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Got back into the hobby recently and have built myself a 6' 4' baseboard and gonna get a gaming mat for it and then use scenery to flesh it out. Much thanks to all the help from the community for information on mats and board building.

However, I have recently thought about where I am gonna go with terrain, and the mat will then go with whatever theme I use of course.

The project is mainly by myself but I have some friends contributing and wanting to play. Budget as ever is a big factor, and I would like to preferably make some scenery or buy some affordable scenery. If there are any themes that are easy to achieve through homemade scenery that even an amateur could make look good! A ruined city is of course relatively simple, and will keep in mind, but kinda wanna steer form that theme.

Any help and advice is appreciated

What mat did you get?

what themes are you looking into? what system or setting.

There is quite a lot you could do with literal garbage.

collected foam, cardboard, chit board, and Popsicle sticks.

quickest one i can think of that isnt a ruined city would be ether a badlands using extruded poly foam layered or even cardboard to making big los blocking zones and high ground, or aquarium plant jungles.



like this kinda thing. i recall a page in ether a white dwarf or the citadel book where they do this and you fill up the layers with Spackle to make fairly decent terrain.

also another theme might be some ork or industrial terrain.

 Desubot wrote:
What mat did you get?

what themes are you looking into? what system or setting.

There is quite a lot you could do with literal garbage.

collected foam, cardboard, chit board, and Popsicle sticks.

quickest one i can think of that isnt a ruined city would be ether a badlands using extruded poly foam layered or even cardboard to making big los blocking zones and high ground, or aquarium plant jungles.



like this kinda thing. i recall a page in ether a white dwarf or the citadel book where they do this and you fill up the layers with Spackle to make fairly decent terrain.

also another theme might be some ork or industrial terrain.

So have not bought the mat yet as waiting on a theme.

Sorry I should have been more precise, it going to be a 40k setting.

I am in the process of saving all the crap I usually throw away for that purpose, the image you have shown tells me why! That is a very clever idea and relatively easy.

By ork and industrial terrain do you mean themed or a specific terrain from GW?

I had the idea of making a warehouse silo type place, using pringle tubes and toilet roll cardboard!

By Industrial/ork i mean as a table theme.



take a mat like that and throw a bunch of



stuff like that made of balsa wood cardboard and corigated paper and you could have your self a really nice looking table for "cheap" its just going to take a lot of time putting together.

That mat could work for industrial stuff like this

or you could fill up a whole table with pvc pipe mazes and ramps


really up to your imagination.

wasteland would be very easy and cheap to do as well as being fairly ubiquitous so can fit in multiple systems but it will be very generic and boring.

Ork as easy or hard as you want it to be with the level of detail you are willing to put into it. will have lots of good los blocking and areas to squirrel away infantry for interesting games. but its going to be weird if you are not playing orks

Industrial would probably be the best go to for a dedicated 40k table but it can look really good or really bad. PVC pipes, electrical conduits scrap look good on their own kinda but its really obvious what something was made out of. the trick is putting the right details onto them to hide the fact that that tower is actually a pringles can.

Depends on your budget, but also your time/skill/ability. Some people have the materials, skill, and time to produce absolutely gorgeous home-made terrain. However, this often translates into "Well, just make it yourself, look how great mine is!". The reality is that a lot of people don't have the skills or abilities, or even the tools to make wonderful homemade terrain.

95% of the time, homemade terrain will look like...homemade terrain. And that's fine, depending on the level you want to build your table to.

MDF is very popular, because it's cheap. However, there is a vast gulf in the quality and indeed the price of MDF terrain.

This is what 90% of the stuff you'll see is:


But, spend a little more or search around and you can get stuff like this (pre-painted and includes the thatch material for the roof - with fully detailed interiors)


I'm a big fan of the oft-ignored "hard foam" stuff as well. GW used to sell a lot of terrain bits like that, probably built by Ziterdes. Micro-Arts Studio and Ziterdes both do some really nice large hard-foam pieces. These are lightweight, pretty robust and take paint well.


Ziterdes does some similar foam stuff and it's pretty slick (newer Fantasy line is much better in detail)


For hills and such you're still better off going with simple foam, or automotive upholstery foam and flock/paint.

A couple of cheapskate ideas:

Make some textured paint and throw it over everything. Easy way to make cardboard not look like cardboard.
My recipe is some leftover masonry paint, some sand, some pva and a bit of all purpose filler. I put a blob of black acrylic paint in to make it grey. It goes off like concrete and looks fine.
Other suggestion for general terrain - get a tub of ready mixed grout. Similarly good for creating texture and gives a craggy, rocky finish when dry.

There are also mdf kits that let you use parts like soda cans and pringles cans as additional parts too



also dont forget about pens, straws, paper clips and even cheap discount toys (thers a whole thread for that around here too)

but really what kinda budget you want to work with?

Cheapy fence and trees.
Trees made of actual sticks and scouring pads.

Thankyou for all the images, the use of pipes is a good one, and very effective.

I just had a look at MDF scenery, TTCombat was the site I found, it seems like a good option all things considered.

I like the use of both garbage and mdf together!

If you want cheap trees which look good - consider Woodland Scenics "tree" armatures. They come in a large bag depending on the scale you get (maybe 15-20 per bag?).

Skip the usual method of gluing and flocking the branches - just toss in some lichen and weave it among the branches (the armatures are meant to be bent around to simulate more realistic trees).

Based, sprayed and drybrushed...then toss on the lichen.


A sample from my Old West terrain collection. Very simple, yet effective. Don't glue it in - so you can yank it for winter scenarios or swap it out with fall coloured lichen if you desire. Not "dirt cheap" but well within a normal hobby budget. Available in a variety of heights as well - and some different styles of tree.

You could substitute the lichen for poly fiber. looks a bit cheaper up close but should work fine from a distance.

I have a whole bunch of assorted terrain ideas here - https://www.maelstromsedge.com/93/Terrain%20Building%20Articles/

...although mostly urban themed, so possibly not what you're looking for exactly, it might help for some ideas.

If you want to put your own buildings together I can recommend foamed pvc. There is a place near Newcastle that sells offcuts for super cheap.

I've been building a Necromunda board with the stuff and it works nicely



Also I second the cheap pvc pipes. Head to screwfix or similar and buy some big chunks of 15mm or 25mm plumbingnpipes and associated fittings for a few pounds and make a bunch of interesting linear features.

What kinda glue you use flinty?

i think its not sold in the uk but SCIGRIP makes some fantastic glues for PVC and styrine.

When I was making my board my local pet store had a clearance on a number of aquarium and terrarium items. For about $50 I got all the hills, plateaus, rocky outcrops, statues, and caves I could ever want. They are also super durable and prepainted. It steered me towards making a dessert themed board.

 Desubot wrote:
What kinda glue you use flinty?

i think its not sold in the uk but SCIGRIP makes some fantastic glues for PVC and styrine.

Standard superglue works fine on the foamed pvc. I've been using the gorrila glue gel stuff on the plumbing products and it seems to be holding well.

Another consideration is occasionally some simple toy-soldier terrain if you can find it at a decent price. I picked up several of these, owing to a recommendation on this forum somewhere:

https://www.amazon.com/Army-Battle-Bridge-Set-inches/dp/B01MSPCVWL/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1539814638&sr=8-8&keywords=toy+bridge

And put them to good use.


Some old toy soldier stuff is too rough to bother with, but occasionally you can stumble upon some decent bits. Now, bridges are of course super easy to make, but if it takes you half an hour or forty-five minutes to build them...sometimes $8 and some quick rattle canning is just as reasonable.

 Flinty wrote:

 Desubot wrote:
What kinda glue you use flinty?

i think its not sold in the uk but SCIGRIP makes some fantastic glues for PVC and styrine.

Standard superglue works fine on the foamed pvc. I've been using the gorrila glue gel stuff on the plumbing products and it seems to be holding well.

Yeah, superglue is great on foamed PVC.

For plumbing stuff, superglue will grab, but can work loose easily. I've been getting better results using a 2-part 'all plastics' superglue - it's basically a tube of superglue and a 'primer' pen that you coat each part with first before applying the glue.