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I'm sketching out a few ideas for Armies on Parade and so far, it looks like I'll have a large river or lake somewhere. The problem is the water in question: Vallejos water effect is really expensive, and I haven't found anything cheaper in higher quantities. What else can I use to mimic a river/lake that'll be at least 2cm deep and span across a 50x50 board?

This may seem really low tech, but PVA glue that you can get from any craft store would do the job perfectly. You'd obviously have to wait for it to dry but you could add blue food colouring or add blue paint to the mix to give it a water effect when it has dried.

An easy way to do it would be to use a piece of cardboard the size you want the body of water to be, then cut strips of cardboard to the height you want the water to be + 1-2 cms extra, use a hot glue gun to stick these around the edge of the water body base. Then use vaseline (If you want to take it out to add detail later such as around the edges of the lake) and put a thin layer along the base and the inside edges of the mould, this will stop the PVA sticking to the cardboard. Then fill the mould with PVA glue and allow it to dry for 24-48 hours to dry clear. Remove mould edges and base (If you used vaseline)

If you wanted to be really flash, you could pre-do the cardboard base with stones and soil to mimic a river bed by doing the following,

Repeat the first two steps above to create a mould and put vaseline around the inside edges only, then spread PVA over the base and dump a load of soil/sand/dirt from the garden, forest etc to create a river bed and allow to dry. Once that is dry, keep repeating until you get a desired depth, then you could run a layer of PVA around some of the outer edges of the base of the mould and sections inside of it and put tiny stones on it that you could get from a builders merchant/aquarium stockist to create stoney sections. Once that is dry, you can then fill the mould with PVA glue and leave it for 24-48 hours to dry clear. Remove mould edges.

If you get PVA glue from the childrens art section of a store, you'd probably get a lot more for your money that you can then use for doing your warhammer bases.

I personally wouldnt recommend PVA glue (mainly because I had bad experience with it and im a noob). I tried doing a clear water base with it but stayed bit cloudy and when it dried left some air pockets even tho I tried stirring it and all. You have to do several thin layers to avoid what I did probably. Maybe check your local hardware store for clear epoxy resin?

http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/C1211/page/1

Model a shallow pond, shade the base to give the illusion of depth, then flood the whole area with this. As a side note, gaming scenery stuff is often just Woodland Scenics stuff repackaged and marked up significantly. Model railroad builders have been at this fake scenery thing a lot longer than miniatures gamers.

You could use still water if you want a lake with no water ripple-effects, or use the Vallejo for a river. There are not so many cheap water effects around except PVA or a glue gun

Try using something like Smooth-On Crystal Clear
https://www.smooth-on.com/product-line/crystal-clear/

 Peregrine wrote:
http://woodlandscenics.woodlandscenics.com/show/Item/C1211/page/1

Model a shallow pond, shade the base to give the illusion of depth, then flood the whole area with this. As a side note, gaming scenery stuff is often just Woodland Scenics stuff repackaged and marked up significantly. Model railroad builders have been at this fake scenery thing a lot longer than miniatures gamers.

This, this and this!!!!! I used this on my game board to make rivers and streams and cannot tell you how great it worked. Here are some tips>

1. Make sure the recessed area material you are pouring into is not porous, as bubbles will occur. If using foam, seal the foam with PVA glue really good and then paint your bed to seal it up.
2. The darker you paint the bed, the deeper it will look. Use shading to paint the deepest parts darker and blend to lighter colors as you come up to the shore.
3. Pour the Realistic water in layers about 1/4" max at a time. This keeps the shrink to a minimum.
4. Want to add a little shade to the water? I mixed up some thin wash in a greenish blue and painted it in-between the layers - came out fantastic.
5. Want ripples? Just drag something (I used a paperclip) over the surface just as it starts to set to break up the smooth surface.

And, it was fairly cheap for the amount you get. You will also find your area does not need to be really deep to get the depth you are looking for. My rivers were really only about 1/2" deep, but after the method used above , they look twice as deep.

Good luck!!!!