I am quiet sure a nice grit of sand will do this But was just wondering if this textured paint can cut out a few steps or not.

My friend made a beautiful table and to texture it, he just laid down two layers of play sand and painted over it.