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Hi, I hope I'm posting this in the right place. I don't frequent forums much, and I'm very new to this one. Please let me know if I'm doing the right thing and if i'm not I'll delete it/move it.

I was looking for some advice making a gaming board for my boyfriend for his birthday. He's very into 40K, and I'm quite crafty, and though I think it'll be very difficult I love a challenge and I think it will be really special. I've got some ideas on layout and construction after doing some research, but I don't play 40k myself and while I know some about it I want this to be as accurate and as useful of a present as possible. I'd hate to spend so much time, money, and effort on something that won't even be any good. I would ask him, but I'd like it to be a surprise. My question is, when I'm designing this board, what kind of elements should I include that are imperative to gameplay? I know (think) there are some things like cover, difficult terrain, etc, but I would like to make sure I include all sorts of interesting elements so that he will enjoy this board. Do you have any suggestions of things I should definitely include? Thanks so much in advance.

First, Welcome to Dakka.

Do you have a theme in mind? Urban? Desert? Arctic? Demon/ash wastes? Jungle?

If you don’t have something specific in mind, how does your BF base his army? In an ideal world, you would want to match that. What army does he play?

Do you plan on making a whole table, modular sections, or both? The normal game of 40k takes place on a 4’ x 6’ table. One thing people do (and GW sells) is to make a bunch of 2x2 tile sections. This lets you shuffle them around to change up the battlefield, and makes storage easier. If you are doing a whole table, you might want to make it a bit bigger, so there is space on the sides for dice, books, and drinks. I’ve got a 4x8 myself, and the extra space on the sides is a nice thing to have.

You want to make sure there is space between any fixed features to actually maneuver units. So if want to do something like have a bridge over a river, or some sort of gate, it needs to be wide enough. Flat spaces should also be wide enough to perch a mini on, and slopes should be gradual enough not to have minis slide to their doom.

IMHO the best tables are those with enough stuff built in to give it life, but also has room for some loose scatter terrain that can be placed to spice things up.

Best of luck with your endeavor.

Very very nice idea. And very well covered by Nevelon.
I'll add that the best gaming areas can be broken down for storage. Don't be afraid to break it up into tiles, most people do. In the game, a little crack is invisible to the focused gamer. But tripping over a pool table sized obstacle in the garage isn't.

One of the mainstays of tabletop building is dense insulation foam. It's cheap, once coated with PVA it's solid, and it's most importantly light.

I'd also recommend leaving some smooth areas for him to place his own buildings. 40K buildings have a very specific look (and height), and it's likely he already owns some as part of his army. Some contain guns that are useful in play.

(I'd also recommend just saying "I want to build a table, but it's for a system I don't play" if you post elsewhere, especially on Facebook groups)
Dakka is pretty okay, but some places get a whiff of pink and all logic (and manners) fly out of the window. Sad and unfair, but for the sake of making a present, sometimes the best option.

Thanks for the prompt reply, and thanks for the welcome! I'll admit, I hadn't really thought of a particular theme, but had seen some that looked kind of ashy and barren, kind of a grey-brown, with jagged rock faces and maybe a crater or two, and I thought those looked really neat. I was going to keep it pretty basic so he could customize it with ruins, etc without too much clashing.

He plays primarily Grey Knights, but also Dark Eldar and sometimes Space Wolves. As far as I know, most everything is a dark gunmetal color. I'm not sure if that helps or not with theme.

I had definitely intended on making modular sections because of limited storage space, but I hadn't thought of making them able to be swapped around to customize game play and make it more interesting. That's a good tip.

So all in all, basic terrain that allows full units to perch safely and room to maneuver? That seems doable. I was most worried about it being boring but it sounds like if I can make the tiles moveable I won't have to worry too much about that, and he can add terrain elements.

Thanks for the advice!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Buttery Commissar wrote:
Very very nice idea. And very well covered by Nevelon.
I'll add that the best gaming areas can be broken down for storage. Don't be afraid to break it up into tiles, most people do. In the game, a little crack is invisible to the focused gamer. But tripping over a pool table sized obstacle in the garage isn't.

One of the mainstays of tabletop building is dense insulation foam. It's cheap, once coated with PVA it's solid, and it's most importantly light.

I'd also recommend leaving some smooth areas for him to place his own buildings. 40K buildings have a very specific look (and height), and it's likely he already owns some as part of his army. Some contain guns that are useful in play.

(I'd also recommend just saying "I want to build a table, but it's for a system I don't play" if you post elsewhere, especially on Facebook groups)
Dakka is pretty okay, but some places get a whiff of pink and all logic (and manners) fly out of the window. Sad and unfair, but for the sake of making a present, sometimes the best option.

Oooh. Thanks for the advice. Obviously I'm a but naive I suppose. And I definitely was thinking of using foam and pva, so I'm glad to hear that's a good idea. Thanks!

I think a really nice idea would be to take a look at how your boyfriend bases his miniatures and reproduce that style/theme, so that his miniatures blend perfectly into the table.

tuxedokamen wrote:
Thanks for the prompt reply, and thanks for the welcome! I'll admit, I hadn't really thought of a particular theme, but had seen some that looked kind of ashy and barren, kind of a grey-brown, with jagged rock faces and maybe a crater or two, and I thought those looked really neat. I was going to keep it pretty basic so he could customize it with ruins, etc without too much clashing.

He plays primarily Grey Knights, but also Dark Eldar and sometimes Space Wolves. As far as I know, most everything is a dark gunmetal color. I'm not sure if that helps or not with theme.

I had definitely intended on making modular sections because of limited storage space, but I hadn't thought of making them able to be swapped around to customize game play and make it more interesting. That's a good tip.

So all in all, basic terrain that allows full units to perch safely and room to maneuver? That seems doable. I was most worried about it being boring but it sounds like if I can make the tiles moveable I won't have to worry too much about that, and he can add terrain elements.

Thanks for the advice!

How much terrain to have on a table is one of those questions that gets brought up a lot. It’s complicated by the fact that they change the recommendations in different editions. One that I like to use is to have 1-3 features per 2’ square. I think that’s the standard from an edition or two ago, but makes for a nice looking table. So if you want to go with that suggestion, having one feature baked into a tile, and the extras added via scatter terrain works well. But having one or two plain ones, or a couple of cluttered ones would not be out of place, especially if done well.

When I was asking about how his army was based, I was talking about what’s around their feet, not the base color. Sorry for the confusion. As an example, I arctic base my Ultramarines:

So if I was going to build a table, I’d want them to have a home field advantage (or at least look at home) so would base the table white, have features like ice cliffs, coniferous trees, etc. Some people base their armies to look like they are fighting though a ruined city, with rubble, twisted re-bar and shattered concrete. If you wanted to build a table to make them feel at home, you would probably have streets built onto the table, with more ruins, buildings, etc.

If he has multiple armies, you might not be able to match all of them.

Cool gift, he'll love a game board, particularly if it's modular. The materials mentioned above are ideal if you can handle it, here's what the development is going to look like as you do it:

Right Click > View Image on these, some of them are HD pics:

First of all, I really want to thank everyone for the responses. I was nervous posting in a forum I don't know much about, and I really appreciate how in-depth everyone was in explaining.

Lithlandis Stormcrow wrote:I think a really nice idea would be to take a look at how your boyfriend bases his miniatures and reproduce that style/theme, so that his miniatures blend perfectly into the table.

That is a great idea. I'll definitely try to get a closer look at his armies next time. I'm sure I can come up with a sneaky excuse. I bet he would love that.

Nevelon wrote:

tuxedokamen wrote:
Thanks for the prompt reply, and thanks for the welcome! I'll admit, I hadn't really thought of a particular theme, but had seen some that looked kind of ashy and barren, kind of a grey-brown, with jagged rock faces and maybe a crater or two, and I thought those looked really neat. I was going to keep it pretty basic so he could customize it with ruins, etc without too much clashing.

He plays primarily Grey Knights, but also Dark Eldar and sometimes Space Wolves. As far as I know, most everything is a dark gunmetal color. I'm not sure if that helps or not with theme.

I had definitely intended on making modular sections because of limited storage space, but I hadn't thought of making them able to be swapped around to customize game play and make it more interesting. That's a good tip.

So all in all, basic terrain that allows full units to perch safely and room to maneuver? That seems doable. I was most worried about it being boring but it sounds like if I can make the tiles moveable I won't have to worry too much about that, and he can add terrain elements.

Thanks for the advice!

How much terrain to have on a table is one of those questions that gets brought up a lot. It’s complicated by the fact that they change the recommendations in different editions. One that I like to use is to have 1-3 features per 2’ square. I think that’s the standard from an edition or two ago, but makes for a nice looking table. So if you want to go with that suggestion, having one feature baked into a tile, and the extras added via scatter terrain works well. But having one or two plain ones, or a couple of cluttered ones would not be out of place, especially if done well.

When I was asking about how his army was based, I was talking about what’s around their feet, not the base color. Sorry for the confusion. As an example, I arctic base my Ultramarines:

Spoiler:

So if I was going to build a table, I’d want them to have a home field advantage (or at least look at home) so would base the table white, have features like ice cliffs, coniferous trees, etc. Some people base their armies to look like they are fighting though a ruined city, with rubble, twisted re-bar and shattered concrete. If you wanted to build a table to make them feel at home, you would probably have streets built onto the table, with more ruins, buildings, etc.

If he has multiple armies, you might not be able to match all of them.

Oh, gotcha! That makes sense. Actually, funnily enough, he hasn't gone about doing the bases of his models yet, so as far as that goes, I think I might have somewhat free range. And, for the terrain, one terrain element per tile sounds like a good rule of thumb I can stick to and I'm glad to know that. Definitely gives me more of a guide when I'm designing it.

PrehistoricUFO wrote:Cool gift, he'll love a game board, particularly if it's modular. The materials mentioned above are ideal if you can handle it, here's what the development is going to look like as you do it:

Right Click > View Image on these, some of them are HD pics:

Spoiler:

Regardless of what type of rocky/mountain terrain you decide on, there definitely needs to be flat areas as mentioned for his own terrain placement. Also some of these pics are just to get the ideas flowing, as they're not technically modular:











You could also consider insulation foam to make some VERY cool terrain on some parts of the board, almost like a glacier or perhaps some sort of natural rock formation:

Wow, thanks for all the great reference pictures! Mine may not be that sophisticated, but that definitely give me good ideas. The lava river with bridge thing is really cool if I could pull that off. Its not my first large hardware project and I definitely have an artistic slant, so I'm hoping although the board will be a challenge I can handle it, and it'll be fun. I think I'll make a small practice tile to work out some of the techniques so I don't mess anything up big scale.