Your table-top / War Gaming set up

[Jesterscup]

It seems we have a few war gamers/modellers / enthusiasts hanging out here...

I've got a set-up myself... it's a work in progress, but I'm pleased with it's ( admittedly slow ) progress. Typically I only spend a day or 2 a month on this ( if i'm lucky ) with my son. we play battletech, and so worked out a way to do hex-terrain which gives us a way to play hex-style, but still have an awesome set-up... I'll post pictures later.

So show of your set-up, your terrain, and what you're particularly proud of. This thread is NOT for your models, but the terrain they sit & play on.

 

[Jesterscup]

so here is my set-up,

apart from the mechs, and the mat ( and the air freshener - my son likes it) it's all hand made.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Eh, mine's a big pile of "this'll be awesome whenever I get round to...nope, lost interest"

Stupid impulse buys clogging up my shelves.

 

[Jesterscup]

Eh, mine's a big pile of "this'll be awesome whenever I get round to...nope, lost interest"

Stupid impulse buys clogging up my shelves.

Hey I get that, look close, at best the buildings are primer'ed ( if that ) 1/2 the terrain hasn't been flocked, most of the mechs aren't painted. but you keep on plugging away, bit by bit it gets worked on ( and it helps my kids enjoy craft-play almost as much as I do )

 

[VeneratedWulfen93]

I have the good fortune of being a member of a wargaming club so I'm spoilt for choice on sundays when I play 40k or fantasy. We have Ice boards with an ice cave made out of a turtle cave, grass boards, city boards with mounds of terrain and and a huge Horus Heresy themed board, meant to represent the Isstvaan IV dropsite massacre. We are also about to order a Zone Mortalis board to represent ship interiors.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I got 2 wallpaper tables that I put up next to each other and a big green sheet to put over the top. Bunch of hills made out of layers of polystyrene and painted green. Bunch of trees/forest areas for 28mm and 6mm scale made out of various scales of models trees. Loads of bushes/hedges made out of dyed moss. Bunch of 28mm scale ruins and bunkers made out of polystyrene and painted grey. A couple of marsh/bog areas made out of painted card, a river and a load of imperial and ork buildings from 2nd ed Epic. Load of rocks made of rocks and some of cut polystyrene.

It's all kind of basic but it does the job.

EDIT: and some craters made of polystyrene and card.

 

[Muspelheim]

Back when I did the dear old Warhammers, I did make some budget terrain. It was rather easy to do. I bought a big tube of wood glue (about 100 crowns/£10 for more glue than I'd ever need) and got some sand from a nearby playground.

I boiled the sand, dried it and kept it in a plastic bag, which I still got somewhere.

Then, I just cut out bits of cardboard for what I wanted, like craters or such. If you need to sculpt it, you just layer the cardboard cutouts the way you want. Glue them together, glue it up (dilating it slightly and using a broad, dirtywork brush) and dip them in the sand. Make sure enough sticks, pour off excess and let dry.

Once that it done, you can paint it if you wish. I used some budget waterbased colours (about a tenner for a good bulk dose there, as well), and just made sure got the right tan that I wanted. Then, I used a darker shade of the budget colour and drybrushed it on.

(Drybrushing: you take a rough pencil and brush small amounts of the paint on the surface; not enough to cover it but enough to sprinkle it onto edges and the like. Good depth effect.)

The only expensive, official Games Workshop product I used was the flock, fake grass. I'm sure there is cheaper alternatives, though. I applied it last, squeezing out a drop of glue, pressing it flat and applying the grass directly. Once it had dried, I just shook the loose flock back into the box. Done!

Some good, budget terrain, there. The only downside is that it's difficult to simulate much else than desert or badlands, but it'll do. I still got little craters and things in my drawers.


Oh! I just remembered! When I was a kid, I made terrain for my 1:72 plastic WW2 soldiers. I'd draw buildings and ruins on bits of stiff paper, colour them and cut them out. Can't get much more budget than that, but it worked good enough. If you didn't sneeze.

 

[Bara_no_Hime]

So show of your set-up, your terrain, and what you're particularly proud of. This thread is NOT for your models, but the terrain they sit & play on.

I don't have pics, but I can describe the set up.

First off, there's the bedroom, where I have three wall-hanging curio cabinets full of gaming miniatures - mostly metal Reaper miniatures, Anima Tactics miniatures, and a collection of metal Kickstarter miniatures that I've picked up. I'm saving a spot there-in for when the Kingdom Death Kickstarter pays out.

Below that, I have three book shelves. They contain books, but my largest miniatures (such as Kaladrax Reborn and Cthuhlu by Reaper Bones and the Colossal Red Dragon from Wizards of the Coast).

Beside the bookshelves, however, I have several plastic drawers filled with tiny to gargantuan sized plastic miniatures from Wizards of the Coast and Pathfinder Battles.

Finally, I have a collection of totes with paper dungeon walls, scenery, and town buildings under the bed.

Typically, we game in the living room on the (fairly wide) coffee table. We grab whatever we need from the bedroom before game starts. Dice are stored in a redwood box kept inside the coffee table.

 

[Jesterscup]

Then, I just cut out bits of cardboard for what I wanted, like craters or such. If you need to sculpt it, you just layer the cardboard cutouts the way you want. Glue them together, glue it up (dilating it slightly and using a broad, dirtywork brush) and dip them in the sand. Make sure enough sticks, pour off excess and let dry.

I love this, but it didn't quite fit with the goal of keeping it hex-terrain, the work was astronomical. you'll see in the pic that the foam terrain is quite deep, in batletech the levels equate to roughly 1/2 the mechs height, our foam is a little thick, but close enough. the foam is not as cheap at cardboard, but a lot less effort ( cut out card template, stick on foam, cut-out, flock sides )


To simulate different types of terrain we've come up with a really simple solution. we print out the right sized hex on card, paint it & cut it out. job done, and it works really well. My son has almost completed his own 'terra therma' ( from the MWO level), terrain templates.

 

[Qwurty2.0]

I've never gotten into table-top games, unfortunately. I didn't grow up with a family that was big into them, and most games seemed like more of a hassle to set up than it was worth (most people I knew didn't care for them or we would get bored quickly).

The only table-top that looks interesting would be Warhammer/40k, but that seems to have a rather large investment to enjoy and I've never seen anyone play it in person.

The people who do play kind of... "awe" (?) me with their knowledge of the rules though.

 

[Jesterscup]

That's really cool. I like the hex tiles as varied-altitude terrain. That thing in the bottom right corner, is that some kind of dome turret cannon?

yeah I suppose... I was thinking some sort of ground-based space-defence cannon

It's what you get when you fill a funnel with plaster for paris, took me 3 attempts to get it out the funnel unbroken, but it's pretty awesome. It's the pride of my buildings. Most of the buildings are the result of everyday items being filled with plaster. plastic cups, juice boxes, Philadelphia ( cream cheese ) tubs

 

[Muspelheim]

Then, I just cut out bits of cardboard for what I wanted, like craters or such. If you need to sculpt it, you just layer the cardboard cutouts the way you want. Glue them together, glue it up (dilating it slightly and using a broad, dirtywork brush) and dip them in the sand. Make sure enough sticks, pour off excess and let dry.

I love this, but it didn't quite fit with the goal of keeping it hex-terrain, the work was astronomical. you'll see in the pic that the foam terrain is quite deep, in batletech the levels equate to roughly 1/2 the mechs height, our foam is a little thick, but close enough. the foam is not as cheap at cardboard, but a lot less effort ( cut out card template, stick on foam, cut-out, flock sides )


To simulate different types of terrain we've come up with a really simple solution. we print out the right sized hex on card, paint it & cut it out. job done, and it works really well. My son has almost completed his own 'terra therma' ( from the MWO level), terrain templates.

True, styrofoam works better for depth. Hmm. I used to get styrofoam for free from the local fish seller. They had these styrofoam bins they kept the fish in, and if I got around before closing, I could usually get one or two. They were happy to be rid of them. They needed a slight cleaning (or the battlefield will smell like fish), but it was a good free source. Might be an idea.

Heh, speaking of styrofoam. My brother used to work in a games shop, and they were attending some large games con in a different city. They brought their finest sample models with them, but somehow forgot their terrain table. Exactly how you "forget" a table was beyond them, but they needed an erzats for the con rather urgently.

What they did was go out that night and raid nearby dustbins and bin rooms for styrofoam. Once they had enough, they spent the night scuplting it together into something that would pass for a battle table. Unfortunately, they didn't have time to flock or paint that white slab of styrofoam, so they ended up pretending the battlefield was a large glacier.

The table was also very wobbly, and models fell over all the time. They got around that by pretending that the glacier was also haunted by avalanches. Must've been an interesting battle.

 

[wetfart]

My D&D group has moved out of the area. So my table top set up is my laptop. While using a virtual table top doesn't have the same feeling as all of us being around the dinner table, it's nice to play with old friends again.