Thursday, March 15

Hobby: Making a Chaos Wasteland Game Table (Part 1)

Welcome all, today I want to talk about one of the most overlooked parts of our hobby.


The home table.





I have gone through several tables in my time. From light and bendy to so massive they must be disassembled to move! That's not a joke.


Over time I collected and built a ton of terrain so it wasn't long before I had more than I could ever use. As storage space is always an issue, one day I decided to trim the fat and build a table that I could play on for some time and be happy with.



This is what I came up with, say hello to the Chaos Wastelands.








WOW, that looks... boring. Yes, remember Rome and the built in a day thing. We got to start somewhere and a solid base is one of these pre-made fold out tables. They are not expensive, sturdy, light weight and can be used for a bunch of things when your not playing a game on it.



Next up is the game board itself, I used a sheet of hard board, like the rest of the world. The underside you see here has been glued and screwed from the other side. I laid the hard board down and put the table on it first, marking the size. Next I put some liquid nails on the 1"x4" strips and placed them to fit. After it set up I flipped it and screwed from the other side knowing that my boards were in the right place.

What this does is hold the hard board top secure in place while using it for a game. No matter what we do in a game it never slides around at all. The long vertical boards make the 4' span nice and strong, no bending here.





Here we have the start of the layout. One of my goals was to use existing terrain, this made it easy to think out the different areas. I used some 1" pink foam to make large raised sections, the areas in these pics that are painted black are "chunk cut" and are difficult to climb up. On the other hand all non painted edges are sanded to a slop.



As you can see the basic composition is taking form. Also I am using more than the standard area terrain. I love roads, we have rules for roads and never see them. Look out for the lava!



Some buildings take shape on the left side, one is done the other is just a stand in for the real thing.


Well, that's a good start. As you can see the concept it a imperial land that has fallen to Chaos, but under the surface of this basic idea I am trying to incorporate several types of terrain while giving each section its own sense of individuality.



Come back soon and you will see several updates and additions to the ever evolving labor of love.

Would you like to see more "hobby," articles? If so tell us what kind of things you want to see in the Comments thread!

Swags.

3 comments:

  1. I really like those vertical pink rocks, they would give excellent cover to vehicles and infantry while still being playable. Damn you swags for living so far away, when you visit bring the board! (that's an order, lmao)

    Duke

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  2. Very interesting... i been contemplating for weeks the idea of building myself a table too...

    And that table looks like my painting table! best 50$ ever.

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  3. I like what you have done and yes more articles is always good.

    Been working on some Chaos table and Winter table for some time with slow progress. My idea was to them the center to undivded and the other quarters each to a specific mark with 2 items of scenery for each area.

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