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Another beginning city-board (harbour)


klatschi

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Hi guys,

I started Malifaux recently and I'm very intrigued by this game. What is needed most to play a good game? Right, good terrain.

I decided to build a folding table (that can easily be stored on my shelf) and give it a harbour-theme. Unfortunately, I was too busy when calculating the size at the craft store and in the end, I ended up with a tale that's 0.5" too small (or 0.5" too big when counting in the framework). But in the end, I don't give a heck, I will play the game with friends and not on tournaments, therefore I know, how big it is in the end.

Platte_zpsyk6gt4pr.jpg

And since I love tables with big centerpieces that don't give the feeling of "shrinked" houses etc., I started to build a first house for my board. It turned out to be really big, but I like it that way. on top of the house will be a crane and there will be opportunities to place models (planks on the roof, for example).

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Due to using lego bricks and giving the whole thing a good coat of pva glue in the end, it should be sturdy as hell - in the end, it's a gaming table and I want it to survive a few games ;-)

Next step is two decide two core features of my gaming board:

1) The overall board layout

How should my gaming table be set up? I've come up with two ideas. Imagine that there are steps to link the different height levels at different places, I was too lazy to build them in SketchUP.

The first one has a bit more water, and will feature some bridges and possibilities to cross the water. However, the areas to place your houses and stuff seem rather small.

Test1_zpsgr6sfmyl.png

The second one more opportunities to place your miniatures. The water will be taken to a canal under the playng are, therefore, it gives more real playing are and the board space on the left and the right will be linked by bridges again. I tend to do this one at the moment...

Test2_zpsjdv5ltst.png

2) Ruined or intact?

Ruined cities give the opportunity to place models inside more easily, take cover more easily and create a lot of different terrain features, like the above mentioned crane, that fell of the plattform etc. One could do skelettons in different corners of the board. My big house would get some signs of decay (broken down crane, holes in the rooftop), but would stay more or less intact. the rest of the board should get different degrees of damage. I imagine two more ruins of houses, the rest of a broken fisher boat to take cover, boxes and crates and so on and rubble here and there, maybe a collapsed statue, too. Next question: how to do soft cover. It could be easer on a table like this to build plants that took over the city in certain areas, maybe there are some smaller trees inside a ruin and so forth.

On the other hand, an intact city board seems more outstanding, not that "common" - ruins are more easy and cheaper, therefore there are more ruin boards than intact city boards.

What do you think?

 

Edited by klatschi
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well, I used some spare time to continue building my table.

I decided to go the second way and give the board bigger areas to put terrain on. The missing rectangles will be stairs to the next level. Today, I'm going to cover the styrofoam with plaster and when that's dry, I'll start covering the whole damn thing with tiles I cut out of cardboard cards. I think, this process will take the whole week or so. I hope, a friend of mine comes around at thursdays and helps me with that *g*

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Some pictures with my big house to see how many options I have to place it:

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And here's the product of my cardboard-cutting efforts:

Kacheln_zpstlwsarpq.jpg

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@ ArcticPangolin 

Hard to say... maybe 3 hours in total? I watched some television while doing the cutting, so time flew by...

@ wookiejunior  

No, everything stays modular - I want to make this table foldable to save room. Therefore, the house won't be fixed.

 

I've got some update: Started gluing the cardboard onto my table. It takes a while but it's really zen-like meditation, when you get used to it. My wife and I started listening to "The Hunger Games" while she does her sewing and I work on my hobby stuff and that really helps, too ^^ Also, I realized I forgot about the canal, so I built the last missing bit today.

Platte%20WIP3_1_zpsqswek6r7.jpg

Platte%20WIP3_2_zpsbrknhqns.jpg

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Sorry for not answering sooner. Real Life is a BI...g Problem sometimes ;-)

Yes, I use PVA glue. In the end, I will give the whole board one last wash with diluted PVA and sprinkle some sand on parts of the table.

Thanks for answering. Yeah, real life can get in the way of fun.....I've been doing similar tiles for model bases and have been using superglue.....i want to do a larger board though and pva is much cheaper and no doubt easier. thanks. 

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In my eyes, PVC has some advantages over super glue: 1) The fumes are not that horrible and 2) it takes more time to thicken completely, therefore one can push tiles around a bit. This was very helpful when doing larger parts of the board - the gaps of my tiles increased with the hours I spent gluing them onto the board, so I had the opportunity to sqeeze them back together :-)

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Sorry for posting again.

Monday evening, I found some time to give the whole thing a black undercoat, after covering it with thinned PVC and some sand in the morning. Then, I dusted the whole thing with white primer (Army Painter). It's just the beginning but I like where it is going - next: brown washes to give it more realistic depth and dirt.

 

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Updates here ^_^ The tiles are finished.

I washed the whole wthing in two different shades of brown and some green, then I started to drybrush it in two steps of (slightly brownish) grey. Next step was to wash some tiles with GW-inks. Some parts (mosaics) got a wash in blue and Seraphim Sepia - just to put some eye catchers onto the board. Furthermore, I tinted some tiles in Badab Black and Devlan Mud to increase irregularity. In the beginning, this looked rather strange since the colours came out pretty strong.

My next step was to drybrush the whole board in Dheneb Stone / Rakarth Flesh and a bit with Terminatus Stone. I tried to do this irregularly and without pattern, so some tiles got more colour than others. In the end, I hope I created a rather vivid and living colour. In the end, I took some green wash and painted the rim - it's showing where moisture and moss did their work.

Next: Wooden Parts. Have to take a trip to the golden arches and "redistribute" coffee "spoons" :P


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Thanks, yes, I have to admit I'm rather pleased with the final result - although, when looking at the project in retrospective so far, I did some mistakes I wouldn't do the next time. The gap between the two sides is rather wide, for example, since I just used spare styrofoam baords I had left over. Next time, I would cut the more precise, too. But that's how I do projects: I get the idea and have to begin the same night ^^

I'm going to do the water parts with clear resin: First of all, I bought a small boat I want to glue to the table to increase the 3D-look.  Then I will cover the water areas parts with clear resin, maybe I'll do two coats and use some blue and green inks on the lower one. This will be the final touch on my table, I hope to finish that next week or so.

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This looks really fantastic.  My friend also made a docks table and wrote about it in his BLOG which you might find useful to look through:

http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/malifaux-docks-table.html

http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/2014/12/the-docks-and-bridge-take-shape.html

http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/2015/01/more-dock-works-factory-and-smaller.html

http://tacticsandtea.blogspot.co.uk/2015/02/finished-at-last.html

Think I've got them in order!  Looking forward to seeing more work on yours.

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Looking wonderful. I love your work on the tiles, and the step by step was much appreciated.

If i may, i have a couple questions: where do the lampposts and crates come from, what do you mean by filling the gap with acrylics, and what type of resin did you use for the water ?

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