Battle Boards and Scatter Terrain
Battle Boards and Scatter Terrain
A short entry this week. I’ve moved on to the boards themselves, but in the spirit of potentially f-cking things up royally, I’ve started with the small edge pieces before moving on to the more costly ‘2 by 2’ boards.
The plan, at the moment of conception, was to put duct tape along the edges to protect them from bumps and bangs. I applied it to a scrap to see how it looked and the first word that came to mind was ‘tacky’.
I then moved on to plasticard. I sprayed it with a Hunter Green primer, which ended up being shiny, but everything will be sprayed with a matt sealer eventually, so no big deal.
I sprayed the plasticard with Hunter Green primer then cut it into 1 1/2" wide strips. I applied hot glue to a corner, and made sure the edges of the plasticard lined up top and bottom all the way along the edge. You've only got a few seconds to do this before your hot glue sets. Then I worked my way along, gluing small segments at a stretch. Note: a credit card or spatula is ideal for pushing the glue along and squeezing it flat beneath the plasticard, ensuring a snug, flat fit. The corners were trimmed and sanded, and I used glue and wall goop to fill in tiny crevices between the polystyrene and plastic.
I could tell, even at this stage, that the pieces were going to be quite versatile, both for their original purpose, which was to flank a slope board sandwiched between two flat boards, and also for putting together unique terrain features. They can be used as a ridge on a board edge, or put together as a finger of land jutting in from a side.
I painted on a tan base coat, as per previous models. Note the beefed up glue/wall filler base, which will hopefully toughen it up a bit.
Green base colour painted on to areas that will be covered in flock or lichen. I slopped a dark brown wash on tan areas and added yellow to the orginal tan as a highlight.
I added flock and foliage to the pieces, and was quite happy with the result, particularly along the edges where the flock further covers the seam between the foam and protective plastic.
I'm quite happy with how these pieces butt together. I can only hope the rest of the boards fit together as well.Lessons learned: Plasticard is definitely the way to go when edging boards. It’s cheap and will protect the board edge quite well. I find that gluing it on straight along an edge is a challenge, but I think applying it in shorter segments might help. You can always trim it up afterward, and you can also sand plasticard, as I found out during this test run.
I went with a complimentary green colour for the edge. I would likely go with a red/brown on a desert board, or a dark purple or navy blue on some sort of greyscale lunar landscape… anything that says “This is not part of the playable area.” It should also be darker than the predominant colour on the boards, otherwise it will draw attention from your meticulously crafted terrain!
Next installment: river boards. Mediocrity is within my grasp.
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