Building a modular table / MORE PICS OVER THE HOLIDAYS

Hello there, people.

As I have already implied in my intruduction thread in the Newbies section, I want to report on my (well, actually a friend's and my) project to build a modular gaming table for Mordheim.

It's not for Mordheim alone, to be honest, but the first project is going to be a Mordheim table. After finishing that, we're planning to build a similar-sized set of modules for Infinity. It is also going to fit a Games Workshop's Realm of Battle Gameboard (or a set of self-made modules) for larger battles and games like Flames Of War. If there are no modules on the table, we're planning to print out a space scene and a cloudy sky to fit across the whole board, with a sheet of Plexiglass for protection, to play games like Wings of War, Aeronautica Imperialis, Battlefleet Gothic and the like.

I've done a set of sketches to explain the idea behind the whole thing.

Part I: The table itself



The main layout of the table, measuring 72 x 48 inches. It's comprised of a sturdy 19mm (that's around 0.75 inches*) MDF board, supported by a frame of spruce crossbars, with rather broad spruce planking around the edges to hold the modules in place and to provide a cleaner look to the table.

We haven't decided on the table's legs, currently I'm preferring the solution of mounting the table atop of two sets of shelves from a widely-known Swedish furniture house, giving us the opportunity to store the various gaming aids, rulebooks, et cetera. That would give us a table height of around 96cm (or 38 inches) from floor to the top edge of the spruce planking, placing the table surface itself at about 86cm (that's around 34 inches) - a rather comfortable height to play, in my opinion.

Since the table layout itself has now been dealt with, let's move on to...

Part II: The terrain modules



The gaming surface is going to depict a harbor setting, with canals threading across the whole table. We try to give the whole table a certain Gracht feeling.

To add some versatility, I've come up with four different table tiles, each measuring 24 by 24 inches, giving us the standard table size for Mordheim games, especially we usually play with a heavy trend towards close combat, so a 4 by 6 table is only a distinct possibility at the moment (but hey, never say never, I guess). The 2 x 4 area that isn't occupied by the terrain tiles will be occupied by a piece of MDF board covered in felt to provide storage space for Warband rosters, dice towers and all the odds and ends a respectable Mordheim player needs.

The tiles are designed to fit together in a variety of combinations (as can be seen on the sketch above) to furthermore add more variation to the gaming surface.

As you can see from my sketches, I've added a section of harbor, where (in the future) a model of a ship is going to be placed (and would make an ideal starting position for a pirate Warband).

To give the Warbands the means to cross the canals (in green), we're going to build a set of bridges, ranging from sturdy stone bridges to nothing more than a set of planks hastily nailed together. We're also planning to build a few jetties and small piers to be placed down in the canals, allowing the more athletic characters to jump from pier to pier without exposing themselves to enemy fire. We're also going to add the odd derelict, half-sunken boat or a few crates down in the canals (it's old, run-down Mordheim, after all), to give even the less acrobatically inclined a chance to cross the canals.

The rest of the tiles will be paved with cobblestones. But more on the love life of the humble cobblestones in

Part III: The Anatomy of a Terrain Module



That's a cross-section of one of the tiles. As you might have already noticed, they're really built to last, consisting of a frame of spruce bars, encased in plywood, mounted on a 6mm (or 0.25 inches) MDF board. The whole structure will then be jacketed in structured panels made out of Keramin (a very durable and cheap casting compound) to give the walkways the texture of cobblestone and the canal walls the look of a stone wall.

I'm currently in the process of engraving a Keramin tile of 8 x 8 inches with a cobblestone texture, as well as creating a 5 x 8 inches tile with a stone wall likeness with the intention to make a mold and duplicate these tiles as often as necessary.

The bottom of the canal will be filled with sand, stones and assorted, hand-picked detritus under a solid, yet not too thick (we have to keep a budget, after all... we're not the Medicis or Rothschildts, after all) layer of clear resin to simulate water.

The canals themselves are going to be around 5 inches deep, allowing the quicker and more agile characters to climb up the canal walls in a single movement, while the slower characters would actually need two turns of movement to get out.

The outer surfaces of the terrain tile will be covered with felt to prevent damage from the tiles chafing against each other while playing or placing the tiles.


Well, that's it so far. Please bear in mind that the whole project is still in the concept phase and might as well undergo some changes - we're going to start the build in November, and I'm happily going to keep you all appraised of our progress.

Meanwhile, any suggestions or tips from the veteran terrain builders out there are greatly appreciated. Thanks for your time

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* Incidentally, 0.75 is also a boltgun's caliber, for all you fellow 40K freaks out there.

Your plans sounds very promissing to me. I´m looking forward to see your table come to life. Please send a lot of W.I.P pictures for us.

Very impressive! Looking forward to see how this goes, Especially the Keramin panels.

Sounds like a solid plan and a really solid table! It'll be a joy to see this progress.

ja, come on, lets build this table, we want Pictures!!

Hey guys, thanks for your enthusiasm, it'll surely keep us motivated!

Meanwhile I want to share some prototype buildings with you. Please excuse the crappy picture quality, I seem to have misplaced my camera. So the onboard cam of my iMac has to make do.



It's constructed out of foamboard, to be more specific I used so-called "Kappa" boards. I use them fairly often during my day job as a graphic designer... they're sturdy (6mm thick), very easy to cut, and not too expensive (around 5,- Euro for a 70x100cm board, and I'm going to get maybe three buildings of this size out of a single board). The wooden support beams are 4x4mm spruce struts and are simply glued onto the foamcore. Then, a layer of Selitron has been glued into the spaces between the beams. Before adding the Selitron, I cut out a window frame (upper floor) out of cardboard and glued it over the window opening, then laying the Selitron over it. I even went crazy and cut fitting windowsills out of balsa wood.



The top floor was relatively straightforward - I cut holes into the outer walls to receive two 4x4mm cross beams, then glued a piece of foamboard over it. The wooden flooring is constructed by scoring a piece of balsa wood with a metal ruler and a pencil (I prefer to use a bricklayer's pencil, since the tip can easily be carved with a X-Acto knife into whatever shape I need at the moment) and then glueing it on top of the foamboard.

Please keep in mind that this is just a prototype, I've actually spent too much time on this house to actually think of doing a whole table in the same manner, especially the Selitron need quite some time to attach. Since I want my houses to look more like timber-framed houses, I decided to try the following method:



I quickly build the main structure out of foamcore boards. Then I drew the timber-frame on cardboard before cutting it out and glueing it onto the foamcore. I also plan to add single sheets of toilet paper (or napkins, or whatever) doused in watered down wallpaper paste to the plain foamcore, simulating plaster and providing a surface that's better to paint.

The whole building will then be based on sheets of expanded plastic, yet again with felt on the underside do protect the gaming surface.


That's it for now - I've learned quite a bit doing these two (as well as printing out a plan of our table in 1:1 scale to help me planning the buildings (don't want the first floor to hang over the canal, do we?). During the week I'm trying to finish the prototype Keramin panels, as well as developing a template for ruined, detachable roofs. If anyone around here has tips to share, I'd really be grateful. I also need to come up with a template for stairs, as well.

As usual, I'll keep you appraised of all developments.

Hey, great work! And thanks a lot for the thorough information on the production process. I'd heard of Kappa boards before, but never thought they'd be that good. I might go for some DIY at some point with those.
As for the time invested on the prototype, remember, once you get it right, the next buildings most likely won't take that long.

Joao

Hey JoaoS, just a little tip: You won't find these boards at DIY stores. Shops that specialize in art supplies are your best source for them.

Oh, and if somebody wonders why I'm always talking about two people being involved in this project yet it seems that I am doing most of the work: I'm the creative part, planning and prototyping (since I'm a graphic designer in real life), my friend's more of a craftsman - so I will be cranking out some plans and measurements, and then we both start working on mass-producing the buildings, with him doing the "gruntwork" (generic buildings, like family homes and barns and stuff), while I am concentrating on the more "special pieces" - I already got plans for a three-storey grain silo and Madame Coote's "Boarding House for Wayward Gentlewoman" (I'm getting ahead of myself, it's a long-standing Warband project I'm going to start this winter... think "Carnival of Chaos meets Slaanesh" But you gain bonus points if you can tell where I got the idea for the name from).

Those are very nice, well-thought out designs. I'll be watching this thread with interest.

Hey folks, I've just finished doing some math to calculate the materials needed for building... if we stick to the plan and actually pull of everything I've described so far, we're looking at almost 45 meters of spruce bars and planks for the whole thing... Jumping Jesus on a pogo stick, it all sounded so nice when we discussed it - now I'm actually a bit afraid of the whole thing.

We might possibly have created a monster there...

ah but a fine monster she will be.
love the house and looking forward to the table and other additions.

One of the negatives about meticulous planning is that your can overwhelm yourself...it's the Freakout Factor. The building looks TERRIFIC; a GREAT START on what should prove to be a fine looking game board...provided you haven't scared yourself off.

I like the way that you have used a sheet of card to simulate the timber framing. I'm excited to see how it looks when painted. I've been using coffee stir sticks for framing, but the drawback is that it involves cutting angles in small pieces, which can get annoying after a while.

It does, however, allow a more slap-dash method of construction.

In order to churn out a large amount of terrain relatively quickly, I've been using pre-cut strips of cardboard for walls that are then scored and bent to produce the corners of a building. I suppose what I could do is pre-cut strips of cardstock the same width, cut out semi-regular framing, and just glue them onto the pre-cut cardboard strips. That might speed construction time.

Great work! Very well built, and looks quite easy to build. Are you gonna add a roof? I'd suggest some broken-off planks and some rubble in the building maybe?

Theo

Well, I've been at the math again... and the monster doesn't look that horrifying anymore. After seeing the amount of material needed, I was prepared to see quite a large sum when calculating the total cost.

But it's actually not that bad - assuming that I didn't make some catastrophic errors in my calculations, the total cost of the basic table layout would amount to (round about) 130,- Euro (that's without the following:

• Table legs (or shelves)
• Keramin plates
• Clear epoxy

So it's 130 for the skeleton of the table, so to speak.

Update 06-11-2011

Hey folks, I'm currently building the first terrain module, namely the T-Intersection. Fortunately (yeah, I keep telling myself that) I have made a few overestimates regarding the internal framing of the table itself. I've actually bought a tad too few spruce bars (actually, it's pine now). So I was stuck with either

1. pausing the build until Monday
   (including all the drawbacks, like not having much time to build during the week because of my day job) or
2. going on regardless.
   Hey, what could possibly happen? (Insert end-of-the-world-scenario of choice here)

I decided to soldier on (stubborn little bastard that I am), and guess what? It works without the crossbars. And if it works on the 24x8 inch part of the T-Intersection, it should work on most of the other table parts as well. Well, not the piece with the two short dead ends, and I guess I have to put in a few crossbars onto the module with the curving section, but that fortunate discovery (I can't help but sugarcoat my apparent inability to properly shop for material) does not only cut the overall price, but also the amount of cutting required (meaning less potential for screw-ups).

But since I am not only a stubborn blockhead, but a bit of a worrier as well, I'm currently thinking of filling the "boxes" with PU installation foam, just to add a certain degree of stability while sealing any possible gaps between the boards in the bargain.

A small update regarding the Keramin plates (this might be interesting for you, Louis): I've cast the first plate, and wanted to engrave it this weekend to create the master for the mold. Guess I should have read the instructions... I can take it out of the mold (or, at the moment yet, the frame) after 30 minutes, but the stuff actually has to dry thoroughly for "2 to 8 days". So I guess I'll just let it sit, dry and cure for the week, and get to engraving it next weekend or so. But hey, it's not that I haven't got no work to keep me occupied... I just hope I keep my momentum...

Pictures follow as soon as possible, I plan to take some tonight. Right now, I have to get some sleep, since the last two days have seen me bed-ridden with a sudden surge of the flu bug and today's the first day since my last update without aching joints, shivering, a running nose and headaches.

Nice Start.
The most difficult part is to keep the motivation

Brilliant idea, well planned out too, you can tell you used to be a graphic designer!

The first building looks really sturdy and the detail is superb.

good luck!

Hey folks - terribly sorry for the picture quality, but here's a pic of the first module so far. The miniature on it is Infinity's William Wallace.

That is an extremely deep canal, now that I see the constructed picture of it. You could make a second tier of lower level walkways along the inside walls, allowing another z level of action and letting fallen warband members theoretically be able to climb back out of the water. Would make a good place for Skaven to start off too.

There's a lot of wasted space. 5" deep canals plus 2" foundations on the houses? I expect a lot of bridges and stairs will be needed just to enter a house.

Looks like a table I would love to defend against Breakthrough. You guys definitely have more storage space than I do.

As a tall building freak myself, this has a lot of potential...it takes nerve & a certain lack of judgement to do battle way up there.

The buildings, as I've stated before, are just prototypes. I've already seen that they're way too big for this type of table.

Now that me and my buddy saw the finished piece, we have to think the whole construction over again - whether we continue with the current plan and try to incorporate a second level (as Horatio mentioned) or try to come up with another idea...

I think it will be mighty cool, myself. If you filled the bottom 2-3" with something to represent water and had a lot of stairs, rickety bridges, ledges and walkways along and between those sides, as well as a bridge or two to connect the pieces, this could be amazing.

Theo

Hey Doc don't go back to the drawing board. I think with a few moderations your board will be a masterpiece. Now I have done some little pictures that will hopefully be able to describe my suggestions. I am definitely no graphic designer and my IT skills aint to good so hopefully it will show up with this message, if not I will try and use words to describe my thoughts in another post.