Hobby Project – Display Board – Assembly Day 1

With the bases started and under way (though now behind since I haven’t been working on them at home like I’m supposed to.  I swear I was going to over the last holiday – but it rained all day.) it was decided that it was time to begin laying out the display board.  My friend Sean has once again offered to provide assistance.  Today he provided much more active assistance then he had on the bases.  This is probably for the best, as while he carved foam I began some of the other aspects.

But first we started with THE BOX.  Having done this before, Sean said that the best way is to make a box.  We decided on a 2x2 base for the box, as this is the size used by Armies on Parade (I also like it because if I were to make 4 I could have myself a little Mordheim board – Sean didn’t like the idea of doing 3 more though – and that is really getting ahead of myself).  So we made a box.  The base and sides were made out of mdf – basically super packed particle board.

Some of the tools we used – Sean on the saw since it was his home owners insurance.  Also a few belt sanders we used for some more controlled wood removal – they weren’t that effective and we ended up just skimming the edge with the saw.  After building the sides we used a combination of wood glue and this nail gun to put the box together.  Sean said he got it for $4 at a garage sale, unused.  It used the same air set up as his paint brush.  It jammed a few times, but need a good job.  The mdf did like to split, and wasn’t very thick, so we tried to angle the nails in, to punch through on the inside, as you can see in the pictures.  This would all be covered up anyways by the foam, or removed.  That’s right, we made close to a 2’ cube, but the plan was to pare down the sides.  It is just easier to reduce the size than increase them.  Sean having a high hobby ethic didn’t want any of the foam exposed to any sort of direct contact.

Here are some pictures of the box as it goes up.  Once again, Sean’s high standards had us sealing the inside with a little white glue.

While I had some grand ideas of what I wanted, even including a moving rollercoaster for mine carts (which we ended up dropping due to the limited size – maybe when we have 4?), the main goal was to be able to place down 3 key sized units and still have some space for other stuff.  These 3 units represented the peak of my units size and included 2 10x10 20mm hoards and 1 long unit, just short of 5x12 and as close to 12” long as you can get with 20mm models.  I haven’t run these units at this size since 2008 or so, when 8^th first came out, but I didn’t want to limit my options.  To make sure these units could go down we used movement trays at the very initial stages.

Here you can see us playing around with some foam placement.  It was decided that the back left corner would hold both of the 10x10 units and the long unit with go into the center.  To accomplish this, we would need to make a two tier board, leaving plenty of space for the bell/furnace should such a unit go there – but also for whatever rock material we will need to place on the underside of the second level.  This can was fairly close to the size we would need.

Designing around the left corner, we decided that the back right corner would also have an elevated level, though not as high as the top of second level.  This picture shows how far we got, though it may still be raised up another inch or so.  We decided that the overall look would be that of a dwarf hold that is a little run down and that has later had a lower quality of construction added.  As the two tier section would be the higher quality dwarf construction, a nice parade ramp would be required.  The thicker, short second right up against the large flat space will be steps, and the rest will be a bricked ramp.  On the left, that rock will represent a cave in covering up additional brick space going into the front left corner, where there will be a building.

As I was initially thinking about this display board, some months ago, I picked up two boxes of games workshop terrain that I wanted to build in.  One of them didn’t get utilized at this early stage, so I’ll keep it back until then.  The one that did get started this session was Skullvane Manse, Lair of the Astromancer.  I feel that the core of this model brings a very skaven feel to it.  It is after all a rundown building.  It does contain more than a few aspects that I didn’t want.  So the first thing we did was break it in half.  The left building side will become the building that will go in the front left corner.  The left piece would end up in the back, centered.

We got as far as shown in this picture, with all of the foam glued and fixed in place.  We scheduled a session the following month, and I was sent home with the assignment of finishing getting the skullvane manse into a position to be installed into the construction, where we may still increase the height of the back right and add more details, but would also be beginning to add the next step – quality… I mean texture.  Rocks, bricks, sand, etc., and also a surprise.  Hopefully I will be able to break, and keep broken, my lack of hobby time and not only get my homework done but also get back to work on my chaos dwarves.