BaCon 2009: 2 Months, 20 Tables! (Warhammer 40k)

[Cynath319]

Greetings all! So as the title suggests, for a convention taking place at the end of June (link: http://jascogames.com), my friends and I have been tasked with generating terrain for 20 Warhammer 40k tables in just under 2 months!

Can we do it? We have a very ambitious plan and after a day and a half of planning, over the weekend we bought our materials and set to work.

The pictures are somewhat blurry since we decided last minute to start a plog about our endeavor and did not bring a nice camera, further down the line the pictures will be better I promise.

First, a shot of materials and our workspace (the backroom of Jasco Games):

1/2" Foamular:


4' x 6' Plywood (Picture taken after some cuts were made):


We have materials to complete the first 10 tables (hopefully in time for a RTT at the end of May) and will start the last 10 in due course. With a little luck and a lot of late nights, we think we can get this done!

So we drafted up our ideas and started construction on one of the coolest (and heaviest) tables in our plans. The table will be a dense Cityfight board, most of the pieces being modular, but with a deep sewer/runoff canal running through the middle of the board. The canal will be impassable save for three strategically placed bridges across the expanse (all well guarded by pillboxes, bunkers and sandbag emplacements:



Its not easy to tell from that angle, but the table is constructed from a 4' x 6' Plywood bottom, 2x4 frame (creating a 4" deep, 6" wide canal) and plywood on top. With that secured in place by a frame around the outside edge, a 1/2" of foam will create the base for our city terrain.

We also started work on our highway table. The idea is that a large highway runs from a raised shipping platform at one side of the table and has been blown apart in the center of the table. A WIP shot of the table as it rests atop the canal table:



Other tables coming up in the near future:

Trenches (this is gonna be awesome)
Highway (more work done!)
Khorne (blood for the blood god, skulls for the skull throne!)
And many, many more!

Cheers,

~Cynath

[Devillocks]

Any terrain involving Khorne automatically gets my attention. That's a very ambitious project, but you sound like you're the type who loves a challenge and a deadline, so i have hope it'll be great. Looking forward to pics, you're off to a good start! Cheers.


PS. "Foamular" sounds an awful lot like a planet from Star Trek IMHO. "Number 1, lay in a course for Foamular, engage!"

[bugbait_nz]

Good luck, drink lots of Coke!!

Bugbait out

[Cynath319]

Quick-ish update Part I:

I'm a little behind on posting pictures of our work as we get them in from a third party, hopefully it will be a daily/every other day type thing in the future. This will be a two part update to get all the pictures up.

Here is a bunch of 4' x 6' tables that needed no special braces or construction being foamed:



This is all the weight we put on them to sandwich the wood glue and foam on the plywood:



Yes, that's a row of lockers, two televisions, a saw, and some leftover shelving all smushing the tables together. The end result was favorable:



The foam adhered well and we haven't had any problems which makes me very happy. Now it is time to start really working on another of our more ambitious table projects, the trenches table. Teaser pic:

[Cynath319]

Quick-ish Update Part II:

As I said before, we got to really working on our trenches table and I am very very happy so far. How about a pic?



Those craters are made by using a heat gun a few inches from the surface until the foam melts and settles into a nice crater. This way we can build up the crater on the surface level and the bottom will actually be lower than the surface. The whole table will be three levels high and the trench is made from 3/4" foam glued on top of the bottom layer. On to the messy part!!!

The VERY messy part to be exact. To give our trenches table a muddy, raining feel, we decided to use real mud for the terrain. We mixed sifted dirt dug from out behind the game store with 1.5 parts wood glue to 2 parts water. The consistency and appearance, was, well...



Gross. But! It went on the table spectacularly and after about an hour and a half of working it around just right, it looked something like this:



This is how we imagine the table looking as a finished product, now obviously this mud is going to dry and not look like this, but once we paint and water effect the table, it should be pretty awesome.

We decided after seeing the way it was drying to throw some extra dirt on the top for added texture and effect, here it is with the dirt thrown on before we took it outside and shook off the excess:



After the excess was kicked off and the dust settled, we realized we hadn't built up our craters like we had planned and after a great deal of swearing, we went back to work with joint compound to build up some of the fresher craters (pics next time).

We've been hard at work and like I said, more pics are coming of our work over the last few days so expect a massive update in the near future.

Thanks for reading and as always, C&C welcome, ideas welcome, wish us luck and if you can, come play on all the finished tables at BaCon!

~Cynath

[FraustyTheSnowman]

20 tables in 2 months? I don't think they're going to be DRINKING the coke...

Good luck guys!

[drew25a]

this reminds me off something

http://tsoalr.com/?m=20090310

scroll down to the comic strip

[Cynath319]

Originally Posted by drew25a

this reminds me off something

http://tsoalr.com/?m=20090310

scroll down to the comic strip

Lol thanks Drew! That gave me a laugh, our tables are not gonna have cup holders... unless... NO! Too much work!

Quote

20 tables in 2 months? I don't think they're going to be DRINKING the coke...

Good luck guys!

Thanks mate, we do have a ton to get done but I'm feeling pretty confident at the moment actually!

Quote

Good luck, drink lots of Coke!!

Bugbait out

Thanks a ton for checking this out bugbait, I've looked a lot at your work and have always been impressed. Cheers.

Quote

Any terrain involving Khorne automatically gets my attention. That's a very ambitious project, but you sound like you're the type who loves a challenge and a deadline, so i have hope it'll be great. Looking forward to pics, you're off to a good start! Cheers.


PS. "Foamular" sounds an awful lot like a planet from Star Trek IMHO. "Number 1, lay in a course for Foamular, engage!"

Pics of Khorne table coming soon, should be today. Lol, I hadn't thought of that about Foamular... but ya... I can see a red shirt dying to the evil foam beast of Foamular!

Going up to the game store to work now, updates soon (i.e. 12 hours from now after a days work).

~Cynath

[sheep]

Good luck, looks like a good start too.

Cheers

Sheep

[static grass]

Building a games table from actual mud reminds me of blackadder goes forth..

"what scale is this map then"?
"1:1 sir".

Classic

[Ulsterburg]

I am looking forward to viewing more of your crazy antics. The idea is absolutely insane. Good luck!

[Cynath319]

Preparation for BaCon 2009 Week 1 Update Part 1! (Lots of Pics)

Well after a whole week of very little sleep and far too much caffeine, I have a substantial update for you. We've been diligently working on our first 5 tables, Trenches, Khorne, Highway, Canal, and "Berlin" Wall (all will be getting cool thematic names at a later date).

First I'll show you the progress on the trenches table. We first built up the craters in the "no man's land" like so:





This gave the craters a better feel and obviously made them more pronounced. After the joint compound dried we gave them a good dirting to match and painted the whole area flat black.



Now the fun part. We decided to sandbag the trenches and before I knew it I was knee deep in Plaster of Paris casting sandbag after sandbag. Our math equals out to us need approximately 2500 to 3000 individual sandbags. Here are some pics of the first elevation sandbags:





And a picture of about 400 or so drying:



What an enormous amount of time and effort. Every sandbag that came out of our 100 unit mold had to be cleaned up and left to dry for 4+ hours. I think at the time of writing this we have cast and glued to the table around 1500 sandbags.

Of course though trenches table took up a considerable amount of time, it was not the only table to get love this week, more coming in part 2.

[Cynath319]

Week 1 Update Part 2:

So, alongside working on trenches table, Kevin took the driver's seat on getting one of our tables mostly knocked out over the week. This one has been nicknamed the Berlin Wall table and is a cool concept. The idea is that an imperial city had walled itself from the wilds of the planet and some invading force has come in and blasted huge holes in their defenses. The wall remnants will be great cover and I think the table will be a blast for players.





The City side of the table will have modular cityfight terrain while the forest side will have modular trees, hills, and rocks.

One of my favorite tables also got a great deal of work done on it this week: Khorne Table! We only just recently got the resin to make our giant pool of blood, rivers of blood (yes, flowing rivers of blood!) and blood pools but we were able to get the table to about 75% completion without it.

Here is the foam cutout atop the base layer of foam:



And painted:



The center of the Khorne Skull is going to be our massive lake of blood with rivers flowing down off the sides and lots and lots of gribblies floating in it. I love this table, I absolutely cannot wait to see it finished!

We are running at a pretty good clip and getting a lot of work done despite us all being exhausted.

What keeps us all running:



More to come in part 3.

[Cynath319]

Week 1 Update Part 3:

Obviously we are working our selves to insanity and exhaustion and our fingers to the bone (and yet we have about 7 weeks left!!) but that doesn't mean we aren't having a good time!

Here's me, in the red, not helping at all as I distract Kevin, in the black (a little blurry due to motion):



Always wear a belt to the game store or prepare to be shamed:



But in all seriousness, there are still 2 tables in the first set that have gotten put on the back burner for week 1, Canal and Highway. These are both ambitious projects but we feel we can get them suitably done in the second week.

Where Canal table sits as of now:



Highway table with a lot of drawing and notes, but very little heavy duty work done to it:



In the next day or so I expect a great deal of work to be done on both of these tables so prepare yourselves for a mid-week update that has all 5 tables in some state of near completion!

Stay tuned, and as always, C&C is always welcome or just wish us luck!

Cheers,

~Cynath

[techman]

I'm loving the work here guys (and the mass of it is insane...sandbags jeez). Keep up the work..and think instead of X number tables left...its Y tables done.

[Dalanshin]

This is an exciting thread! keep it coming, and great work so far!

[Slaaaaaanesh]

NIce boards you have there, lots of unique ideas and you guys have put the effort in to make them brilliant.

[Velsharoon]

I think your very optimistic but keep up the good work

[Genoside07]

You have a like where you got the sandbag mold??

[Wolf Scout Ewan]

Nice looking board but seriously dude it cant be done. Not to the standard of the current one!