A while ago I came across shaso-oni-okami's Wargaming table (go ahead, check it out it's really awesome!) and decided that I had to try something similar to that. So, considering my newly found interest in Warmachine, I began working on a gaming table that would fit this wargame.

Since this is gonna be a bigger project, I'll document all steps and update this page as I progress with my work.

I decided that I wanted to go with a size appropriate for Warmachine games. I picked a wood board measuring 3x3 feet.


I wanted smaller, interchangeable, square wooden plates to go on the table. So to secure them in place, I had to build a frame around the whole table. I used a wooden slat (1.5 x 3cm) for this. I measured the length on the table and marked it with a pencil.


I set my mitre saw to a 45° angle...


and cut off the slat...


to get a perfect angle on it.


I made sure there were no splinters on the edges from cutting...


and fixed the frame piece to the board using screw clamps.


Then I turned the board upside down to screw on the framepiece. I wanted the screws to be on the underside of the gaming table later so I would get a nice smooth surface on top.
I drilled six holes for the screws, but I made sure not to drill through the whole framepiece to avoid leaving a hole on top.


Then I used a bigger drill to make a small hole for the screw's head to sink into.


Now for the screws:


I repeated this on the 3 remaining edges of the table and when I was done I made sure there were no sharp edges or splinters with some sandpaper. This is the result:


Now I measured the inside of the gaming table (essentially the area without the frame). Since I want to have 16 interchangeable squares on the table, I divided the lenght by four. Now I had the side length of one of the squares. I cut out a board with this sidelength using a jigsaw (it would have been better to use a circular saw with a guide rail, but since I didn't have one I had to improvise here).


Then I cut this board into squares using the mitre saw again (now of course set to a 0°angle)


Again some sandpapering round the edges, and now the squares were ready to be covered in wargaming terrain.


Having 16 terrain squares, I decided to classify them into groups.
This is the distribution I have come up with:

- Elevated corner x4
- Rock terrain x2
- Forest terrain x2
- Flat plains x8

Elevated corner pieces

These were done using 2 inch thick styrofoam. I cut out a piece of styrofoam that was a little smaller than the wooden base plate. I left two sides to be perpendicular, and I carved down the other two sides to give them a jagged, rock-like surface. I glued the styrofoam piece onto the baseplate with PVA glue, then covered all the flat surfaces in PVA glue as well. I sanded these surfaces and gave the glue a few hours to dry. I then basecoated the rock surface black and all the areas that I had sanded were painted in brown. It is important to use water-based paint, since any varnish will dissolve the styrofoam. I gave the paint some time to dry before the next step. This was to give the rocks a heavy (wet) drybrush with dark grey paint. I left out all the deep crevasses on the rocks to make sure those stayed black. After this layer of paint had dried I gave the rocks a drybrush with a light grey. I went back to touch up any mistakes on the brown sanded areas before I went on to the last step, which was to add modeling grass. This was also done with PVA glue. I did not put grass everywhere. Instead I left out some areas to make the vegetation look patchy. This is the finished result. Four of these will be made, and it will be possible to combine them to form a large, flat rock formation.




Rock terrain

The rock terrain was essentially done in the same way as the corner pieces, except they can be placed freely on the gaming table since they don't have any designated corners. Furthermore, they have no flat surface to place models on top.




Forest terrain

To make the forest terrain, I cut out pieces of styrofoam to create slight elevations for the trees to sit on. Those should be gentle, rounded hills in random, natural-looking shapes. I glued them onto the base plate (PVA) and sanded the whole plate. Once the glue was dry I painted the whole plate brown. The next step was to find good positions for the trees. I had 8 trees for one plate. The trees consist of 2 pieces, namely the roots and stem with branches and greening. So at first, I just glued the roots to the base plate using hot glue, and after that I glued on the grass. Finally I stuck the actual trees into the roots, but didn't glue them in to keep them removable for easier transportation later on. The trees are actually H0 scale and are usually used for model railways, but I think they fit in pretty nicely.




Flat plains

The flat plains are the pieces that are the fastest to produce. They are, essentially, a wooden square sanded down and painted brown, with some modeling grass added for decoration. On some plates I also used small rock formations. those were carved from styrofoam and painted as described above.




Now that you know all the basic terrain groups I'll be using, you might already be able to get a picture of what the finished gaming table will look like. Here's a little teaser:



I hope this tutorial helped/inspired you to create your own wargaming terrain. The finished gaming table can be found here. Please let me know what you think.

Happy wargaming!