Suggestions for Creating a Tiled Board?

[Grish]

Hello,

I'm going to make my first board. I find that most boards are just static, they barely have any terrain except forest, hills, and maybe a tower or something.

I think a tiled board would be great, so that you could swap out portions of it to give rough terrain sometimes, and a flat plain other times. This would be especially good as we'll be doing a conquest style warband game, where the objective would be to conquer portions on a map. So when you invade lizardmen territories, the boards would be river and swamp, if your bretonnia and try to attack wood elves, tehre'd be 5+ forests on the map, when wood elves attack bretonnia plains there would be no forests but the forest they bring with them, etc.

Also it would allow for different board configurations such as 6x4, 4x4, 6x3 (narrow mountain pass?), etc.

Anyways, I think this would make for much more interesting army lists/placements/tactics but my problem is HOW to make a good board.

My list of problems so far are thus:
1) How to make the boards stick together well so they don't move apart when bumped.
2) How to get rid of lines so that people with war machines won't have a much easier time gauging distances because of the lines where the tiles are joined.

That's all I can think of for now. Anyways, what kind of ideas do people have out there?

 

[Arion]

Well you could create a box in which you could slot tiles in,sort of like this.

A box with grooves in the base,you could fit pieces of wood into the grooves thus creating a constricted area for which to put you tiles snugly in,the tiles would join directly next to eachother if you havent made any mistakes.The box could be as big as you like using the constricted areas as boards.

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Each line is a groove there is an example board in bold.The bold lines are the groves with a bit of wood in them.The area inside there is where you would put your tiles they would fit snugly against the edge of the board(where my diagram ends)and the wood bits.
Il give more explaination if you want.

 

[Zuckuss]

Hi,

I tend to use the Terragenesis site for bits and pieces like this. They even have a section on making boards!

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page14.html

Hope this helps.

Zuckuss

 

[Zuckuss]

A bit further looking, if you still want to overcome the range guessing using the tiles as markers, I recommend the hexagonal tiling scheme. It will take a good few games before people get used to them,

http://www.terragenesis.co.uk/infopages/page255.html

Zuckuss

 

[Skaramak von Carstein]

How big and deep do you envisage each tile being?

If you are looking at (say) 1' x 1', with a depth of 1", you could use pegs in the sides to keep them in place (in an early board we used the sticks from ice lollies :lol.

For losing the gaps, we have used plasticene before, making a sort of T-shaped strip, and then used scatter over the table (used for a 6' x 8' table taken to a gaming event in the UK (requiring a boat trip from Jersey). Once set up, you couldn't see the joins , and people visiting the table were wondering how we got it there. (these were 3' x 2' boards, but the principle is the same). Not practical for tiny tiles.

 

[Grish]

How big and deep do you envisage each tile being?

I was thinking large tiles, 2'x2'. Boards would normally be around 4'x4', or 6'x4'. I was thinking this would be easiest, but not sure as I'm not the handiest person in the world

If you are looking at (say) 1' x 1', with a depth of 1", you could use pegs in the sides to keep them in place (in an early board we used the sticks from ice lollies :lol.

Are you saying drill into the tiles and attach pegs to the other tiles to hold them together? What are ice lollies..? I'm worried about wood swelling/warping making joins difficult and edges not lining up. Was this an issue with you?

I was thinking of using plywood for my board as it's cheap, but it's also much more prone to warping. I have some left over red cedar boards, but I thought they'd be too nice to use on a project like this. Also they're a soft wood, easily damaged.

For losing the gaps, we have used plasticene before, making a sort of T-shaped strip, and then used scatter over the table (used for a 6' x 8' table taken to a gaming event in the UK (requiring a boat trip from Jersey). Once set up, you couldn't see the joins , and people visiting the table were wondering how we got it there. (these were 3' x 2' boards, but the principle is the same). Not practical for tiny tiles.

I can't picture this... you had some tiles, and filled in the gaps with plasticine, I'm with you so far. T-shaped strips, were they made this way to be reusable? And what is scatter..?

Someone gave me another idea as well, and that's to get some kind of plastic, see-through board, and put the tiles underneath it. That way there's no gaps, you can put extra grass on top without worrying that it'll get all over your house. It'll make a different feel to the board, but at this point I'm just looking at all kinds of options...

I took a look at the hex boards, and think they'd be good to represent the campaign map but not a board. Too many tiles I think, too hard to create hex tiles. Too many cuts, precise angle measurements, I think it'd be a pain. My bench saw isn't that great... kinda old.

Thanks for the ideas!

 

[Grish]

I had a friend suggest high density foam. Has anyone tried this for a tiled board? I wouldn't think foam would work well...

 

[Skaramak von Carstein]

Are you saying drill into the tiles and attach pegs to the other tiles to hold them together?

Yes. They do not need to be permanently attached - 2 holes and a peg that you insert when assembling would do it.

What are ice lollies..?

Ice lollies are frozen ice creams on a stick. Any peg would work - these worked for us as we were using polystyerene tiles.

I'm worried about wood swelling/warping making joins difficult and edges not lining up. Was this an issue with you?

It has been a problen when we used wooded sheets.

For losing the gaps, we have used plasticene before, making a sort of T-shaped strip, and then used scatter over the table (used for a 6' x 8' table taken to a gaming event in the UK (requiring a boat trip from Jersey). Once set up, you couldn't see the joins , and people visiting the table were wondering how we got it there. (these were 3' x 2' boards, but the principle is the same). Not practical for tiny tiles.

I can't picture this... you had some tiles, and filled in the gaps with plasticine, I'm with you so far. T-shaped strips, were they made this way to be reusable?

We made up plasticene strips with a T shaped cross section, inserted the T into the gap between boards and bent the plasticene to match the contours.

And what is scatter..?

Flock, static grass or similar to match the table covering.

Careful terrain placement can also break up the lines of the boards - putting a building/wood/hill on the meeting point of 4 tiles, and at an angle to the edges (so the building is at, say, 45'). Laying hedges on a diagonal and not along a join can also draw the eye away from joins. It is a case of trial and error with the tiles that you have, but seeking to fool the eye into looking elsewhere of at a differenc angle.

 

[Grish]

Awesome Skaramak, always a pleasure your advice.

I think I'll use a wood that doesn't swell; pressboard. The particles in it should prevent much swelling. Using holes is an excellent idea, inserting it into grooves would give additional borders to worry about. Even if there are lines, I don't think it would help warmachines that much with an experienced person. I played with some experienced people at a tourney and they could guess up to an inch/half an inch without lines. I doubt the lines would help that much more.

Thanks for the idea! I think that's exactly what I'll do. I'll you guys know how it goes! Oh, and we call Ice Lollies either Popsicles (brand name I believe, it's for the flavoured ice) and we don't really have a generic name for ice cream on a stick... the thought boggles the mind... use a cone or a bowl!

 

[Skaramak von Carstein]

I think that's exactly what I'll do. I'll you guys know how it goes!

Looking forward to it

Oh, and we call Ice Lollies either Popsicles (brand name I believe, it's for the flavoured ice) and we don't really have a generic name for ice cream on a stick... the thought boggles the mind... use a cone or a bowl!

:lol::lol: :|
We have a variety of similar products on this side of the pond, some of which are Popsicle style, some of which contain ice-cream with a coating (chocolate, fruit preparation, etc). We do not (as far as I am aware) manage soft ice cream on a stick