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Topic.

Obviously the woody boards you use for the base (forget the name) would be good for the entire thing but that would 1) get a tad expensive quick and 2) be rather difficult to cut into a lot of shapes without a bandsaw or something fancy.

I thought about using foamboard but i fear it may be too soft.

Foam core board works well on top of a hard wood. If you layer it you cam create hills etc.

I use house insulation, the really firm stuff. It's blue, made by Dow. Costs about $45 a sheet but that gets you about 24 square feet... 3 inches thick. Cuts well with a sawzall, or a saw. It makes amazing terrain and melts well with lacquer thinner for those great burned out craters!

You can get plasti-card sheets in a large variety of thicknesses at most train stores. or online ebay retailers, the thicker sheets are quite rigid and work well to base pieces of terrain on. i just draw random sizes / shapes on it and cut them out with heavy duty kitchen shears (scissors) it stands up well to abuse and transports easily. and more importantly it doesn't warp from layers of glue / paint like some porous materials will.

Form core,like what they use for poster backing. I love that stuff. At a craft store like Michael's in the US, it can be expensive, but I found some really good 1/2 inch stuff for $5 a sheet there that I'm about to use for bases. The thinner stuff I get at the Dollar Store, cheap and works great for buildings.

House insulation, from the hardware store. Really cool.I'd use more of it if I had storage space.

OMG the amount of junk - I have bins of interesting things that I have collected over the years. Small driftwood from the beach (I live near the ocean) great for trees, dirt, sand, cool rocks, wire, glue containers, laundry soap containers, plaster "rubble", cheap beads or jewelry, balsa wood, toys, etc.

Ceiling tiles, can be messy, but hold paint well, don't get them wet with water or it'll soak it up and crumble to muck.

Foamcore is far from bulletproof, but it's reasonably stiff (especially for its weight) and the paper covering the faces is pretty robust. With solid construction techniques and less than barbaric handling, foamcore buildings will stand up to years of gaming.

If you're looking for natural features, instead, the extruded foam insulation boards (the ubiquitous pink/blue stuff mentioned above) will serve you much better. Projecting corners are prone to wear and thin sections can snap if unsupported, but the stuff is pretty resilient - certainly good enough for terrain applications like hills and rocks.

By "the woody boards you use for the base," are you referring to MDF? If so, it's great for basing scatter terrain, but that's about all I'd use it for. It doesn't take much to work it into rough shapes and clean up the edges, but it's more trouble than it's worth for complex shapes when something like styrene sheet or foamcore would serve just as well, if not better.

Add in plasticard and that's most of the common terrain construction materials covered. Other things can and frequently are used, from cardboard, plaster, and wood to recycled food containers, but those are a bit more situational, I'd say.

More specific ideas about what, exactly, you want to build will yield more specific recommendations, but you really can't go wrong stocking up on any of the above.

One of the groups I play at has a fully modular cityfight board made entirely from foam card, and while it's taken a little wear and tear, it looks great and is really easy to work with.

Foam core board, im assuming thats different from just foam board you find in walmart? that stuff is kinda soft, which is why i was hesitant to get it. Actually it might be the foam card im thinking of Paradigm mentioned, as that sounds familiar.

I thought about using plasticard but only plasticard i can find gets rather expensive when you go thick enough for it to hold some weight (as in 1/8th or thicker). Unless you know a website i can order it in bulk for a reasonable price, i'd rather avoid that stuff as i bet i'd spend a couple hundred for the plasticard alone to build a boards-worth of terrain (this would be excluding any additional stuff i tack on like grass, sand, busted models, water effects, etc etc).

I have some of the blue house insulation (though sadly all i could find was 1/2inch thick) but i'd rather use that for hills and rubble, not walls as it seems kinda floppy to me for that. Upside is i got a lot of it as the only sheet i could find was HUGE - as in i had one hell of a time carrying that even with the winds low enough where you wouldnt even notice it lol.

The most interesting terrain in my collection I found at garage sales. You can find solidly constructed toys that can be easily converted into terrain. Take a look at my blog in my sig for some examples.

I have used foam core and foam insulation several times but they had a short lifetime and started to look ragged very quickly.

I prefer MDF to base and plaster to flesh out my terrain. I bought a scrollsaw for 70 bucks on harbor freight which allows for some very detailed pieces. The scroll saw may not be cheap but the plaster is. I got a big bag for ten bucks and it has lasted for years. Its called Fix-it-all and it is available at home depot. It is very hard when dry and easy to chisel into rock like shapes or cover with fake grass. You can find precut scraps of plywood or MDF for your base and then add plaster to make your hills. One draw back is that plaster is heavier than foam.

Issue with that is its usually a bit more work than its worth to make them actually look like theyre suppose to be in the 40k universe - that, or take a lot of stuff you normally dont have THAT much of to fix up (green stuff, puddy, etc). My FLGS has a lot of packing material terrain, for the most part they look fine but some of them are deathly obvious its something that was salvaged from the trash can lol. Hell, one of the bunkers is an upside down plastic to-go bowl rofl.

I intend to use plasticard at least somewhat because of raised details n whatnot requiring some thin material. If i can find a place that sells foam core i'll use that stuff i guess. Some of the Flames of War players at the FLGS have a city board made of that stuff, they treat their terrain gingerly and its, according to them, lasted them about 2 years and still hasnt weathered away.

interesting website for terainy stuff http://www.terrainthralls.com/Tutorials%20folder/Tutorials.html

There are literally tons of great terrain channels on youtube - just do a search on terrain.

I make a lot of terrain, and even do terrain commissions and have even won awards for my stuff.

The answer depends upon what type of terrain and look you are going for.

For example, if you were going for a clean city look, or a high tech hanger of very high detail (i.e. for star wars or infinity) I would use a lot of plastic card, very precise cut pieces etc.

If you wanted to make a valley with a river in it, thats insulation foam, flocking, putty, plaster, water effects, etc.

It all depends on what you want to make, and how much detail the piece needs. (a clean urban building needs a lot of panel lines,and needs to look un-damaged - this is better foamcore and maybe clad with plasticard or cardstock) but a ruined building, or a desert building can be more gritty, or damaged, so that might be insulation foam, or a mix of foam core and other materials, depending on how much rubble or texture...etc.

In making terrain the main factors are;
* game friendly (has to be usable, models fit, etc.)
* looks good
* durable
* easy to store or transport.

Pick one...maybe two.

If you have more specific questions can give some better answers.