Malifaux Mines Board Build Diary

[KrazyIvan]

Now that my city boards are 1 piece away from completion I've started working on my next terrain project. Initially I was going to make an Obliteration board, working from the description of the Maze from the Dead of Winter encounter. I nixed that idea since I already have gloomy, monochrome grey board. Additionally, I want a board suitable for use with other games (in this case Frostgrave, The Breeding Pits). So I decied that I am going to make a board that matches my vision of an abandoned mine in the hills outside of Malifaux.

Like the city board this one is starting with a concept sketch on a Post-It note, followed by a 3D render created using a program called Sketchup. Like the previous board this one will be made up of 9 1'x1' modular tiles so that I can create a variety of layouts.

[lusciousmccabe]

Are you planning on having the raised areas playable? Also, how are you going to work the pieces that overlap multiple tiles?

[goth]

I think you may be limiting yourself by making that archway piece a corner-piece... maybe have it be a side-piece but have two arches so it's not a single tiny room?

Another thought, and yes you can always move around the terrain for these situations, but as laid out it seems that Corner Deployment Stake a Claim would be a pain.

[snitchythedog]

I say run with it.  One thing that might help move the sketchup plan to the real world would be a plastic card template for the edges of your rock faces.  That way you are  going to have pieces match up every time from every angle.  That is generally how I do river sections to make sure they mate up correctly.  Ditto on the question about the tops being playable.  Having it as an option would effectively make this two boards.  Canyon and tunnel.   Watching with interest.

Snitchy sends.

[valhallan42nd]

Seeing how the city board came out, I'm looking forward to this one.

[KrazyIvan]

So the tiles wll be modular with the cave "walls" attached to the boards. In the pictures the areas where the boards meet up is what creates various configurations of walls. That "tunnel" section, for example will always be on the side of that individual tile, but that tile can be in any of nine positions, and turned one of four ways. Each of the boards' wall sections will line up with all of the others.

I'm not planning on the tips being playable as I will be adding posts and timbers like you would expect to see in a mine. Those will be built into the boards and non-removable so it might look funny if the tops were playable. Ican wait until the end to paint them though, so we will just have to see.

Mechanically we'll treat the walls like any blocking terrain so flying models could ignore them, so long as their movement is enough to pass them completely.

Corner and flank deployment and schemes/strats that require corner scheme markers may be a problem. I think that can solve that by including two tiles in the set like the middle one in my picture that are mostly clear.

[KrazyIvan]

Started doing some proof of concept work today. Here is a corner piece. The intent is for 4 of these to come together to form the wall formations. After some consideration I've decided to made the top playable, and this a spot to put more terrain. This particular piece still needs some gubbins...I'm going to at least add some lanterns on the posts, maybe a soulstone crystal or two poking out from the rock.

My next thought is that I shouldn't glue these directly to the boards. If I leave them free-standing then it just makes everything ever more modular, plus 9 boards with 3" of terrain sticking off of them is going to be difficult to store and transport. It does, however, mean that I need to base these.

I'll be making 36 of these for the board.
 

[Butch]

 

My next thought is that I shouldn't glue these directly to the boards. If I leave them free-standing then it just makes everything ever more modular,...

YES! That's something I always recommend. Seems like we're all used to GW modular gameboard with the segmented hill. And so many of us think they have to build they're own modular board.

But why limit yourself? A single Hill/collumn etc. is far mor versatile. And you still can segment it for even more versatility. Happy to see you've chosen wise.

[KrazyIvan]

Building a board with nine tiles that each have these wall sections mounted to them is hardly limiting. There would be around 3000 possible layout combinations based on my original plan. The real issue for me is storage. Storing and transporting 9 boards that are around 3 1/2" thick each isn't easy.

[KrazyIvan]

Worked up another couple wall sections. You can see here how they will line up. These still need gap filling, greeblies, and bases but you can see what I am going for.

These are made from triple layered urethane foam. They are 3" tall and 4" long on each of the straight sides. They were glued together with PVA and have three double ended toothpicks embedded in them to help hold them together. Once dry the entire thing was chopped up with a hot wire cutter and an xacto knife. Then I took a metal ruler and ran the edge against the "rock face" to break it up a bit. Afterward I beat up the foam with a rock from my front yard. The wood is all hand cut balsa.

[lusciousmccabe]

Looks fantastic.

[KrazyIvan]

I've got about 7 sections cut and build out. They still need gap filling, greeblies, and bases. Unfortunately my foam cutter self destructed so the project is on hold until the new one arrives. On the positive side, this means that I get to buy a new, fancy hot wire cutter to replace mt craft store cheapy!

[Dhampir]

Looking at your layout, my only concern would be shooting lanes. In the first picture there seems to be a very clear line of sight from the right hand side of the board almost all the way across the board. Great for the guild, not so good for Neverborn. Of course scatter terrain could solve this, but I'd want a more 'blocking' layout.

[KrazyIvan]

1 minute ago, Dhampir said:

Looking at your layout, my only concern would be shooting lanes. In the first picture there seems to be a very clear line of sight from the right hand side of the board almost all the way across the board. Great for the guild, not so good for Neverborn. Of course scatter terrain could solve this, but I'd want a more 'blocking' layout.

The layout is modular. If anything this board will end up favoring melee heavy crews. It's a counterpoint to my city board that, because of all the holes in the buildings that models can see through, has almost not blocking terrain at all.

[Dhampir]

1 minute ago, KrazyIvan said:

The layout is modular. If anything this board will end up favoring melee heavy crews. It's a counterpoint to my city board that, because of all the holes in the buildings that models can see through, has almost not blocking terrain at all.

Even though it's modular, most tiles are empty through the middle of them creating shooting lanes. I would build more (but not all) tiles like the one on the center left that has a wall that crossed the center. This would create a board that could have a real tunnel feel and some more open areas. You could also build a few blank tiles for an open section as well.

[KrazyIvan]

The cave walls are just the starting feature for this board. There will plenty of scatter, as well as a second level. As it happens none of them are going to be glued to the tiles any more so arranging them to remove site lines shouldn't be a problem. I want to be careful to avoid creating a board where models that can drop template terrain (especially Raspy and Sonia with a Malifaux Child) can't completely shut down more than a couple of corridors.

[ringsnake]

Or you could get a whole bunch of cover added like boxes, minecarts, piles of rocks, barrels of blasting powder, etc...

I'd say that'd be a lot better for both visual interest and gameplay. Instead of nothing but obstructing pillars or open space, you have obstructing pillars, mine waste or runoff for areas of difficult ground, boxes and water troughs for cover, if you go really crazy with it a lot of fun could be had with HO scale track and custom built minecarts. Make a custom scenario where a crew has to escape the mine with a minecart while the other crew tries to stop them. 

If you're going to make the tops of the pillars playable, I'd suggest a mix of 8" tall totally blocking pillars and other 4" tall playable top pillars as well as lots of bridges and ladders, and some that are a mix of both.