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So, I'm wondering, has anyone been to one of these? I'd rather like to know what its like.

I've been aiming to pick up a Realm of Battle board for a while now. While I know I can likely make my own much cheaper, I'm not >that< confident in my ability, and being essentially a single mother, my time is rather precious!

So, I was pondering making a day of it, traveling up to Warhammer World with kid. Would you say the extra £100 ontop of the board price is worth the use of their supplies and guidance? And of course, the ever important free lunch in Bugman's.

So yes, anything anyone can tell me about their experiences would be most welcome!

I'm keen to hear about people's experiences at this workshop too. Apparently you get 40 pots of paints to use, and tuition etc so although it is a lot of money I don't see it as a waste or anything. Plus it's the ideal birthday present to myself

I think the €100 really depends on what style you want to do the board as.
I did mine up as a snow theme and it didnt come near €100 extra for mats.
If I recall I used
one can of black spray
one can of white spray
packet of bluetac
water effect gloss
one tub of blue grey
one tub of blue
one large tank brush



I think that totals about €40 and it was very easy and fast to do (and trust me I am not a great painter/modeller).

However if you do get 40 pots of paint and very 1 on 1, indepth and well instructed tutorial I'd say go for it. If you have the money it sounds like a really nice day out

Personally, I would say no. There are several other factors to consider, namely, are you planning on doing it all in one day - that is to say, travel to Nottingham, attend the course and travel back on the same day? The RoB board is quite large and ungainly even zipped up in its bag so manoeuvring it onto a train might be hard (assuming you are going by train). If you are planning on stopping the night and coming back the next day, then you have to factor in accommodation costs. If you are going by car then you have to factor in petrol costs and travelling time.

To be honest, if you are set on getting a RoB board then it is very easy and simple to do it yourself - it is more the time and space consideration that is a problem. There is an excellent article here on Dakka by Panic that is a step by step tutorial on how to paint/flock the board:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/wiki/en/Terrain:_GW_Realm_Of_Battle_Board:_Standard

The wife and I followed this and managed to do it in the course of two nights' work, a couple of hours each night + drying time - it's pretty quick to do. All you need in addition to the board is a GW scenery kit which is a lot cheaper than the Warhammer World cost!

Travel is a fairly good point. It'd make whats already a fairly long event into an ungodly long day!

That guide does look quite good. I suppose part of me does want someone there to go "No no no, don't do that" if I'm doing it wrong, but I should have a bit more faith in myself than that. :x

Me and the kid talked about it on the way to school. While he wants to visit Warhammer World, he rather likes the idea of it being "our" project, so it seems like doing it at home might be the way to go, and just arranging a separate trip up there.

Couple that with the fact I could get the board for around £115 from Darksphere... That is a huge, huge difference in savings. Savings meaning "More money for my Marines and his Eldar".

A few questions to consider, will he have enough room to keep the board up? if so then getting MDF 2x4 sheets and painting them the colours you both want is prefferable. This saves £ for armies and for terrain (And you don't have those preset hills to worry about). It also mean syou both can make your own terrain adding to the project.

If the board has to eb taken down what about smaller 2x2 mdf segments so you can store them under a bed ro the likes? again cheaper and hideable.

Are you both set on the realm board? if so then the cost side is excluded but if not then you could as mentioned save cash for other stuff. and building your own board with your son could prove be cheape rand alot more fun as you carve hills and paint them together.

Regarding the masterclass day, don't worry if you're own paintnig skills aren't that good, many of us are the same and make do with quick and nice boards... my boards just gras mats stuck on to them and hiills are brown painted foam with some light drybrushing, buildings are foamboard and painted and they do fine for me.

The time and costs for attending the day will add up to much more than the price of the board, and you both might not get the time together maknig the board if you are working by GW's time restrictions.

Clearly for an extra £100 your lunch won't be free, but the food at WW is quite good.

As for the course I can't say but I have heard that the other masterclass (vehicle) courses were good. I must admit to being tempted by GWs courses myself too, the sculpting one particularly so.

I would say if you have the money and the space to put a painted RoB then this should be a good day out. Cynics will disparage it I'd imagine but £250 for a good day out, new/better hobby skillz and a wargames table seems like a good price.

If you are on a tighter budget there is the very good Forgeworld modelling masterclass book which shows some great insights to the boards in FWs books or you can still pick up the GW "How to make wargames Terrain"'in allot of places.

Not to derail the thread, but out of curiosity how far away is Warhammer World from say London(I'm assuming London as being the "center" of the UK)?

I understand that Petrol is more costly there, but here in California, driving 2 hours to go somewhere for the day isn't a big deal. Anything short of a 3 hour drive is easy and we don't really think twice about it. But then there's the saying, " In the USA 100 years is a long time, in Europe 100 miles is a long distance".

That being said, I can't imagine spending $150 in materials to finish a board that already costs $290. about $40 or 50 would cover paint and flock plus some water effects to cover up the Skullhammer bits.

If you get an 8x4 board in somewhere like Wickes they will cut it for you - so you can get three 2x4 boards and a slightly smaller but almost 2x4 board for about £12.

Then you can spend another tenner to get a 5x8 piece of felt to place over the board. Then make the scenery.

Alternatively you could texture/flock and paint the boards.

I agree about making your own if you can muster up the time and energy for it. All you really need is a sheet of plywood, a 6' fold up table and some textured paint and you are ready to go for a basic table.

My biggest problem with the RoB board besides the skull pits is the fact that the hills are molded in and thus positioning them is limited. At my local GW they have all the hill sections in the corners, making them useless for anything short of cannons as everything else like bows and handguns are often out of range.

If the RoB had come with somewhat plain but textured tiles and then included the GW hills and a forest or 2, I'd buy one asap. It's just too limited as a modular table for my taste.

Aerethan wrote:Not to derail the thread, but out of curiosity how far away is Warhammer World from say London(I'm assuming London as being the "center" of the UK)?

I understand that Petrol is more costly there, but here in California, driving 2 hours to go somewhere for the day isn't a big deal. Anything short of a 3 hour drive is easy and we don't really think twice about it. But then there's the saying, " In the USA 100 years is a long time, in Europe 100 miles is a long distance".

That being said, I can't imagine spending $150 in materials to finish a board that already costs $290. about $40 or 50 would cover paint and flock plus some water effects to cover up the Skullhammer bits.

Thats pretty much it. I live in Essex (the county east of Greater London) and Nottingham is about 2 1/2 hours drive away without any major delays. Not a major journey but more that you would want to cover twice in one day and would cost about £50 in petrol in a medium sized (1.6l - 2l) car. For the Op (Enfield - north London) it would be about 2 hours.

In defence of the £100 on top of the board, factor in lunch/drinks (£15?) and paint/materials (£15-20?), that leaves you with £60-£70 for a day with arguably some off the best talents in the business. Not sure who is doing the RoB board but the sculpting one includes Trish Carden and Aly Morrison amounst others. Say thats 8 hours thats less that a £10 per hour, not bad when comapred to some of the work related training I go to.

I would love to spend 8 hours learning from Aly Morrison. It's a shame that they don't have some major hub here in the US. All we have are Bunkers and they are just stores with huge table space, nothing really great about them.

notprop wrote:In defence of the £100 on top of the board, factor in lunch/drinks (£15?) and paint/materials (£15-20?), that leaves you with £60-£70 for a day with arguably some off the best talents in the business.

And you end up with a board that has hills you can't move and no terrain to put on it.

The RoB is bad enough for the price. Adding an extra £100 to that is stupid, especially given what you could get (and make, even with Official GW Terrain) for the same price.

The key thing to remember about the RoB board is that in essence its 6 boards each 2' x 2'. Two are flat, two have 'left handed' quarter hills and two have 'right handed' quarter hills.

That's it (except the skulls, of course... ).

If you want to have a modular gaming board that is identical to the RoB except a: cheaper and b: fewer skulls a piece of mdf cut into squares by your local B&Q (or equivalent) and some insulation foam (from the same place) cut first into a big oval - ideally 3 or 4 foot on the longer axis and 2 foot on the shorter - and then into 4 quarters will give you the same result - the difference being you can customise to your hearts content

Good luck whatever you decide.

You can probably save yourself the trip by hiring some local talent to help you paint your RoB. I would assume that there are plenty of local Golden Daemon class painters would who help you with it for 50 quid. This leaves the other 50 for supplies.

I know that it'd be much cheaper to just scratchbuild a board of our own, but I'm frankly not confident I could get something done with a quality I'd be satisfied with. Some people do amazing stuff with a bit of foam, all I've ever been able to do is lumpy hills that make me sigh. Theres also the fact that we've always enjoyed playing on the RoB in stores. Their just nice despite the priceyness.

But, at the same time, the sheer saving we'd make from getting the RoB board and doing it at home is huge, more so if we get it from a discounted retailer. Saving near £180? That'll pay for the supplies to do it up ourselves, terrain.. Heck, we could get another entire board for that price!

I think its more like a treat then anything to do with value surely?

I mean, I wouldn't do it myself, but maybe get it as a present for someone else or something.

Your not paying for the board, your paying for the day out I think!

I would not do it myself but then again im a cheapskate.

H.B.M.C. wrote:

notprop wrote:In defence of the £100 on top of the board, factor in lunch/drinks (£15?) and paint/materials (£15-20?), that leaves you with £60-£70 for a day with arguably some off the best talents in the business.

And you end up with a board that has hills you can't move and no terrain to put on it.

The RoB is bad enough for the price. Adding an extra £100 to that is stupid, especially given what you could get (and make, even with Official GW Terrain) for the same price.

Alot of people would would put a value on the expert tuition as well.