Hi All
Thought I would post this here as I recently finished building a small board for playing skirmish size (2v2) games with friends. We often don’t have time for full lance and up games and, as they are new to Battletech (and miniatures games in general), they have experienced nothing else but map-based play, so I thought this would be a good next step.
It’s 15x18 hexes, so only slightly longer than a single map sheet, with hexes not quite 50mm (2") point to point, or just over 40mm (1 5/16") flat to flat. They are larger than a standard map hex but not as large as I wanted to make them. However larger hexes would have limited the number I could have squeezed onto the fixed board space and I needed to balance this with room for placing minis. I left out any half hexes for simplicity.
I envisaged an arid, rocky (semi-desert or plateau) environment with the remains of a small caldera, crater or similar, which over time had become a lake, allowing a few watercourses to cut into the landscape and vegetation to limit lines of sight and add cover. Good terrain for skirmishes and meeting engagements by recon elements. (Not) Coincidentally the sort of game we usually play.
The base of the board is a 90x60cm (2x3’), MDF backed, cork notice board which I found in a stationery shop. Design was drafted out on hex paper and revised until I was happy, then drawn onto the foam. I used 20mm (3/4”) thick sheets of styrene insulation foam (blue foam) to build up the terrain layers, with one ‘sheet’ making up an individual elevation level. So a level 2 hill is 40mm high, which nicely scales to the average mech mini. We mostly use the old AS plastics, as we managed to dig up a complete set of lance packs between us and split the cost/mechs. I have a decent collection of the IWM/RP minis too. The newer plastics from my GOAC and Beginners boxes are noticeably larger and chunkier, which makes it a little harder to fit them in some places, but they still work nicely.
Texturing was EVO-STIK liquid nails adhesive, which dries hard and will protect the foam, with plaster over the top, which was then molded/sculpted to make any features I needed. I glued sand over the top of that and then 2 shades of green scatter for heavy (dark) and light (light) woods.
Trees are made from bamboo skewers and those foam insert slips, that stuff you have been pulling out of mini-packs for years and wondering what to do with. I soaked a whole bunch of them in a dark green paint and filler mixture, left them to dry hard, and then threw half into a blender (cleaning it carefully afterward, so as not to not upset my better half), then hot glued foam shapes made from the other half onto bamboo skewers. I then used more hot glue to cover these shapes with the blended foam bits, with a quick drybrush to finish. Cheap and easy!! Trees aren’t stuck into the board and are removable for ease of storage and moving the board around. I ended up with a generous additional helping of trees, which I couldn't use, due to the size of the new 2019 minis. Their additional chunkiness meant I had to allow for fitting them in and around tree hexes, this meant reducing the eventual number of trees on the board. So I am covered for spares and repairs.
All told this was pretty cheap, probably costing me around $70 or 50 Euros for the materials. However, I only ended up using 1 of the foam sheets I bought, and despite buying a fretsaw for cutting out the hexes, I found it was actually easier to cut the foam with a knife, which could have saved a few pennies more. The skewers and pack foam I had in quantity already and using these for the trees was a good way to keep costs down (*ahem* and get rid of my foam stockpile...… Seriously, I KNEW those things were worth holding on to…. ^-^).
Photos attached. Apologies in advance for the lighting, these were taken over the last few months, at differing times of day and in different conditions. My man cupboard (it's too small to be a called man cave :)) only has a little skylight window and I am using my phone camera.
Hope you enjoy :) Happy to hear any comments or questions.