Starting a Sewer Table

[Uncle]

Well, I managed to find myself some nice, pretty blue EPS at the Loew's by my brother's place, and after a little bit of frantic cutting, I even managed to get it in my car for the trip home. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that I can begin building my sewer Malifaux board.

Thus far, I have no pics--but I'll get ones of the plans, at least, ASAP. I do have a few questions for the general public, though.

1: In a largely "set" table, meaning there's not much room for other terrain to be placed at all, how important is symmetry? Right now, both sides of the table are reverse-mirrored so that no matter how deployment is done, players have the exact same setup, but the plans are (hopefully) complex enough to disguise that.

2: What color and opacity should Malifaux sewage be? I would assume a very murky brownish black, but if someone else has an idea, I'm willing to hear it out.

3: Should pipes be involved at all? I have plans for a few, but it seems a bit counter to the "open sewer" idea in the first place, with walkways, ladders, and the like.

4: How much of the sewers is brickwork, how much is stone, and should the walkways be flagstone? Right now, I am planning a mix of brick and stonework for the walls and big squarish flagstones for the walkways, but any advice would be welcomed. Likewise, I would be interested in hearing any advice as to how to make "crumbling" brick walls with EPS foam.

As always, your opinions are valued, and look here for more details once I get things going more. I expect this project will take me about one month to build and another to paint, but you never know. It could be less, and it could be a lot more.

[Ratty]

This might be of some help. I need to actually get back and finish it sometime

http://underempire.net/index.php?showtopic=25661

[Uncle]

Took a bad iPhone pic of the map I did at work on Friday. It's amazing what happens when you float between branches and nothing is going on.

Please note: the blue-hatched areas are meant to be solid walls surrounded by walkways, making tunnels themselves. It's not perfect, but it's a start.

[Uncle]

Progress!

I have acquired 3/4" blue EPS foam and made the first few steps towards building the board. Here's a list of my construction materials.

Blue EPS foam

PVA glue

Toothpicks for support

Razorblade

Ball-point pen

Hot Wire Cutter (which I need to purchase soon!)

Piece of broken concrete for texturing

Thus far, I have managed to create a 3'x3'x1.5" square for the playing surface and enclose it in 5" walls, some of which will be crumbled down to provide exits and the like. Nothing impressive, but it's a solid start.

I expect to be sanding the walls smooth soon and to begin texturing them and the "sewer bottom." It's decided on an uneven fieldstone look for the walls and will be using the concrete to dimple the board where the sewer runs, giving it an uneven bottom. Water effects will cover this and largely obscure it, but hey, it counts.

I've also learned that leaving large pieces of EPS out in the living room is a good way to get kitty scratch-marks on said EPS. Luckily, they've kept themselves focused only on the sewer bottom, so it's not a huge tragedy, and the project is now securely kept in the garage when not being worked on.

I'll try to get the texturing done and post some pics by Thursday. Thanks for looking!

[Maniple]

I like to use "liquid nails" and a caulking gun to stick the foam together. It holds better than the pva glue. Plan looks good. Keep it up!

[jmp_mydog]

Well, I managed to find myself some nice, pretty blue EPS at the Loew's by my brother's place, and after a little bit of frantic cutting, I even managed to get it in my car for the trip home. Therefore, I am pleased to announce that I can begin building my sewer Malifaux board.

Thus far, I have no pics--but I'll get ones of the plans, at least, ASAP. I do have a few questions for the general public, though.

1: In a largely "set" table, meaning there's not much room for other terrain to be placed at all, how important is symmetry? Right now, both sides of the table are reverse-mirrored so that no matter how deployment is done, players have the exact same setup, but the plans are (hopefully) complex enough to disguise that.

2: What color and opacity should Malifaux sewage be? I would assume a very murky brownish black, but if someone else has an idea, I'm willing to hear it out.

3: Should pipes be involved at all? I have plans for a few, but it seems a bit counter to the "open sewer" idea in the first place, with walkways, ladders, and the like.

4: How much of the sewers is brickwork, how much is stone, and should the walkways be flagstone? Right now, I am planning a mix of brick and stonework for the walls and big squarish flagstones for the walkways, but any advice would be welcomed. Likewise, I would be interested in hearing any advice as to how to make "crumbling" brick walls with EPS foam.

As always, your opinions are valued, and look here for more details once I get things going more. I expect this project will take me about one month to build and another to paint, but you never know. It could be less, and it could be a lot more.

I did something similar a while back. Here's how I made mine.

And here's some photos of it semi-finished

One thing that very important is making things relatively even; if player has a significant disadvantage due to set up it will quickly result in a board no one wants to play on. The second thing is to be sure to include piles of rubble, pipes or other terrain elements to break up the straight alleys. With the board I built ranged armies had a significant advantage. When I go back to add pieces to it I'll add more elements to break up the LOS.

The other thing to consider is how you build your walls, if they're moveable you'll be able to create multiple styles of dungeon/sewer with the same board. If you leave them fixed you'll eventually tire of the layout and you'll be playing the same game over and over.

Edited November 12, 2010 by jmp_mydog

[Uncle]

Update:

I'm starting to attach the "inner" walls to the table. Once these are all on, I will finish them and texture before moving on to the walkways and the like. The project is taking more time than I'd like, although part of that I'm attributing to daylight savings time--it's hard to go outside and work when it's pitch black.

Anyways, here's a bad iPhone pic of what's happened thus far. I have quite a few more walls to put up, but the whole thing is pretty sturdy thus far.