[Tutorial] Double-sided wargame board

Some time ago me and Skavenblight decided to make a new board for Mordheim, BTB, Warhammer and some other tabletop wargames we play. Due to storage issues we decided to build a double-sided one, with cobblestones on the one side and dirt with grass on the other. I managed to take some photos during the production process to prepare some kind of a tutorial - perhaps you'll find it somewhat useful and inspiring .

Enough talking, let's start:

1. First of all, I ordered two 48" x 24" MDF boards. Two smaller pieces are easier to storage than one large and putting them together makes our beloved 48" x 48" in total. Moreover, it will be possible to expand the board in the future by adding an additional 48" x 24" part in the middle.



2. I also bought some styrene insulation foam, 6 mm thick (sometimes known as depron or something like that) to carve the cobblestones in it.





3. Before sticking the foam to the board I sandpapered the surface.



4. Using a wide brush I covered the MDFs surface with a special styrene glue.







5. As the MDF board is larger than styrene foam sheets it was necessary to cut some additional pieces in order to cover all the surface.



6. The board with foam sheets attached to looked like this:



7. Then came a boring part of the work : carving the cobblestones with a pencil...





8. ...until it looked like this.



9. After I finished carving the cobblestones I started preparing HDF edges for our board. They're useful for at least two reasons. Firstly, in case of the double-sided board they act similarly to bases. Regardless of which side is currently up the whole board rests on them and not on the finished, painted, surface. Secondly, the edges prevent the miniatures, terrain pieces, dice etc. from falling off the board.

In order to prepare the edges I cut some 3 cm wide HDF stripes.





10. I sticked the edges to the board using the PVA glue...



...and tiny nails.



11. I regret not taking some more pictures during this part of the work... Now I can only show you the final effect, after painting the edges with resistant oil black paint.





12. It was high time to take care of the other, grassy side of the board. I made the texture of this side in a quite simple and well known way: I mixed large amount of sand with PVA glue (and with some old out of date resin as well ) and covered the board surface with this mixture.



13. It took some time for the wilderness texture to be dry and ready to paint so I moved to the city cobblestoned side and undercoated it with black paint mixed with PVA glue (it toughens the paint after it dries) and additional pigment (better covering effect; similar to foundation paints).



14. When the black paint dried I drybrushed the cobblestones with several layers of grey, starting with darker tones and finishing with almost whitish (though there were about 3-4 layers I've got only one photo to post it below).



15. The final effect (white splashes on the right side are only light reflexes from the nearby window - don't worry, it isn't white paint which accidentally poured down on the board ):



16. Then I came back to the wilderness side and undercoated it with brown paint mixed with PVA glue.



17. I brightened it then with lighter tones of brown.





18. The finishing move was covering the board with electrostatic grass. Using a paintbrush I applied several patches of PVA glue on the wilderness side and spread the grass on them using a special feeder. Unfortunately I don't have any more pics on this part of the work :/.




The finished wargame board - enjoy :

Love this!

A great tutorial which shows us all how to do a gaming board (or two in this case) with ease.

Thanks a lot for showing on this!!!

Wow those cobblestones must have taken forever?
Otherwise very nice board, do you have any pictures of the finished cobblestone board with miniatures and scenery?
I really would like to see how it looks, as I'm not really interested in venturing out of Mordheim.

Thanks for comments guys!

lord siwoc wrote:

Thanks a lot for showing on this!!!

You're welcome! I'm glad you liked it!

Festus Seep wrote:

Wow those cobblestones must have taken forever?

Sure, it was time consuming and took the whole evening, but nevertheless I don't regret it .

Festus Seep wrote:

do you have any pictures of the finished cobblestone board with miniatures and scenery?

Not yet. After moving to new house I left my old Mordheim scenery behind (I wasn't too content with them anyway) and I still haven't finished the new ones, but I'll post some new photos as soon as possible.

you deserve a medal for doing those cobblestones individually
good idea well executed

VERY COOL & space efficient gaming board. Thanks for giving us the low down on the how to, Kapitan! WELL DONE!

I love this work a lot. Inspiring, maybe I could do something similair.....

Well done on both sides by the way, and also for teaching me some usefull tricks!

Amazing work... WOW! Thanks for sharing.

That is amazing! Looks great.

I would suggest perhaps doing something like we did with our board where you create a cobblestone "stamp" instead of doing it all by hand. If you do a couple of them and rotate/randomly switch out which ones you use you can make it not look like it's repeating.

http://tabletopgeeks.com/making-a-cobblestone-stamp-first-attempt/

Wow. That board looks fantastic. I love how it can be stored so easily in those dimensions. I really like how you have come up with a good way of protecting the foam using the hardboard edges.

I wonder if I could make a similar table with raised edges but have it modular and with canals. Any ideas for ways to make the hard edges work if they align in the center of the table? Make it so there are not abrupt edges in the middle but it can still not stand on the foam?

Very impressive. Lots to think about. I really like how you have the two different sides of the board.

You know what would be pretty crazy? 4 2'x2' pieces with different surfaces on each piece. So it could make sooooo many different iterations. Many different things to think about.

Thanks for sharing. Great tutorial!

epic tutorial- we usually just play on a grid mat, will def. have to try this instead.