Tabletops with dramatic elevation

[rumacara]

wow...
Great terrain Cacofold.
Great ideas for a layout.

Cheers

Rui

[Vermis]

That is sumpthin' special.

I like what you've done with the 6x4 board design, too. Nice effect of the rivers eroding the higher ground into 'mesas', I think. Looking forward to see it in 3D.

Can't say I've seen or thought too much about other single piece boards*, but I'm not opposed to the idea - though mostly because of the World of Tanks computer game, rather than tabletop gaming. You get the same few 'boards' at lower tiers but so far they haven't become boring - yet. There are familiar strategies for each, but different force compositions, tactics and reactions keep them interesting.

*Edit: I tell a lie! There was Andrew May's game-board-in-a-wallpaper-table.

[OSHIROmodels]

Anyone have any other examples of boards with lots of different elevations and topography?

Our very own Captain Blood has made a couple in the past, two being in this blog link... http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/when-saturday-comesit-can-be-brilliant.html

I've been trying to find pictures of my Salute 2011 game pictures which had about a nine inch height difference over the table with a samurai castle on top but to no avail (there aren't really that many online either) 

I'll be digging them out again soon though as we're going to be playing on them 

cheers

James

[warburton]

Top effort and very inspirational.

[Marine0846]

Excellent terrain, love it.
Such talent we have on this forum.
We are very lucky.
Thanks for sharing.

[FifteensAway]

Truly lovely work.  I started with foam sculpted terrain many, many years ago but in a more modular style.  Still have some of the pieces, though kind of dull by today's standards, just grass green paint covered in Woodland Scenics T49 Blended Turf, fine.

However, I've settled on plywood hills for simple durability and better playability.  But, man, hard to beat the visual effect you've achieved.  And, mind you, my other hobby is model railroading where the terrain standard is pretty high.  Good job.

(and if anyone cares, my plywood hills have top edges sanded round, two layers glued with grain going in 'opposite' directions {ja, ich kenne plywood always has cross gaining  }, spray painted a chocolate brown, sand glued down to provide texture, and then painted with 8 colors of super cheap acrylic house paints from a dark brown to a very yellowish green highlight.  and I can toss a hill ten feet across the room to land on a carpeted floor with no concern about breakage!  I also make many of the pieces stackable so that I can have as many as six total layers in a hill to add up to 3" in 'real' dimensions - which is pretty tall in a world of 15 mm figures.  next plan is an actual 'mountain range' courtesy of an adaptation from The Major General's page)

[cacofold]

The friend whose desert board I am doing on commission (map earlier in the thread) came by today to go over LOS. We're going to remove the dry riverbeds, and add minecart tracks, tunnel entrances, an oasis, a higher point on one side with an elevator. He is using this for an oldhammer rogue trader game later this year.

He brought by his oldhammer figures and we loaded them on the skirmish board and brought em outside for photos.

[weismonsters]

 
Simply stunning.

[OSHIROmodels]

Great stuff, the sunlight really makes it pop 

cheers

James

[matthais-mouse]

THIS IS AMAZING  I have a small island table planned as a display for my empire and chaos warbands.
This has definately been the inspiration i needed to fully plan my gaming board 

I just need to get the foam pieces for it and ill be all set 

[cacofold]

Went to Historicon this weekend and saw a product I didn't know existed which should make making these tables much much easier. This is a 9" long heavy duty hot foam cutter with a "sled guide". So you lock the cutter in and a certain angle, and you can slide the sled guide free hand on a line and keep the same slope. You can also slide it along a rail for straight cuts, or mount the guide to a table and stick the cutter straight up. The 9" length is enough to cut 2" foam along a 6" width for the nice 1:3 ratio slope I used on the waterfall table. It should also make plunge cuts (pools/marshes) pretty easy.

I'm really excited about making the desert table now. Iit should be as easy as tracing out the edge of the top of the flat part of the hill with a sharpie and then using the sled guide to cut that line while keeping at a right angle.

Oh course, now that I know it exists, it's pretty easy to google "sled guide" and find them all over.

[Vermis]

Oh course, now that I know it exists, it's pretty easy to google "sled guide" and find them all over.

'Twas ever thus.

[Connectamabob]

Dang... those are beautiful. I love non-stepped terrain, and you've made some particularly good examples here. Love the "spiral staircase" guideline idea for layout planning. It's stuff like this that makes me curse the fact that blue/pink foam isn't available in my area.

[pocoloco]

Stunning board that try-out piece of yours. Can't wait to see how the bigger board takes shape.

[Blackwolf]

Great work