2X2 Terrain Board

I have really never made a terrain board before, and with an upcoming DBN tournament looming, I decided to do so. I decided it actually several months ago, but the project has been sort of stand-and-stop. But today, with the beautiful weather calling to be outside (in the garage anyway), I decided to complete the project. The overall layout of the board is Waterloo inspired.


The board is 2' square, with wooden edges. The center is filled by Styrofoam and there are two hills made with "pink stuff" (foam insulation board). After placing all of the ground, I covered the board in plaster (adding some wagon ruts when the plaster was stiff). After a layer of house paint - but while that paint was still wet, I covered the non-road areas with fine railroad ballast. When that was dry, another coat and some flock was added (again while the paint was wet). Then I sprayed it all with dull-coat to seal the flock.


For the first attempt, I don't think it is half-bad. Even if I do not keep it, it is good experience for the creation of the Vietnam boards come January. Here are some pics of the empty board. I did not take "in progress" pictures as I really wasn't sure how tings would turn out - but I will when I do the Vietnam boards.

This image is an overhead view of the board. It is difficult to see the hills in this view, so the second image shows an outline of the hills.The hills are purposely angled so as to minimize any advantage and create the need for maneuver.

 

The following images show the board with some French and Austrian troops going at it. The action is staged, no battle was taking place during the photo-taking. In some views it is difficult to make out the slopes of the hills, so I think I did a pretty good job of making contours that don't look like wedding cake.