Cityfight 4x8' game table WIP

[icebergman]

Well, thanks to the awesome game tables in progress and the ones completed on here, I finally decided to get off my rear and get one going to play on.
My only problem is though, storage. I don't have room to store a 4x8 game table. So I sat down and with quite a few designs I came up with a modular design that allows me to store a 4x8 table on shelves, plus the fact that I'm not playing on the same board all the time.
With inspiration from Anvil, Orcdom, Nightbringer and various other pics I found I came up with a cityfight type board. The idea behind it is to have a canal, industrial, and ruined buildings built into "blocks" that can be rearranged everytime I want something new.
The first "block" consists of a canal with two platforms for loading and unloading from a barge or boat. I made the pieces from 2 inch foamboard cut nice and square on my tablesaw and using Liquid Nails, glued them down to a piece of 1/4 inch MDF 2x2 foot square. The MDF I buy from Home Depot already cut 2x2, which means all of my blocks will be the same.
I made the canal 6" wide giving me a pretty good gap with the thought of boat traffic kinda like Anvils Venice board.
Next I cut two 3x3x1" squares and glued them down for the dock platforms, in which I'll put ramps in leading up to the main street level. After that, I etched brickwork into the faces of the canal and then roughed them up with a brocken piece of concrete to give them a weathered look.
For the top part of the foam where the streets and buildings go I'm gonna glue 1/8" MDF down on top of the foam so it will have better durability, that and to cover up the pencil jab marks from my daughter helping me.
Well with all this said, here's the first of the pics. C&C welcomed. Hope everyone enjoys.

[Light of the Emperor]

I like it so far. Going modular is a good idea for any table, especially cityfight. What buildings are you planning on using? Amera, GW, your own?
I'll definately be watching this thread with interest. Who knows, I might have to borrow one of your ideas.

Good Luck!

[starlight]

Nice start - leep the updates coming.

All these cool terrain Threads have me wanting to move all the quicker - must have more room.

[icebergman]

The buildings will be made by me one I already have done http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...ght=icebergman
And my industrial will look similar to the ones I made on this thread
http://www.warseer.com/forums/showth...ght=icebergman
The other major building I'm working on is a cathedral based on the plans from the hirstarts site only made out of MDF instead of plaster. You can look at the pics of the progress of it here http://s27.photobucket.com/albums/c1...man/Cathedral/

[icebergman]

Well I made some progress on the board finally, had to wait for payday. Anyways, I got the other seven pieces roughed out. Since the other half of my worktable is a disaster I shot half of the board at a time. And for some strange reason my camera won't shoot good pics today, even after shotting them all twice, so bear with me.

This first set of pics is of all the canal sections put together,








Now remember this is a modular table so I can rearrange the sections to any design, it won't always have a horseshoe canal.

[icebergman]

The next set is of the regular "street" sections put together,

[icebergman]

The rest of the pics,







Now the last two shots are to show how my board is modular in a second way. I know its hard to tell from the pics cause they are so crappy, but the different sized squares on the board are so I can have a variety of buildings as well. Depending on the buildings I make I can have a different themed city. My three main goals for buildings were,

Industrial: All kinds of refinery pieces, chemical plants, that kind of thing.

Ruined City: Different types of ruined buildings.

Clean City: Complete buildings with pre-war scenery.

I made the squares using 1/8 MDF board cut into strips and glued them down, then after that was done I made the streets using Thinset adhesive for ceramic tiles, it's a lot lighter than plaster and won't crack as easily cause it's pretty flexible. That was the main reason for the strips was so I could fill it in with the thinset, it has 1/8 thick streets all around the boards now.

I don't really know what else to describe at the moment so I'll leave it as it is, but will gladly answer questions. C&C welcomed.

Chad

[Yarick Zan]

maybe with the clean city idea as you battle and have whatever tanks and heavy weapons fire at a building, you could switch them out for the destroyed ones. it would be a kind of neat in game effect.

like say you have a troops choice in a building, they all get wiped out by i dunno a bassie, then when all is said and done and they are all dead switch it for a ruined building. it would be pretty sweet for games.

[icebergman]

Yeah I had and idea along those same lines Yarick. The cathedral in the pics is a building that can turn into a ruin by removing the back piece. Also it helps if you want to put minis inside for cover then put the lid on

[Yarick Zan]

yea good stuff matey. well have fun building it. if i get really into it and get enough spare time this summer and money i might just do that myself.

[orangesm]

Good stuff so far. I am wondering how modular the broad.

[Orcdom]

http://www.battlescapes.com/website/...assoutside.jpg
here is a trench done at www.battlescapes.com you might want to have a look at where he reinforced the river banks with steel and concrete.

you making it 2x2 modular or 2x4 and store each section?

the 2x4 or 2x2 for that matter, if you watch it and make any street centers cross at the 1' mark from any and all corners you can position the table in 4x4 or 4x6 designs and the roads will match up.
that was in an old white dwarf several years ago for an epic board.

and BTW coming along nicely.

Steve

[icebergman]

Mine is 2x2 modular with centered 6 inch canals so they will line up any way you place them on the table. The edges of each board are 2 inches wide and when butted up to another create a 4 inch roadway. See attached pic.


I was going to do 6 inch raods but I would have lost a lot of space for my building frames that I put down, limiting what I could do with each board.

The thing I liked about building it this way is the fact that I could make another board section or two whenever the wheels started racing on an idea and I won't have to scrap a whole table or build a complete second table. One idea which I will have to pay attention to the next time I build a section is what I did under the Cathedral, I cut out a basement that the base of the building sits on top of, which could be used for game objectives or for hiding reserves or something along those lines.




More pics as I progress.
Chad

[Rictus]

Great idea, very well executed. Another thread I will be religiously keeping track of.

[Orcdom]

icebergman i would take a trip to your lumberyard or a cabinet making place and check on some veneers, they make a stone finish formica that you could cut your roads out in and use it to look like concrete, we were planning something like this a couple years ago but never got around to it, and you could layer it and use the other for your sidewalks.

Steve

[Still learning]

some poeple are so blessed when is comes to makeing stuff

[Ogrekin]

Fantastic stuff.

[Melchor]

Really good stuff Icebergman! Another thread that makes me want to build a cityfight table!

I'll be watching your progress...

[icebergman]

Well between building some new workbenches for my shop and a lot of cleaning I finally moved a little ahead today. I got the brick walls done on two of the canal sections and basecoated with black textured paint last night. Today I cleaned the other sections up, I finished the brick walls for the canals and the basement under the cathedral. After that I painted the section tops with black textured paint, While the others dried I got the two from last night out and drybrushed them with some grey latex. I'm pretty impressed with the way they turned out and hope the others fare as well. You'll notice in the pics that the section for the buildings aren't painted yet, I did around the edges but left the middles normal. I'm thinking of either painting them black or just leaving them be due to the fact that you won't see them with buildings sitting in the frames.

Anyways here's some pics of the first two sections.

[icebergman]

More pics.