Carnage City Rocks on Hawk Wargames Urban War Battle boards

[Maccwar]

I've been working on my modern urban table for over a year now and the project has just reached a significant milestone with the (late) arrival of my Games & Gears Hawk Wargames Urban War Battle board. I backed the kickstarter and got a full 6x4 set of 28mm scale urban boards for the tiny sum of £62 (much less than the £140 retail price) - the only catch was that the boards were due May 2014 and not 2015!

Here are some shots of the boards themselves:-





And the full 6x4 layout.



These boards are exactly as they come out of the box - the roads are pre-painted but the grey areas are grey plastic. The paint on the roads was not as crisp as I would have liked but as I am planning on painting the other portions of the boards I can re-touch them as I go.

There is a blank area on one of the tiles which you can turn into anything you want. I am planning to paint it up as a car park and then do an insert to allow me to turn it into a park or a graveyard depending on the scenario I am playing. It would have been easier for me if they had painted it black to start with but this is how it is.

The boards are sturdy plastic and seem to cope with a minor overhang over the edge of the table pretty well. My table is 3 feet wide meaning a 4 feet wide layout will overhand by 6 inches on each side and this didn't seem to be a problem. The clips that hold the boards together are quite strong and don't ping off like the GW equivalent whenever someone leans on the table. The downside of the clip system is that they need to be inserted whilst the boards are face down meaning you need to clip all the boards together and then flip the entire layout over. This is a bit precarious but so far hasn't caused any actual problems.

I'm looking forward to getting some paint on the boards and getting some games in - it has been a long wait but now I am a few steps closer to having the urban table I have been dreaming about for years.

[Maccwar]

And here are some photos I took with my scenery on the bare boards. Once the boards are painted I will need to rework some of the scenery to match it to the colour and the style of the boards. When everything is finished it should look rather nice.

[Maccwar]

[Dangerdaz]

Now that looks awesome!

[gimzod]

Just got my board as well. Glad people are finally getting them.

[mikedemana]

Love the signs! Great touch.

I think you need a black wash over those pristine white sidewalks, though. Experiment with a small section until you get the look you want. It will certainly make it look more like a dirty, urban battlefield.

Mike Demana
ww.firstcommandwargames.com

[Maccwar]

I've started to crack on with painting the boards. I picked the park board to start with as it looks incredibly bland without any paint on it.

After washing the board with detergent and leaving it to dry I roughly blocked out the park area with black spray. I also splurged a few other areas with black as an experiment to see if I could use this to vary the tone of the boards in those areas after priming (it didn't work). I then I used masking tape to block out the park area so I could prime the rest of the board surface.



I put a layer of halfords grey primer over the rest of the board surface and then masked off areas to use a lighter grey spray where the pattern changes to introduce some variation. I then oversprayed small sections with black and the two greys to break up the colour blocks and make it look work and used.



I then brought the boards inside to apply some highlights and washes. If this board is anything to go by then I am going to get through industrial quantities of dark tone ink and lahmian medium before I'm done. After applying the diluted wash to the cracks I wiped the excess from the board surface which gave a nice worn look.



That board still isn't finished as I haven't washed and highlighted the brick tiles yet. There's also work to do on the black area to mark out parking bays which will be a new challenge for me. Overall I'm pleased with the progress so far and can't wait to get cracking on the rest of the boards.

For this particular tile I also need to make a green park insert and other little touches too.

[flags_of_war]

Great start. I look forward to seeing more of what you do

[Dr. Zombie]

That is looking very good. I just got mine as well.

I am going to follow this for inspiration on dirtying my own boards up.

[Hat Guy]

Why was I not aware of these?  They're just what I'm looking for for my urban table.

Are these going to be commercially available in the 28mm versions? And how wide are the road lanes?

[fluffy05]

Subscribed!!

Very nice.

I am looking forward to seeing what you do with this 

[Maccwar]

After a bit of a gap due to ill health I am cracking on with this project. I'm motivated by the fact I might get a game on the boards this weekend.

I've done a bit more work on that first board. I have applied a wash and highlights to the brick areas. At some point I still need to paint the lines for the the parking bays and make the park/graveyard insert but otherwise this tile is mostly finished for now.



So on to tile number two, the plaza tile - another vast expanse of grey. Again I've tried to break things up by using an alternate colour for where the tile pattern changes.



The highlighting looks a little heavy handed in this photo but I don't think it is so bad in real life.



For the remaining tiles I have bought some accessories to add additional detail. These are etched brass covers from the Hasslefree store. I have added them to the sidewalk areas of the road tiles where they are most likely to be visible and not covered by buildings during play. Once the boards are primed I will add the drain covers to the edges of the roads - not before because the masking tape might rip them off otherwise.

[Maccwar]

With the brass accessories glued to the boards I took advantage of a dry afternoon to get the remaining four boards primed. Before I had a chance to do any more work on them it was time to play a couple of games on them and teach Officer Down to an old friend.

We played through the introductory scenario "Rumble in the Junkyard". The SWAT team have 8 turns to secure the car in the junkyard as evidence before it gets crushed.

We played through the scenario and then swapped forces to run through it again. Both times the criminals opted to place a sniper with an assault rifle in the recycling plant opposite the junkyard - this hampered the approach of the SWAT teams and pinned down half their forces until the sniper could be taken care of.







The back alley next to the junkyard became a shooting gallery and both sides tried to use all available cover whilst bringing as many guns to bear as possible.







We had two tense games and the criminals and the SWAT teams won a game apiece.

Now to get on with some painting.

[Maccwar]

After a busy evening inking the four remaining boards I ended up with this:-



And then on to the highlights to get this:-











Am I finished? Nope. I still have the manhole/drain covers to paint and those roads look to clean to my eye - I need to find a way to weather them that I can reproduce over a large area.

[Maccwar]

And here are my first attempts at doing those manhole and drain covers.