gaming board surface question

Next weekend I'll be building (finally) a game board. My plan at this point is to build a basic grassland style board, and base it on pink foam. But I'm not sure how I want to do the surface. Sand is pretty common, but it scratches minis pretty easily. Static grass is an option. but that seems like a lot of grass and mess. Maybe it isn't? I've also thought about using cloth/felt. Any other ideas, thoughts, experiences?

Thanks!

We use textured wall paper - the cheap, thick, white bobbly stuff that comes on huge rolls in DIY stores. If you look hard you can find one that has lots of little shapes that look a bit like the surface of cobbled streets.

Glue it to your boards, undercoat, basecoat, drybrush, matt varnish. You're ready! It won't be to hard on your minis and it is pretty hard wearing.

Hey David,
I guess that knowing what you want to do with the board would help. You say basic grassland so I assume that means you are not using it for ruined city fights?
In ancient days before static grass, we did those types of boards with standard flock which is less like sandpaper for models. There are even flocks that are fairly ground colored or there were...
You can also get the static grass mats and flocked battle mats and cut them up for areas of grass. You can use texture paint (rough coat and the like) for the ground areas, most of the textures will be less like sandpaper than actual sand.

Cheers!

I used a much more regular patterned Textured Wallpaper than WarbossKurgan for my table https://boringmordheimforum.forumieren.com/scenery-and-terrain-f4/basic-tabletop-for-mordheim-t1820.htm

If you use a more random pattern then paint different areas different colors (brown for dirt, grey for stone, green for grass and woods. You would probably be able to use just small patches of static grass and sand to achieve a very good effect....

Hmmm now I have an idea for an Empire in Flames board...

If you REALLY don't want to use sand, for a grasslands table, I'd recommend Woodland Scenics Fine Turf. It comes in a variety of shades of browns for the exposed earth areas & greens for grassy areas. You can get it from either a model train store or Walthers: www.walthers.com .
I'd also recommend using a watered down tacky glue for its resilience.

@Warboss Kurgan - The textured wallpaper is a neat idea. Actually, the paper you posted would look pretty good painted up in earth tones with some static grass on it. I'll have to keep that in mind.

@Von Kurst - I'm aiming for as generic a board as possible this time around so that I can play just about anything on it. From 40k to Mordhem to Fantasy to Star Wars to D&D. The textured paint ins't a bad idea either. My next board I want to do something along the lines of that fantastic board by wolfgang that just makes me weep at it's beauty.

@Cobaltearthgem - I'm glad I could help you with an idea! Lets see it!

@Deafnala - I really don't. I know that it's pretty easy, and looks good for the effort and cost... but I really don't. The woodland scenics fine turf... I think I have some of that in a drawer. Need to dig it out... thank you for the reminder!

Construction will begin next Thursday night/Friday. There will be pictures, but probably not posted till its done.

Cheers!

Quote :

@Von Kurst - I'm aiming for as generic a board
as possible this time around so that I can play just about anything on
it. From 40k to Mordhem to Fantasy to Star Wars to D&D. The
textured paint ins't a bad idea either. My next board I want to do
something along the lines of that fantastic board by wolfgang that just
makes me weep at it's beauty.

Just a thought, but what about making it reversible with one side grassy or something for fantasy and similar stuff... and the other side maybe cobblestone/city looking, or desert, or whatever else you think you might want as a base.

My thought was to have this one be single sided, and do the next one as a reversible cobblestone and either desert or arctic board.

Ok, first picture, the table itself. I spent last night cleaning, and construction will begin tomorrow evening.



The table itself is clearly a well used craft table. I picked it up at a yard sale last weekend for a mere $5.

It might be a little late for more suggestions but I have a zuzzy mat and I think it's pretty awesome:
www.zuzzy.com
A little expensive but I think it's well worth it.

Ash wrote:

It might be a little late for more suggestions but I have a zuzzy mat and I think it's pretty awesome:
www.zuzzy.com
A little expensive but I think it's well worth it.

Yes, they are nice. Unfortunately the mat would be about my entire budget... I really should have called the topic "gaming surface on the cheap"

ONE MORE IDEA: The easiest way to get texture for an earth effect is simply to sand the pink foam. If you use a coarse sand paper [50 grit works well], sanding will leave you with enough texture to allow you to dry brush highlights over a dark base coat. Then add static grass wherever you'd like. I did this on a gaming board fo a local store & the results were quite nice.

Sand is pretty bad for painted metal miniatures though Alan - I had many a re-paint due to over sanded gaming tables in years gone buy. It's particularly hard on Mordheim warbands too, since the rules require frequent lying down of models!

WarbossKurgan wrote:

Sand is pretty bad for painted metal miniatures though Alan - I had many a re-paint due to over sanded gaming tables in years gone buy. It's particularly hard on Mordheim warbands too, since the rules require frequent lying down of models!

That's sand as in rub the surface with sanding paper & then paint the roughened pink foam.

Hahaha! Gottya!

Actually that's one of the experiments we'll be trying tonight. Thank you for the idea! I'd ask for pictures, but somehow I don't think that level of texture shows up in pictures very well.

I tried sanding some of my blue foam and it didn't work very well. It was quite obvious that it was sanded and the texture wasn't very good. Any idea what I could have done wrong?

Svenn wrote:

I tried sanding some of my blue foam and it didn't work very well. It was quite obvious that it was sanded and the texture wasn't very good. Any idea what I could have done wrong?

What grit did you use? It HAS TO BE a coarse or very coarse grit like a 50 or 60 grit; a medium or fine sandpaper will smooth the foam whereas a coarse will rough it up. A circular motion also helps with the roughing up process.

DeafNala wrote:

Svenn wrote:

I tried sanding some of my blue foam and it didn't work very well. It was quite obvious that it was sanded and the texture wasn't very good. Any idea what I could have done wrong?

What grit did you use? It HAS TO BE a coarse or very coarse grit like a 50 or 60 grit; a medium or fine sandpaper will smooth the foam whereas a coarse will rough it up. A circular motion also helps with the roughing up process.

Honestly, I don't know. I know it was pretty fine, just not sure the exact grit. Also, I tried side to side and circular motions. It could have just been that it wasn't fine enough or something though.

Svenn wrote:

DeafNala wrote:

Svenn wrote:

I tried sanding some of my blue foam and it didn't work very well. It was quite obvious that it was sanded and the texture wasn't very good. Any idea what I could have done wrong?

What grit did you use? It HAS TO BE a coarse or very coarse grit like a 50 or 60 grit; a medium or fine sandpaper will smooth the foam whereas a coarse will rough it up. A circular motion also helps with the roughing up process.

Honestly, I don't know. I know it was pretty fine, just not sure the exact grit. Also, I tried side to side and circular motions. It could have just been that it wasn't fine enough or something though.

That is what you misunderstood Svenn
It's supposed to coarse and NOT fine sandpaper, as our dear DeafNala pointed it out for you - If you use af FINE sandpaper, you will just smoothen up the area, instead of making it textured

/Maikacir

Maikacir wrote:

Svenn wrote:

DeafNala wrote:

Svenn wrote:

I tried sanding some of my blue foam and it didn't work very well. It was quite obvious that it was sanded and the texture wasn't very good. Any idea what I could have done wrong?

What grit did you use? It HAS TO BE a coarse or very coarse grit like a 50 or 60 grit; a medium or fine sandpaper will smooth the foam whereas a coarse will rough it up. A circular motion also helps with the roughing up process.

Honestly, I don't know. I know it was pretty fine, just not sure the exact grit. Also, I tried side to side and circular motions. It could have just been that it wasn't fine enough or something though.

That is what you misunderstood Svenn
It's supposed to coarse and NOT fine sandpaper, as our dear DeafNala pointed it out for you - If you use af FINE sandpaper, you will just smoothen up the area, instead of making it textured

/Maikacir

Ooops.

Svenn wrote:

Honestly, I don't know. I know it was pretty fine, just not sure the exact grit. Also, I tried side to side and circular motions. It could have just been that it wasn't fine enough or something though.

NOOOOOOOOOO! Let me 'splain. You DO NOT WANT FINE. Fine sandpaper will smooth the surface leaving NO TEXTURE.
What you want is a VERY COARSE sandpaper which will leave the surface rougher than what you started with. Basically you WANT to damage the surface.
Normally the grit is printed on the back of the paper. The higher the number the is, the finer the sand paper. Fine sandpaper is around 120 to 160 grit. Very coarse is around 50 or 60. Also use a sanding block; a scrap piece of 2X4 would do in a pinch.
Another problem you might be having is the density of the foam. Blue foam is significantly denser than pink.