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So i am very tempted to purchase the big $300 table. My game shop can get me 20% no shipping. But it still is a bit of investment. In your humble opinion dakka is it worth the hefty price tag?

Honestly I've always wanted to get one, I think they look awesome. A lot of people will come in here and say it's cheaper to make your own, and while I'm sure that's true, if you're like me and aren't so great at DIY the battle board is awfully tempting.

I'd get it if I had the cash to blow, especially at 20% off.

Im sure i could make a decent looking board with foam and what not. I just like the modular design and i know we all have our gripes about gw but ill continue to support their company so i can enjoy this hobby as can the young gamers discovering it for the first time. Id hate to see them go under.

Umm... meh.

You have to pay very premium prices to get that table. The quality that you get is decidedly not premium. Probably the biggest problem with it is that it has no traction whatsoever, and you'll quickly find your miniatures sliding around all over the place, and that you'll have some places that look relatively flat that you can't, in fact, put minis on at all. That and, no matter how many times you matte spray it, they always look really glossy, and digital cameras will have a hard time taking pictures on them due to the contrast in the texture pattern.

It's not bad, but it's far from $300 good. Even with a 20% discount, I think I'd rather buy another 40k army and then go to town with other materials to make a gaming table.

I bought 2 , mainly due to its portability, and rugged build, takes a while to get fully flocked and textured and the ponds of skulls took a bit to cover up, (turned them into water areas with some senics water effects), but overall they worked well, if the price is not a problem.

One of them went overseas with me in a tuffbox, survived that pretty well, even rode in back of a HMMWV on a FOB transfer, they are well built.

As mentioned above the boards do need something to help the minis grip and not slid around, I static grass mine pretty extensivly.

 Soo'Vah'Cha wrote:
I bought 2 , mainly due to its portability, and rugged build, takes a while to get fully flocked and textured and the ponds of skulls took a bit to cover up, (turned them into water areas with some senics water effects), but overall they worked well, if the price is not a problem.

One of them went overseas with me in a tuffbox, survived that pretty well, even rode in back of a HMMWV on a FOB transfer, they are well built.

As mentioned above the boards do need something to help the minis grip and not slid around, I static grass mine pretty extensivly.

Do you find that when you pack it up in its bag, the paints rub off, or would be fine if you use a solid primer?

I think my other problem with the battle boards is the hills. Most of the time people set them up where the elevated parts are out near the edges.

This means you have a feature which provides no cover saves, while also reducing the effect of cover everywhere else on the board.

As far as I'm concerned, the realm of battle is made up of 25% anti-terrain, and you've got to put a lot more on the board to compensate for this fact.

Im a big fan of using a mix of sand and coffee grounds for my texturing. Do you think itd look right on such a large scarle?

Whether it does or not, don't flock anything... ever... with a material that can rot.

I'd just cover it with sand, or, if you can find some sort of landscaping place (or wherever), have sand mixed with coarser sand.

I used spray sealant with flock paint and staticgrass, and then put more sealant over the top of the final to help prevent it rubbing off the texturing, not 100% effective but worked ok when I put some newspaper between the tiles during transport, they do have a bit of weight to them.

yeah the hills can be a bit, take it or leave it, but its hard for me to find a more rugged board I could shove in a tuffbox and transport, to be honest we usually have so much terrain on the board the hills are a non-issue, but make putting some of the larger buildings a bit tricky.

Once I came back I bought a few 1" thick foamcare boards and built city boards outta them, so I have rural and urban base boards to play on.

Lol rotting never accured to me. Ive been using that mix for like 2 years now. Looks good and doesnt smell.... well except the obvious coffee smell. Do you think it could be an issue?

Well, even if it doesn't ROT rot, it can still be susceptible to things like warping with changes in humidity.

Better to ignore natural ingredients all together.

I own one and find it to be a great way to play games. I built a table for it to sit on with about a quarter inch lip around the top. I find that the traction really isn't much of a problem and that it enhances games far more than playing on a generic surface does. I also got mine for 220 after tax because the store already had it discounted and there was a tear in the carrying case.

Its a very portable gaming table. it does need painting, but for the portability and ease of assembly(plus it comes with a nice carrying case) I would say with 20% definitly grab it.

I will also add that I think the Realm of Battle table frankly sucks. As Ailaros mentioned, miniatures slide around all over that thing, they don't stand up right, and the hills really get in the way.

I wouldn't pay anywhere near $300 for the thing. But that's just me.

To me, it's not that bad of a table. It is quite good (of course it has it's faults, like the lack of texturing and traction), just not $300 good.

I picked up one second hand.

Since I have flocked it I have no issues with traction and very pleased with it. Certainly adds a wow factor to our games.

I'd look into a zuzzy mat or something like that, then pick up some hills as separate pieces.

More flexibility and cheaper and better playing surface.

The Realm of Battle is a good buy.....handy for throwing together when you just have to get a game in at home lol

The owner of my local store got one of these, it sits in the corner and never gets used.

Biggest problem, without painting, flocking, etc. (like you would do for any terrain, but this is an entire table of it) the models slide around.

I'm sure we could get someone to do the work if it wasn't for the second part. You end up with a table that has high terrain on the edges and nothing blocking the middle. It became the shooting army dream, bring an aegis defense line and set your guys up on the hill behind the line. Cover saves for your guys and LOS to everything on the table.

There are only 6 pieces. If you look on GW's site you can see all the possible ways of setting it up, there is only one that does not have all the terrain on the edges and that gives you a big hill in the middle, about a third of the way over from an edge. We found that people just didn't use that part of the table (blocks LOS for shooty armies so they didn't setup on that side with their 30" or longer range guns, they setup a little off center away from the hill. Assaulty armies only made the mistake of setting up behind it once, then they learned that their shooty opponent was not going to setup close enough to it. They got one turn of cover from it, then they were on a plateau getting shot to pieces as they tried to get to the enemy.

As I would recommend for anyone considering a purchase in this hobby, proxy it. Arrange little pieces of paper around, mimicking the few setups and play a couple games.

Zuzzy.com