Urban Gaming Board - Part 1

Hi All,


I have always wanted a board to play war games on. Time, talent and space have always stopped me from attempting such a project.


I have been having a tough time at work recently and decided to take a couple of weeks off. In a bid to make myself useful I decided to finally have a go at making a board!


I originally wanted to build a WW2 board (Italy specifically) to play Bolt Action and Chain of Command on (without having to visit the FLGS). However I decided to be less ambitious and go for a small, non-modular urban board.


So I started with a basic plan. Four 45cm x45cm boards (~1.5ft) to make a 90cm x 90cm (3ft) board.


The plan was to have a T-intersection of roads broadly running down the centres of 3 boards. On one corner a building, on the other a urban park. Along the 'non-intersection side of the road, a few more building


First thing I had to do was order the buildings. I was highly impressed with the cost and detail of the Knights of Dice buildings (also being located in Australia helped). The main buildings I picked up were there Moore Street tenements, the petrol station and the Harmonic Theatre.


Next I went to Bunnings (hardware store) and got some 3mm MDF cut into 45cm x 45cm squares (8 of them to be exact).


I also ordered some spray paints from the FLGS and Officeworks to pain the boards and buildings.


So the buildings arrived and I got to painting - lets just say I am terrible at colour selections! Luckily Knights of Dice have video tutorials for some of their products.

Dry fit for the Petrol Station - ~40% complete

Dry fit for the Petrol Station - ~40% complete

So I waded into the Petrol station first. The above picture is a work in progress. Some difficulty ensued with the Officeworks spray paints, being street-art paints I lacked the finesse to spray properly and ended up priming myself more than the building!




An almost complete Petrol Station



An almost complete Petrol Station

Above is an almost complete petrol station. Still some drybrushing, weathering and details to do, but you get the idea.


Joining the petrol station on the non-intersection side of the street was the two tenement buildings.

1 half built tenement - please excuse our 'cat'

almost complete tenement

I also painted up the second tenement much the same. They are both now weathered and assembled and pretty much done.


The next step was to work on the board itself. I got some tools (a dremel did most of work) and cut out the roads on the upper pieces of MDF.

You can see the overall layout above. Other people have done the sidewalk detail with foam because it is easier to use. I chose the MDF because it is what I had. I made some half cuts with the dremel and then filed out the detail of the kerbs and sidewalks using art carving tools.


You can also see the black piece of material. This is sandpaper and will be laid between the two pieces of MDF to give the roads texture.

Options for sidewalk detail

Due to the MDF being hard to work with for small detail, I considered using filler, engraving into it and then sanding down when dry. The above picture shows a test effort...as you can see it didn't really work. This picture also shows my efforts at MDF engraving - there are some mistakes but these will be covered by static grass later in the process.

I also used the MDF sprues to get a perfect cut out of the building footprints so they can be embedded into the table and everything will be level with the kerb.


This is my current progress to date. I estimate that I am 35% complete with this project. I have ordered some trees (which I will use as street trees and in the park). The trees will also be embedded so I will drill out some circle bases for them so they can sit in flush. Then its onto painting the kerbs, gluing it all down, filling and sanding down any holes and then painting and detailing the boards (as well as making the other buildings and park etc) which hopefully will be covered in subsequent blog posts.