Diesel DM

2′ x 2′ Warmachine Demo Board

I’ve been thinking about making another board for a while now, and after seeing a friend’s demo board I realized it would be best to try out the techniques I might use on a small 2′ x 2′ demo board.  And of course I had to build a snazzy wooden frame for it.

Materials used:

Wood Frame:

• 2″x1/2″ Red Oak boards (sides)
• 24 1/2″ x 24 1/2″ 3/16″ Hardboard (bottom)
• 2″x2″ Red Oak (feet)
• Felt furniture feet (feet)
• 8 finishing nails
• Wood glue
• Wood stain
• Varnish

Board:

• Foam core board (hills)
• Wood Filler (smooth the hills)
• Homax Texture spray (dirt texture)
• Sand (road)
• Small ballast (road)
• PVA glue (road and grass)
• GF9 Static Grass
• Krylon spray paint (brown base coat)
• Craft paint (browns and white for drybrushing)

Wood frame with hardboard bottom, add the foam core hills

I wished I’d taken more picture during the assembly of the frame, but I got caught up in the moment and built it quickly. I started by cutting a piece of 3/16″ hardboard to 24 1/2″ x 24 1/2″.  I then cut some mitered ends on 4 2″x1/2″ red oak boards so that the inside would be 2′ x 2′. Using a 3/16″ straight bit and a router table I cut a 1/4″ deep groove at the bottom of each board to house the edges of the hardboard (hence cutting it 1/2″ oversized). I also used the router table with a 1/4″ roundover bit to round the top outside edge for a comfort and looks.  I used wood glue and some bar clamps the assembled the frame and base together, putting a couple finishing nails into each corner.

With that done and dry I began loosely following the board building guide in No Quarter 45, starting with using Liquid Nails to glue down some angled cuts of foam core.  I know now that for smoother transitions I should have cut even steeper angles for the slopes.

Use Wood Filler to smooth the slope transitions

A couple of layers of wood filler help to smooth out the slopes, but again: better cut slopes would have used less filler and yielded better results.

Homax Texture Spray over the top to provide the ground surface

Rather than the typical sand route, I wanted to try using Homax Texture Spray as I read about on this post.  It gives a nice random texture that isn’t as rough as sand.  Also it’s much easier to apply.

Close-up of the texture

Many coats of Kyrlon spray paint to get an even coverage

Some brown Krylon spray paint made quick work of base coating the board.  It took a lot of layers to get even coverage, but keep each coat thin to avoid obliterating the texture.

Drybrushed with lighter browns

The texture sprays takes drybrushing very well. I did craft paint equivalents of Rucksack Tan and Menoth White Base.  For drybrushing these big areas I found a large (3″) brush did a much better job and the smaller ones.

Mistake! Tried Woodland Scenics fine turf and hated it

Here I made my first big mis-step.  I wanted heavy grass coverage so I went with some Woodland Scenics fine turf.  It looks terrible.  I tried blending colors for variety, but still looked bad.  Also it was clear that it wouldn’t hold up to even light gaming.  It was going to peel off and scrape off real easy.  So bad in fact that I took a damp sponge and scrubbed it all off.  This should tell you just how tough the spray texture and Krylon spray paint is: I scrubbed it with a damp sponge, it took off the turf, scenic cement and drybrushing, but the basecoat and texture were unharmed.

You can also see I painted on some PVA glue and sprinkled some medium ballast then a coat of sand to make a road.  I then painted the road a basecoat of a brown, similar to the rest of the board, then followed up with wet streaks of different dark and light browns to give the road a varied, well-travelled look.  Then drybrushed it similar to the main board texture and followed with a some white.

Scrubbed off the turf and went with patchy GF9 static grass instead

After the turf failure I went for my favorite basing material, GF9 static grass.  I went real patchy to save on grass and to show off the texture underneath.  It results in a real war-torn look around this lonesome road.

Went with some small feet and felt pads for the bottom

Underneath the board I cut some short legs from 2″x2″ red oak and topped them with felt feet.

Up close texture of the road and finished board

I really like how the road turned out and the board in general has a nice simple look to it.  As a demo board you want it to be as simple as possible with no cover, elevation or anything that adds complexity for someone just learning the game.  Some modular elements, like sandbag linear obstacles could add some nice touches though.

Added battle box models for scale

Let the games begin!