guynamedFleck

I've been working away on the painting process. I'm looking at maybe one more day of painting, one more night of drying and then all that's left to do are installing the Bo-At, pouring the water effect and adding the posters/details. Now for a few shots of the progress. keep in mind that the wood stain tends to give a crazy amount of shine to the table. I will go back at the end and give everything a good coat of matte sealer (this brings everything back to normal, but you also have to be careful as the matte spray is very aggressive on foam. It actually started to eat away at the sides of the demo board when i went to seal over the black paint!) Here is an overall shot of the 4 boards. The water hasn't been drybrushed or stained yet. Also, wouldn't you know it, I painted the pier with the wrong color, so I'll have to redo that. A close-up of the second half of the city. And from another angle. The storage yard. I still need to paint all of the block work and I think the water tricked the camera, the blue building is a bit darker than the picture would suggest. I'm not to happy with the first color choice for the new road, so I will probably go back and give it another go. I was waiting for the base coats to dry this evening while working and decided to use the free time to start knocking together some special terrain features. Below are the first three pieces. A graveyard, deadzone & magic nexus. The deadzone and magic nexus are the 3"x3" minimum. I decided to go a bit larger with the graveyard, which is roughly 4.5" square. The magic nexus uses two of the great statues from the warhammer fantasy building kit. very simple concept, but it provides a lot of open space to accommodate the models "completely within" requirement. I plan to paint the statues up in a red joker/black joker theme. I was kind of drawing a blank on a way to represent a dead zone. Frank suggested a dead tree, which made perfect sense, so here you have it! A few hirst arts blocks for the nice urban planter look and then I spliced together a few of the dead trees from the warhammer fantasy fence kit. I've got a creepy structure in mind, but its still in the works. I've also been distracted by a cool idea for my supply wagon marker (no more empty 50mm base or the odd bad juju wagon for this guy!) More updates soon... hopefully...

Well I put a Sunday's worth of work in on the table between the shop and my home workshop. All was moving along swimmingly until, while attempting to figure out the fishing shack, my hobby knife snapped and sliced cleanly through the tip of my thumb! But, I bandaged it up and kept on working. Needless to say, the cursed fishing shack has been put on hold for a later date. Hmm, perhaps it will come back as a "creepy structure" special terrain feature? First up, thanks to a well placed reminder by Frank, here are a couple shots of the 4 boards, complete with the Bo-At in position! As much as it pained me, I had to tear apart part of the original board. Here is a WIP shot, with the old road removed, as well as the cork corner. A close-up shot of the newly reconstructed "4-corners". The storage yard got a quick texturing using two grades of sand. It may be hard to see in this photo, but I managed to find another texture in my book of wallpaper samples that should work out nicely for the road. It has a sort of cracked earth feel to it, which after a bit of sand and paint, should work out really well. One final overall shot of the build. ....and! with a fresh coat of primer! The painting process is fairly quick. It mostly revolves around coats of wood stain drying, so fingers crossed, we've got less than a week left in the project! I came to the realization yesterday that I should make a matching set of special terrain features for use with the board. So, the next project will probably be a 3"x3" graveyard, dead zone, creepy structure, hazardous terrain, scrap pile and hanging tree. That would let you play the board as Downtown, Industrial Zone or Slums. If I get really ambitious, I may also do an ancient monument, and magical nexus so it can be played as the Quarantine Zone. Then, assuming I'm still around (looks like I may be moving out of town), its off and running with the last 2 boards! Hurray train station!

As always, thank you everyone for the kind words. They are really doing wonders to keep me (and Frank) motivated on the build. Another Friday has passed, I took the harbor and city boards up to the flgs to get some work done on them. I managed to finish the cobblestone and build the lower dock. Saturday morning I woke up early and chained myself to the work bench. I cranked out all the wood floors in the buildings and got the boardwalk installed (well, thought I did. looking at the photos to post, I realized that I have two small sections on the storage yard board where the board walk curves in to meet the doors on the building!) Still to be done list: -Small section of board walk on storage yard board -Build fishing shack -Add sand texture to the board -Figure out the new street texture. -Paint I'm far enough along that today I will probably begin the priming process! We may just see a finished board in the next couple of weeks! The 3 new boards! A shot of the new lower dock and pier with bollards installed. City board with finished cobblestone and "woodwork". A closeup of the second half of the fountain. That's all for now, expect some primed boards next update!

That would be really cool. If this hadn't started out as a 2'x'2 demo board, I probably would have gone for a different size tile as well. Best of luck in your endeavors and be sure to share your work on the forum! --- Well, my plan was a less than total success. I attempted to push through all the cobblestone, but the process took a bit longer than expected. I got a good 4 hours of work in but still have about one street left to do. On the plus side, I did get enough shots of the process to get a tutorial put together. Cobblestone Tutorial Gather the tools! -Custom Brass rod "stamp" -Candle and holder (mine in true DIY fashion is made from a pvc coupler glued to a GW flying base, haha) -Matches -Ruler -scribing tool (mine happens to be a dental tool) -paper towels -great ventilation! (open windows, fans, or best case, take it outside!) There are two different techniques that I use on my cobblestone. The first is creating the "gutter" channels that run down the center of the roads. The second is the actual cobblestone texture. For the gutter channel you will use the ruler and scribing tool. Start by drawing out your template. Essentially, mark the center point between the buildings on each side of your street and then extend the lines the full length of the streets. Once this line is set, measure 1/4" to either side of the center line. This gives you your double row of stones. To make the process simple, I used one of the mordheim trim pieces to measure and mark the length of my "stones". Next, lay the ruler along one of your template lines. Heat your scribing tool over the candle (Not to long, if the tool is too hot, it will melt away too much of the foam! Play around a bit of some scrap foam to get a feeling for how much you need to heat the tool). When the tool is warm enough, pull it along the edge of the ruler to scribe the line. I use the back edge of the tool shown above (side to the right in the photo), this keeps the tool from catching in the foam. You may need to stop and reheat the tool depending on how long your line is. Continue this process for all of your lines. Remember to plan out the corners and don't accidentally scribe in the wrong place! It should look like this... Now we will go back and give the stones a more natural edge. Using the pointy end of the scribing tool, heat it up and "clip" the corners of the stones. This will be enough to give them a more natural feel. Don't worry about the long edges, these will get a bit of texture during the cobblestone process. Moving onto the cobblestone, the process is very simple and similar to the last step. One thing I learned from doing the first board, it is far easier if you leave the buildings detached for this step. As you will see, I went ahead and traced the footprint of the buildings onto the foam. This let me know where the table would be covered and so would not need to apply the texture. The most difficult part is getting to know your stamping tool. Once you've gotten a feel for how long it takes to heat up and reheat, the process is really repetitive. I find it takes about 20-30 seconds to get the brass warmed up initially, then only about 3-5 seconds to reheat. I usually get about 3-4 stamps in each heating. Keep an eye on the tip of the tool, if you see any build up on the end, hold it over the flame for a few seconds and whip the residue off on a piece of paper towel (I usually do this about every 4-5 times that I reheat the tool). From time to time you will notice the "cobblestones" are getting smaller. when this happens you need to cool the tool off and clean the inside of the tube (I find it easiest to use the scribing tool to pick out the hardened residue). The main thing is keeping the temperature right. Too hot and the cobblestones will melt away! Too cold and the tool won't make an impression. It's really a lot easier then it sounds, you will get a feel for it pretty quickly. Here are a few photos to give you a feeling for the process I use in stamping the boards. Always start by outlining your "hard" edges. This will help to ensure that you don't end with a half stone on the edge of your street. Remember to keep rotating the tool as you work your way across the section. This will make the one stamp look like many different stones. Also, I find it best to advance across the face with a curved "front". this way you are less likely to create a space smaller than your stamping tool. Still working with a curved front as you move across the board! And still curved front as the cobblestone spreads across the board! That's the general process. I hope it answers your questions. If not, I'd be happy to clarify any of the process for you, just ask. The only thing that I cannot stress enough is proper ventilation! This foam is nasty stuff to inhale. Stay safe and enjoy! Here is a shot to show what I managed to accomplish after 4 hours of non-stop stamping. I never said it was the fasted process! (though now I suppose I can say I know every inch of this town!) And a few with the buildings in place. I should be able to get this last strip done in about 2 more hours. Then its on to putting in the wood floors for the buildings. This project is coming along faster than expected!

@ dsmiles - No real plan as far as going into the quarantine zone. This table is versatile enough that depending on the extra terrain you add in can be played as city, slum, quarantine, etc. Frank was working at the flgs on Friday night, so we decided to turn it into a modeling night rather than play a few games. Frank got to detailing the Bo-At and I got to work on the buildings for the second half of the city. I came to the brutal realization that I had used up all of the doors from the mordheim kits and that I was starting to run low on window as well! This called for some slight adjustments and a run through the bits box for alternatives. Due to these restrictions, all the doors on this board are closed. No biggie, but I do kind of wish that they all matched. I may be forced to remove one of the existing door frames and make a mold from it, so I can cast my own. We shall see how ambitious I am in the coming week. And since Murphy always strikes multiple times in a row, I took a trip to Home Depot today to pick up more of the textured paper that I used to pave the road on the first board, only to find that they no longer stock wallpaper! This means that I am probably going to have to redo the road on the demo board so that everything matches! Talk about two steps forward, one step back! Anyway, on to the photos of progress! I decided to mix up the skyline a bit with the last building. This one, beautifully presented my Rasputine, is a full four stories tall! It should do well to balance out the height of the Bo-At (an eventually the train station). Here is a quick mockup of the final dock layout. Still need to figure out the fishing shack and build the actual lower dock. And now onto the Bo-At! Frank's started adding on details courtesy of the Fantasy Manor kit. The medallion will eventually become the wheel. That's all for now. My plan is to switch gears and try to knock out the cobblestone in one go tomorrow. We shall see if I manage to accomplish my goal! The rest of the process is smooth sailing from there!

Zuzzy mats are great. Though some of the sculpts are a bit over the top and make balancing minis a pain. An option for metal frames, though a bit more expensive than wood rods, would be the DIY sectional aluminum picture frames you can buy at art or frame shops like "Michaels". You buy them in packs with 2 sides. They connect in the corners with a similar "L" bracket system. They also come in a variety of thicknesses and black, gold, and silver finish.

Not to threadjack, but no, the spraypaint is light enough that the felt is still flexible enough to fold, roll, etc. On your buddies issue with the frame popping apart, he could try one of three things. 1) Replace one of the pegs with a double ended screw. Screw one end into the peg slot, then use a nut to attach the 'loose' rod when its assembled. 2) less work and same effect. Replace one or both pegs with a nut and bolt. 3) Magnets! Probably the easiest method come to think of it. haha. Hope this helps.

@ Radium - I know exactly what you're feeling. That's why I found a great flgs to play at! Plenty of space to store terrain/tables and you'd be surprised how much free time you find to work on these projects with the locals pushing you for progress. @Copernicus - Once you get a handle on how to use the tool you can get into a fairly good rhythm. I think I managed all the cobble stone on the first board in two 2 hour sessions. The key is good ventilation! I shifted my painting desk over in front of an open window and kicked on the fan. That foam smoke is some nasty stuff! @ Vinncent - Thanks, this is how I unwind from the long day and coming up with new techniques keeps the hobby fun. @ Maniple - Yeah, I used to have a great roll of that paper, running out of it on another project is what lead me to coming up with this method! On to the update! No much to report on the Harbor section. All I've done since the last update is gone back and added a bit of sand to transitions points. Mainly where ever the water meets the land. Nothing too exciting. I shifted attention over to the Storage Yard, In particular the "custom's office". It also presented an opportunity to throw together a quick tutorial on the buildings. The plan was to create a formal division between the city and the yard (no proper storage yard owner wants people walking onto his property and taking everything!), this would also serve to provide los blocking terrain on the table. Here is the original concept sketch for the structure. Basically two mirrored buildings with a walkway between, creating a formal entrance. Next we gather the tools. Really simple here. -Some of the original mordheim (plastic and card) buildings. -Foamcore -Exacto knife (I prefer the snap-off style, the ability to have a 2.5" cutting edges has proven invaluable in terrain making) -Sprue clippers -not shown are the obvious, glue (I use a mix of elmers, superglue, and hot glue gun. Sometimes, based on need; more often, based on proximity, haha) Disassemble the buildings. Save the floors. I also keep the walls around to use as templates, since I like to keep things simple and not stray too far from the original design. The next step is the most difficult/important (which really is not that difficult at all!). Use the sprue cutter to remove the tabs from the inside of the upright pieces. Then use your exacto knife to clean up the pieces and remove the tabs on the top and bottom. To save time and help the process move along, I like to cut strips of foamcore to the height of my floors. Use one of the old card wall sections to get your height measurements. Measure out your wall sections onto the foamcore strips. If you are just replacing the old card sections with foamcore (like I am), remember that you need to account for the thickness of the foamcore. I find it helpful to have another similar building nearby to take measurements off of. You can use the old wall sections as a quick guide for placing windows of creating the damaged edges. Start assembling the building. I like to cut the pieces as I go, it helps for figuring out some of the measurements when you add the extra thickness from the foamcore. I find it best to use elmer's for this, but one little trick. run your glue down the foamcore edge, stopping about a 1/4" from each end. put a small drop of superglue in the last 1/4" and stick the piece in place. The superglue will bond instantly to hold everything in place while the elmer's sets up (and gives the building a really strong bond). Use the old card floor sections when assembling your buildings. They fit perfectly into the channel of the horizontal plastic pieces and give you a good base to attach your balsawood floors to later. The original floors were also designed by GW to be playable, so we might as well capitalize on their R&D! Rinse and repeat! Like it shows in the original sketch, I built two fairly identical buildings and then attached them with a walkway. The walk way was made using two of the horizontal plastic pieces with a piece of card glued into the channel between. I also returned all of the detail pieces to the new foamcore buildings (roof sections, doors, windows, etc.) Last step is to add the wood floors. I like to use two sizes of craft sticks (popsicle sticks and coffee stirrers). You can pick up a box of 1000 popsicle sticks for about $5, only issue is that these tend to have a slight curve. for that price though, I can deal with it! Measure and cut the sticks to length. Then using your exacto knife, roughly carve the edges to give them the "worn plank" look. For the broken edges on the 2nd and 3rd floor, I like to use the sprue cutters to give a ruffer end. There you have it, quick and easy (and sturdy) foamcore buildings from the old mordheim kits. If you don't have any of the old kits, you can easily substitute square balsa rods for the plastic pieces. It'll give a less victorian feel to the buildings, but still make for an impressive building and does well to finish off the edges with a bit of detail. To finish off the above building, I still needed a bit of detail on the walkway. So I threw together a quick railing out of a few plastic card scraps and some plastic rod. All the building needs now is a proper name, which will be painted on a sign that hangs below the walkway! Last but not least, I took the boards into the flgs to get a few measurements and to get a quick play test to make sure the los and flow were working well. First a few shots of the 4 boards together! Minus the Bo-At (Frank brought it up, but somehow I failed to take a photo while it was in place.) Boards with a stand in Bo-At... Since its a 4'x4' board, we opted to test it out with a good old fashioned Brawl! Lady Justice and Sonnia Criid were quiet happy to take a look around the newly discovered city, but were a bit unhappy to find Hoffman batting for the other team alongside Ramos! Lady J and Sonnia were victorious in the end (I'd like to think that I had the home court advantage, haha) My deployment in the existing board. "Traitor" Hoffman's deployment in the storage yard. Sonnia running the harbor like a champ! it made for a good place to deliver fireballs and fire walls from. As you will see, we tried for Option C in the docks ("T" dock and 1 shack). It looks nice, but I think Option E will prove more playable in the end. My favorite "fluffy" image from the first test game on the new boards. Hoffman and Ramos sitting up in the warehouse. Apparently they found a new shipment of scrap, because they spent the entire game tossing together steampunk arachnids and electrical creations to set forth upon my force! That's all for this update. see you next time!

That's a great concept, though it may be a bit cumbersome to lug around. For the tables at my flgs, I first headed to the local fabric store and bought felt in a variety of colors (green, tan, white, brown, etc). Since the mats are used to section off playing areas for both malifaux and warmachine, I cut the felt into 4'x'4 squares. Then on one side I masked off a 3'x3' square in the center (6"boarder all the way around) and spray painted the edges with a different color. This gives you a definitive 3'x3' area and it folds up for easy storage/ transportation. I think I spent about $10 on felt and used the spray paints I had on hand to make 8 mats for the flgs. Best part is that the felt comes in a variety of colors, change the mat and the setting changes instantly!

Haven't had a reason to pull the cobblestone tool out and put it to use yet, but I did go ahead and take a photo of it so you all could see it. Nothing fancy, but it gets the job done. Most important feature would probably be the "paper wrap comfort grip", this is essential for not burning ones hand while using the tool! I'll add some better "in-action" shots when I get to the other half of the city boards. Finally got a chance to put some more work into the board. With Frank moving along full steam on the Bo-At, I have continued work on the Harbor section. Here is a shot of the progress. I've added a smaller dock that will connect to the dock section of the original board. This should do nicely to make the boardwalk/water strip more playable. I used cork to build out the transition from the main pier into the rest of the game board (from my experience this man-made to organic feature is fairly common in harbor towns). The "water" is reclaimed from an old urban platform I used for mordheim. Since it wasn't seeing much use, I re-used the texture for a quick water effect base. It was originally the insert for commercial lighting. You can get this stuff in 2'x4' sections at the hardware store (Lowes in this case) and it comes in about 4 different variations, each of which has a great hobby application. only hitch is that its plastic, so cutting can be a bit tricky. In the original paper plans, I had left the transition from the harbor board to the storage yard a bit hazy. I often find that these details are easier to work out on the fly. Here are a couple of shots to show how the end result wound up coming together. The blocks give a good transition from the rough harbor to the city and also give a nicely defined edge between the tables. Also the "flagstone" paper lines up pretty seamlessly, which may not be too apparent in the pictures since the two pieces used are different colors. Here are a couple of shots to show off the movable staircases that I mentioned for the platforms. Simple but effective! Other than the Bo-At, the harbor board only needs a few final details before its complete. Which brings us to along to the interactive portion of today's post! in the original plan, we wanted to include a small cluster of fishing cottages. This lead to the addition of the smaller dock section. Now after adding it, I have come up with too many ideas to settle on one. Here are a couple of the ideas (aided by some pre-made terrain stand-ins), Which idea do you all (y'all?) like best? Option A (leave it alone) Option B (lower wooden dock "T") Option C (lower wooden dock "T" & one fishing shack) Option D (lower wooden dock "T" & two fishing shacks) Option E (Lower parallel wooden dock & one fishing shack) Option F (Lower parallel wooden dock & two fishing shacks) I know its a lot of options, but the more I stare at it, the more ideas I get! Please, someone save me from this insanity! That's all for this update. I plan to move onto to the storage yard tomorrow (to get a little break from the harbor). I'll try to take some extra pictures while I work and do a quick tutorial on the buildings.

@ Vin - Yes, the ship is a huge endeavor, lucky for us, Frank was willing to tackle that while I roughed out the boards. I will see what I can do as far as a tutorial for the buildings when I get to that stage. They are fairly straight forward construction and the mordheim kits set the basic dimensions. I'll throw in a couple of tricks I use on my other buildings too. @ Sholto - I have had a few thoughts for how to upgrade the stamping tool also! I'm sure with a bit of effort one could modify a wood-burning tool (or soldering iron) with a small brass tip to keep the heat constant. Since this was originally a one off project, I figured it was easier the 'low-teck' way. Now my concerns would revolve around how to get the right temp and still allow for easy manipulation of the tool (since you are constantly rotating it). @ Cambrius - Thanks for the kind words, but I'm not seeing this anytime in the near future. The local guys and I have a saying, "We'll take on any project, no matter how crazy, until you offer to pay us for it!" Payment, makes it work and once its work, there's no fun in it. @ everyone else - Thanks for the encouragement! I'm back in town and back to work. Luckily for all, Frank has been hard at work on the Bo-At! Here is the latest photo... p.s. Does anyone know how to shrink the avatar images? I'm good with terrain, terrible with signatures! Thanks

Ah man, now the pressure is on, haha. Glad to hear such positive response to the boards. I'm headed out of town on business this afternoon, so no updates from me until at least Sunday, but I'll try to hit all the current questions. Looks like you have all met Frank now, hopefully he will get you an update or two on the ship while I'm away. As Frank was saying, Each board is based on 1/8" press board. I laminated (fancy way of saying I attached the foam to the board with a thin layer of emler's glue) a piece of 1 1/2" blue insulation foam to the boards to build the height and allow for recessed features. The buildings are a hybrid of the old Mordheim card stock buildings that came with the base game. The concept is one that honestly developed out of necessity from building terrain for a game store (this stuff has to take one heck of a beating. We've actually run a "stress" test on a piece of terrain by throwing it across the room, into a wall! -Not Recommended- but it did pass). Anyway, I used sprue cutters to remove the interior clips of the plastic structure and then measured and replaces the cardstock walls with pieces of foamcore. The floors were then covered with a mix of basswood (fancy balsa) strips to create the wood floors. The cobblestone effect is one of my favorite modeling achievements. I will try to put together a tutorial when I get around to doing the second half of the city board. In the meantime, here is a quick no frills, explanation. First off, remember the blue foam base? This is key, or you can also use a foam core base, just remove the top piece of laminated paper to expose the foam core (this is how the base of the fountain was done). I took a piece of brass tubing and crimped one end with a set of pliers to create a roughly arced-triangle shape. Heat the end of the tube (I use a candle) and then go to town stamping the foam. you can usually get about 3-4 stamps before you need reheating. Remember to rotate the tube as you go to create a more randomized stone pattern. Cincinnati is an awesome city for wargaming. I will try to plug the store as little as possible (please, oh great forum gods, I beg your forgiveness!) I hang out at Art of War: Gaming and Miniatures. http://www.aowcinci.com/ I'll let you look into them yourself, but think of it as a GW battle bunker where you can play any games you want. Including a dedicated Malifaux night on Thursdays (last I counted was over 20 guys of every skill level). I love making terrain and have put together a fair amount for the shop already. We also have several other really talented guys that are as equally (if not more) crazy as myself who all chip in to create a great gaming environment. Thanks for the words of encouragement, it will certainly keep me motivated. Until next time...

Awesome, first response before I even caught up with the posts! It really is a blast to play on, suitably dense terrain, yet still spacious enough to play on. Add resin barrels and crates and you can really change up the terrain between games too. -- Here is where the board stands after about 2 days of work (and at the present moment). I have decided to tackle the project with 3 boards in the first wave, then add the last two to the other end. This way, we get a sufficiently playable 4'x4' board to use while the last 2 boards are under construction. Frank offered to build the merchant ship, so we opted for the port side of town in the initial 4 boards. First up a general shot of the next 3 boards, in progress, to give you a better idea of the layout for the harbor side of town. The first board sits in the empty spot on the bottom left. The board at top left will be identical in style to the first board with the road running along the side, the other half of the fountain/well, and tons of cobblestone! The board at top right will be the storage yard for the harbor. with a raised storage platform in the outer corner and a customs/security building that leads into the city. The lower right board will be the harbor proper, complete with Frank's wrecked ship (currently nicknamed the "Bo-At"). Not much work done on the other half of the city, but here is a shot to give the general idea of the layout. Use your imagination to picture the other half of the fountain/well at the bottom and a road/board walk running up the right side. There will be a "T-junction" about half way up to lead into the storage yard. The most progress has been made on the other two boards. Here is a shot to show the work, including a few building stand-ins to give you an idea of the custom's house. The storage platform is finished. I have put together a few separate staircases so that the platform remains as customizable as the rest of the table. Here are a few close up shots of the platform. I also started on the transition from this board to the harbor. I decided that the original plan to have a raw stone (cork) transition was to rough to really be usable when unloading ships (there's that miss-applied city planning again). I think this better transitions the two boards in a more realistic way. I haven't done to much work on the harbor board aside from the dock. I wasn't entirely set on how to do the inside corner of the board. The outside corner was generally locked down in design as it is where Frank's Bo-At will fit, so I was able to build the main dock. Some better shots of the dock details. The water effect will cover the bottom step, so it should give a fairly good impression that there are a few more steps under the surface. Another flgs regular (and I believe one of our local henchman, iirc) was awesome enough to let me in on a little secret event here in town called "Zero Landfill" and I was able to 'rescue' a textured wallpaper book. There was a perfect flagstone texture in the book that found its way onto the dock. The texture will eventually run all the way to the edge of the board (leading toward the storage yard pictured above) and will wrap around the curve, at least a short distance. Frank has also been hard at work and below are the first shots of the ever elusive Bo-At! The boat disappears off the edge of the table due to its angle, which explains the sharp angles on the far side. Believe me this is a big boat, 9" width and if I remember correctly, about 23" long. It should make for a great corner deployment. Alright, now you are all up to date on the project! I hope you guys like it thus far!

What did I say? Progress is made already! What better use of a Sunday afternoon than spending 6 hours at the flgs with a 4'x 6' piece of paper and a hand full of permanent markers? Frank and I set to task with pencils, rulers, and a healthy dose of caffeine to design an additional 5 panels that will bring the demo table up to a full 4' x 6' table. I have to say, from the plans we drew up, this city not only has a fully functional urban design (go miss-applied college degree) , it also boasts a train station and wrecked merchant ship! All painstakingly designed to be both visually over the top and, most importantly, playable! Enough ranting, I should be off to the workshop! Before I go... The Plan! Not much to look at now, but the original board will fit into the left side, center space. The train station will be to left (top) of the layout and the port will be on the right (bottom). One more update and this thread will be caught up to speed!

It all started as an idea for a demo board to use at the FLGS. I wanted to try my hand at coming up with a quick and easy method for creating cobblestone streets, so the idea for a victorian city was set. As all true war-gamers know, you can never stop at 2'x2'... My buddy (and also one of the store owners) Frank and I set up the demo board, complete with a handy paper ship to give it a test run! A couple of in game shots! All in all it was a blast to play on. A few days later, the questions started rolling in, mainly 1... Where is the rest of the board and how big is it going to be? I had originally planned a 2'x1' & 3'x1' expansion to bring the table to a usable 3'x'3 table, but the locals would not have it! It was 4'x6' or bust. So with a suitable mental task at hand, we set to. The plans have been made and I've started this post to keep the project on track. Stay tuned for updated progress (hopefully it comes sooner than expected)!