Skip to main content

Modular Terrain Tutorial: Part 1

By March 28, 2015September 16th, 2017Miniatures Games, Videos

I never do anything I don’t want to do. Nor does anyone, but in my case I am always aware of it.

Ever wanted to make your own modular terrain for miniature wargames? Well, now you can!

For some inexplicable reason, I recently decided to make some modular terrain for our Hell Dorado games—possibly because the game is played in a 3′ x 3′ area, and it seemed a convenient size to build a manageable amount of terrain. How wrong I was! Building terrain is actually quite a time-consuming and difficult project. Well, it was for me, but then I had to learn ‘on the job’. You folks can enjoy learning from my mistakes by following the steps in this new series of tutorial videos.

Let’s get started with making our basic terrain tiles from MDF board and foam, planning our modular setup, and finally, sculpting some hills.

10 Comments

  • MarcellusWallace says:

    Wow, i love it! Lots of crafty stuff going on in this one. Part 2! Now!
    Please.

  • Mark says:

    I don’t know where you get the energy (or time!) to do all you do Peter. Very impressive. As long as I can pay with Paypal, sign me up for a shirt 🙂

  • razide says:

    It is fun watching you do all the hard work. And very informative too. Looking forward to your future videos.

    Are you intending to just paint most of the board or is a sand/flock surface envisaged ?

    • I’ve never really been a big fan of flock, I find it tends to ‘shed’ no matter how you coat it with hairspray or varnish or whatever. These will have a sand/gravel/dirt surface, probably painted to match the grey wasteland look that I use on all my bases. Still thinking about it. As much as I planned to make this a ‘hellscape’, after all the work I’d like it to be usable for other games as well. Wrath of Kings for example, though that will mean I’ll have to make another 7 tiles to get a 4′ x 4′ area.

  • razide says:

    A sand/gravel/dirt surface sound more Hell Doradoish as applicable to most other games too. I can’t wait to see how it turns out.

    I wish some these ‘skirmish’ game’s designers would do some optimizing for small table sizes 2×2, 3×3, 4×2.
    Compressing WoK’s deployment zones could be adapted for a 3’x3′ quite easily especially for the smaller battle sizes… into the fray faster too.

  • playnoevil says:

    Have you checked out ultimatepapermache.com ? Interesting, low cost construction, you might be able to work right on top of the mdf or use it for your Hills.

Leave a Reply

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.