My attempt at very imperfect gaming surfaces.

[The Voivod]

When I started wargaming 40k (tm), white dwarf was just at the point every battle report was presented on a green board wit hills, forests and maybe some ruins.
Naturally this was the look I emulated when making my gaming table, just before figuring out all the terrain I build was for the recently released city fight expansion.
Cities are not commonly known for their rolling fields of green. So I played many a year on boards not suiting my terrain.
But at least I had a board. I played some fantasy eventually, so at least my 5 or six games had a proper battle ground.

I now play many games, in many genres and many enviroment. I made plenty of terrain pieces...
And I have game that actually has a dedicated board and terrain: my bushido shrine garden.
One of my best pieces and something I aim to emulate for all my games. I am a gamer with grand plans.

In the meantime, my post-apocalyptic hordes and superheroes and valient knights and elves clash over a surface that looks conspiculously like a wooden dining table. I have a plan for the perfect table. It's gonna have magnetic surfaces and is gonna be modular and look awesome. It will one day be mine.
Today is not that day.

You know what looks better than a diningtable? Anything else. I saw a trick on Lukesaps and decided this would be expended upon. I am going to make 3 gaming surfaces, 3 by 3, to play most of my games upon. I will make a green field, for jungle, fantasy and forest, a modern street board and an industrial/sci-fi/dystopian one. In the future probably I will add a desert one for gaslands.

And for this project I will use foam tiles with an interlocking system. I bought my supplies and got to it.
Now a gamers worst enemy was already against me: time. These free days are passing way to quickly, so at the point I wasnted to have at least two finished I barely started on the second, while the first still needs some finishing touches.
But I seem to be succeeding in my goal. They will certainly turn out imperfect.
Normally this would bother me to now end, but I decided this would be a learning and experimentation experience for later, more demanding projects.

I took the foam matts from the shed and rinced them of underneath the shower. They have some wear and tear, having lain underneath the kids pool in the garden for 2 summers. I will get them new ones in the spring, but I want to build now. Not forgetting to rince the shower afterwards as well, as it did get quite messy.
I then cut the first one to size, meaning I would have "puzzle" pieces on 2 sides only, having 4 of them make a square 3x3 feet. This may have been already less than perfect, but I just want to get going.



My local "pound" store didn't have my favorite branch of black primer, so I used white. This unfortunatly meant the extra step of base-coating the entire thing. While I was doing that, I decided I might as well add some brown in the mix, as I thought that would look better once covered in grass.

I than sprinkled and experimental groundmixture. Lukesaps suggested filtered sand and coloured tile grout. the tile grout I could find at the diy was not a suitable colour, so I decided to filter some sand for underneat a birdscage, since it's very fine, some spackle powder and I bough a big pot of burnt umber pigment at the diy. Not cheap, but it should last me a while and should serve plenty of purpuses. Certainly cheaper than many hobby alternatives. I like how it enden up, but I'm wondering if it will survive for long. I am considering hiiting the entire surface with some varnish, maybe that'll help the top to adhere better.



I then added some flock around the groundwork, to add some colour and structure variation. I though it looked nice. Shame about the next part.



Than I flocked it up. 
Using my new, relativly cheap, static grass applicater, I covered the entire thing in my basic green. I was just working with what I had here, and I think my basic green was just a smidge to short to really be effective. I also did not wait untill the flock I already added wasn't dry, hoping to get s smooth blend. It got covered much more than I liked.
After getting cramp in my arm from shaking the applicator I spritzed on some watered down PVA on several places and grassed this with different colours.
It's drying as I type this. I will post the finished thing tomorrow. Imperfect indeed. But not bad. I wonder how it looks put together.
In the meantime, I have also made some little progress on the city board, which has it's own problems..

[Luigi]

I'm curious to see how this will end up as I wanted to do something similar for my table as well>

in particular I'm curious about:
warping - will the foam warp/curl once the glue is dry? Especially if my covering is sand heavy?
Durability - will the sand flock adhere well to the foam with PVA glue or will it fall off in flakes, especially if one were to stack the pieces for storage
Modularity - the interlocking system is the best part of this method, but will the teeth stay flexible once painted and glued or will they snap/tear from now bein too rigid?

Yours is looking great and it's definitely making me want to tackle a similar project

[The Voivod]

It turned out okay. I was aiming for okay, but I had hoped for a bit more okay that this.

There was some warping. I expected some. It was a bit worse, but I managed to alleviate it by simply adding a thin layer of pva/water and cheap primer on the other side and let it dry.
I don't know fir sure, but I feel the primer helps bond the mix better to a material that doesn't really adheres to pva.
Drying and contracting of the pva is what caused the warping, so this simply warps it back. A thin layer allows for mre compensation if it's not enough. 
The connections are still a bit to visible and the earth doesn't stick as well as I'd like. Maybe a spritz of watered pva on that first next time. It was fine as an experiment and it looks better that a dining room table.

I need to find some time/mojo again for the streets, as it doesn't seem to work out as I liked either.

[Codsticker]

Amazing how once you start putting terrain down on it the seams start to disappear.

[Luigi]

I think it came out amazing!
For the lack of adherence to the foam perhaps roughing the foam with coarse sandpaper might alleviate it?

And I agree, once you start placing terrain on it the seams really do start to disappeat

[MaleGriffin]

I have a bunch of these mats that I cover with cloth and then put trees with pins in them through the cloth and into the mat. Trees don't fall down and are easily moved. I'm too am curious how these hold up.

[The Voivod]

Thanks.

It was a good learning process as well. An opportunity to up my game with some tools and materials and tools I'm not too familliar with. Once I start working on terrain I'll have higher hopes of, I'll now have better knowledge and skills.
In the meantime I have a perfectly servicable gaming surface.

[ced1106]

> Using my new, relativly cheap, static grass applicater, I covered the entire thing in my basic green.

Maybe some sort of green undercoat instead of brown would have worked better. Test with multiple surfaces first.

OTOH, This won't be your last game table! I use Ravenkeep's Terra Tiles myself because lazy. :/

[Daeothar]

Great! No more  wooden table to beat you on 

We're going to have to use this as soon as possible; they do look pretty nice, even if you're not 100% satisfied