Modular Cities of Death game board, new name and layout, and 1000 views!

Welcome back!! There's been a few changes round here, most markedly the blog name change. I decided on Tempest's 40K Bunker as the old name seemed a bit too focussed on terrain and minis, whereas I wanted to encompass the entire hobby itself. A small change, but I feel its an important one. I'm also going to play around with the layout and colours as well, so dont be surprised if its all changed when you next come back! 

Cities Of Death "Modular" game board.

I've started work on a new and somewhat ambitious project, a fully modular gaming table for use in Cities of Death 40K battles, which is formed from 2ft x2ft MDF wood sections. I was initially quite hesitant about this project as I thought it would be hard to cut perfectly sized squares, however a trip to the hardware store (Bunnings) alleviated some anxiety when I found that I could buy 2x4ft sections, so only one cut per board to make each section. I actually found one of the 4x2 boards was a few mm longer than 4ft, this actually made for perfect 2ft squares after cutting when taking into account the width of the circular saw blade- the other 2 boards are both 1mm narrower across one direction. In the end it'll amount to nothing, but at least i know to search for slightly longer sections when i get my next board.

I marked out some roadways on the squares, 6 inches wide and entering/ exiting at the middle of each edge. For now I only have four squares, and have planned for two T intersections and two crossroads, the next two squares will have straight sections of road.

The roads themselves are carved into the squares using a handheld wood router with a 19mm square/flat cut router bit. I had to make up a wooden router guide to run this along, and after routing out each length of road I undo all the clamps and shift it about 17mm and go again for another pass. Tedious, but three-dimensional recessed roads are pretty sweet! The roads are about 4 mm lower than the top surface, so there's still 11mm of wooden board left to keep it all really solid, there's no chance of breaking the squares at all. Its basically the same height as a 40K round base.

Future plans are to add some much thinner (10- 15mm wide?) and much deeper lines here and there to represent water drainage channels. They'd terminate before each board edge, going 'underground', and would mainly be there to add some extra dimension. I'd also run them so they appear to flow under the roads as well, and am hoping to use water effects to get a good sense of realism. But for starters i'm going to concentrate on the roads and see how they all come out.

I've also decided that I'm not going to trash the streets with cracks and craters, I'd like this setup to work for both 'war-torn' and 'recently invaded' city scenarios, with craters and detritus being added on top later if necessary as seperate terrain pieces. Im definately going to do some more investigation into what kind of road lines or markings to paint down, but im not 100% sold on the idea just yet. If they are painted on i'll be drybrushing over them in spots to make them appear quite worn, giving a sense of age to the board. 

So for now at least I have one square completed, the others should be done by the weekend, as its been raining nearly non stop for a while now and I therefore have some free time to spend in the garage!

Over 1000 blog views!!

Wow, it hasnt taken that long to get this many page views, some of you must like me enough to come back for a look every now and then.  I really appreciate that people will spend time looking into my Blog, and I'm hopeful that I'm able to continue showcasing the kind of minis, terrain, tips, tutorials, battlereports and general info that interests people and hopefully inspires them in their own hobby endeavours.  I aspire to keep going with this Blog for as long as possible and keep working on the minis and terrain that inspire me so much. I appreciate your interest, and hope that I can continue to provide another perspective on the universe of 40K.  

Until next time, thanks for visiting.

Tempest :)