Hello guys and gals

Another thread from your favorite (or not) pale Elrad and this time I create this to talk about terrains and tables...but more generally : about how to create your battlefield for Runewars minis.

As we began the discussion in my other thread " Painting your army " (around the corner of pages 6 and 7), I thought that with the suggestion of @Joker2007 it would be a better thing to have a separate thread to cover this kind of things and not mixing it with painting consideration. Both are going to meld at sometimes but talking about painting in general and about painting minis is more the goal of the other thread than here where we could also talk (and I hope we will) about painting your terrains.

I here retake some of the websites and Youtube channels @Iceeagle85 kindly shared on the other thread so if anyone is looking for somthing. I may also consider to centralize here all the links that appear along the conversations.

useful websites :

https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTerrainTutor (youtube channel focused on how to build various terrains)

http://www.ziterdes.com/?___store=ziterdes_en&___from_store=ziterdes_en (online shop that sells various items for your creations)

http://www.thomarillion.de/index.php?language=en&page=now_available (online shop)

https://www.etsy.com/shop/skullforgescenics (online shop that sells resin terrains made by Rob Hawkins)

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/230343-terrain-while-i-wait/ (conversation of this forum concerning using mats and with some useful links by @Iceeagle85 of course )

Thanks to @Iceeagle85 again for the list of websites below:

Dwarven Forge
Terra Tiles from Rainn Studios
Mininatur (they got all kinds of trees, foliage, greening, groundcover and flocking)
Games Workshop hast some terrain kits (the woods, cemetery, walls and fences and ruins could work) and the sell modular boards .
Micro Arts scatter terrain (crates and barrels) and here you can find some hills .
Miniature Scenery
Printable Scenery (for those who have access to a 3D printer)
4Grounds has some Fantasy buildings, here there City of Mordanburg range.
Tabletop World , not the cheapest but from the pictures their stuff looks great.
Galeforce 9's battlefield in a box , while most of it is for Flames of War there are some kits that are usable for Runewars, and they have also flocking material .
Kraken Wargames (right now they are rebuilding there website, but you can see a unboxing by BEasts of War here)
Deepcutstudios
Micro Arts Studio
Frontline Gaming
By Fire and Sword
Thingiverse (3D printing objects)
Escenorama (3D terrains)

useful information concerning play conditions :

Table dimensions : 1mx2m or 3'x6'

trays dimensions : tba.

One question I have to begin with (I talk too much...one day I'll really keep quiet for once...) : do we know the exact dimensions of the trays ? both normal and big ones ? I think it has been discussed, I've browsed the forum in search for this information but couldn't find anything really interesting. I read somewhere that a guess would be 7cm but not saying if for a normal tray or big one... a normal one I guess. Do we have some solid information about that ?

I'm just going to make a plain grassy board in the required dimensions to keep it easy. I might then make terrain shaped to the cardboard terrain tiles and place the 3D terrain on top of the tiles, so I can easily swap to the 2D tile for making use of the movement template.

28 minutes ago, Muz333 said:

I'm just going to make a plain grassy board in the required dimensions to keep it easy. I might then make terrain shaped to the cardboard terrain tiles and place the 3D terrain on top of the tiles, so I can easily swap to the 2D tile for making use of the movement template.

To me it looks the best idea. Something easy to remove. If not the movement is going to be a pain in the ass. Anyway looks like there is nothing till now which block LOS.

I would go for 900x1800mm rather than 1000x2000mm, plan to buy 2 @ 900x900x6mm MFD.

Then just paint it all brown and then scatter flock over it in 2-3 shades of green. Perhaps a little road....

One of my favorites is http://www.hirstarts.com/ .He not only has some of the best terrain-making molds, but he also has a huge library of different tutorials and guides on how to make different scenery.

I am planning to dust off some of my molds to make some 3D scenery for obstacles and hazards once I get the templates. I did that already with my asteroids for Xwing and it worked out great, so I want to do the same for these tiles. Basically for XWing, I took the existing asteroid tiles, put them against a clear plastic sheet to mark and cut plastic bases to size, then used dowel rods (I wanted clear acrylic but I couldn't find it cheaply locally) to attach lava rocks with smaller clusters of rocks attached with wires to the main rock. Then, I can lay down the tiles when setting up a game, and place the 3D asteroids over them, with the bases aligning. Whenever a template or base needs to overlap, move the asteroid out of the way and leave the tile behind. With Runewars it should work the same: Take the base, trace it on some particle board, sand a little to fix the edges, then build a 3D version on top of the new wooden base (or some cooler alternative that fits the tile type), paint, shade, and flock!

I'm going to be building a full 4x6 table for my local game store that is just now branching into Mini's with the release of RW. I'll just be building a storage box under the tabletop for different sized and style terrain mats to be rolled out for various games. I'm assuming that FFG will follow their practice for x-wing and release nice game mats for Runewars...and I'll probably pick those up if they do make them. My buddy is thinking of making an actual board but he may have given up on that.

Going to just use a vinyl Matt sprayed green for now. I don't have any.dedicated gaming space so whatever I have needs to be stored when not in use.

In addition, Im not sure how well this system is going to work for 3d terrain. I generally only use 3d terrain for skirmish games like lotro or bolt action. Since this game uses a variation of the flight path system I imagine if you use 3d terrain it'll have to be modular or have a flat base that can stay put after removing the terrain piece itself as already mentioned.

36 minutes ago, Dosiere said:

Going to just use a vinyl Matt sprayed green for now. I don't have any.dedicated gaming space so whatever I have needs to be stored when not in use.

I feel you, I live in a city flat so space is very much at a premium.

I'm going to play on my armada mats and call it good :P. I'm not really into the 'hobby'... just the game.

I'm going to get an official mat whenever those are released for the base field, but I am pretty stoked to start constructing some terrain. I think the idea that @drkpnthr shared was great... lay down the 2D terrain and have the 3D sit over it so that it is easily removable for movement or whatever. I think I'm going to steal that.

Some more sites for terrain/table building:

Dwarven Forge
Terra Tiles from Rainn Studios
Mininatur (they got all kinds of trees, foliage, greening, groundcover and flocking)
Games Workshop hast some terrain kits (the woods, cemetery, walls and fences and ruins could workd) and the sell modular boards .
Micro Arts scatter terrain (crates and barrels) and here you can find some hills .
Miniature Scenery
Printable Scenery (for those who have access to a 3D printer)
4Grounds has some Fantasy buildings, here there City of Mordanburg range.
Tabletop World , not the cheapest but from the pictures their stuff looks great.

Galeforce 9's battlefield in a box , while most of it is for Flames of War there are some kits that are usable for Runewars, and they have also flocking material .

Gaming mats:

Kraken Wargames (right now they are rebuilding there website, but you can see a unboxing by BEasts of War here)
Deepcutstudios
Micro Arts Studio
Frontline Gaming

I'm going to use a play mat too, Time to buy a good one to begin with. Sadly I'm interested in games I have nearly no space to practice them comfortably, It will change someday when I get the time to buy or the skills (and a friend) to build a proper game table...But I've no room, no skills and no friends. At least none with the skills and/or experience to help me build...oh wait maybe I know someone but if it's to pay him a fortune... oh gosh I just have to wait for the next game convention to do my shopping ^^

Just now, Iceeagle85 said:

Some more sites for terrain/table building:

Dwarven Forge
Terra Tiles from Rainn Studios
Mininatur (they got all kinds of trees, foliage, greening, groundcover and flocking)
Games Workshop hast some terrain kits (the woods, cemetery, walls and fences and ruins could workd) and the sell modular boards .
Micro Arts scatter terrain (crates and barrels) and here you can find some hills .
Miniature Scenery
Printable Scenery (for those who have access to a 3D printer)
4Grounds has some Fantasy buildings, here there City of Mordanburg range.
Tabletop World , not the cheapest but from the pictures their stuff looks great.

Galeforce 9's battlefield in a box , while most of it is for Flames of War there are some kits that are usable for Runewars, and they have also flocking material .

Gaming mats:

Kraken Wargames (right now they are rebuilding there website, but you can see a unboxing by BEasts of War here)
Deepcutstudios
Micro Arts Studio
Frontline Gaming

Mine, you're a true encyclopedia by yourself, do you know it ? thank you very much. I add them to the initial post.

2 minutes ago, Elrad said:

Mine, you're a true encyclopedia by yourself, do you know it ? thank you very much. I add them to the initial post.

Thanks, I'm in the hobby since 2004 and in that time you learn some sources, more so when your in forums and on newssites.

On top of creating 3D terrain for this game, I'm also going to start creating a frozen city board for Frostgrave. Once I get the infantry command upgrade for Runewars, I'll use the wizard and spearmen for my Frostgrave warband.

I go to such lengths for terrain because I don't own a good gaming mat. I tried building a modular 4x6 WH table a while ago to build terrain on, but it really needed a larger table than I had to support itself. I'm thinking long term I may get some 3x3 particle boards that fit together well, spray paint them with some of the earth shades paints they have to model railroads, and then use spray glue and cheap flocking to make them grassy or maybe snowy or both.

3 minutes ago, drkpnthr said:

If you plan to buy mats, there are tons of vinyl 4x6 warhammer mats that would do great.

There are also plenty 3x6 mats also!

Whoa... I think I have found my new option... now it becomes a question of how durable would this be, and pricing...

6 hours ago, Muz333 said:

I feel you, I live in a city flat so space is very much at a premium.

I wish I had such a good excuse. I'm just married.

byfireandsword also sells a gaming mat. 4x6 foam and static grass that's similar to the old GW mats. Why GW stopped selling them was another terrible decision in a long list.

21 minutes ago, Dosiere said:

I wish I had such a good excuse. I'm just married.

I'm married and have kids.

Some good sites and suggestions, thanks all.

I was looking at http://www.pworkwargames.com/en/

I'm sure FFG will put out a play mat soon, but this site's "The Valley" play mat comes in 6x3 and looks perfect. There are a few other options that look neat too. Good play mats are a cheap way to make the game look good without much effort.

So 6' x 3' is the "official" battlefield size? I was just starting to make a table and was looking for that info. I'm building mine on 1.5" extruded polystyrene, because it is light and relatively cheap. I'll post pics as I get it finished.

6 hours ago, drkpnthr said:

Whoa... I think I have found my new option... now it becomes a question of how durable would this be, and pricing...

This looks totally rad... And totally hard to play on! I can't imagine getting any of my plastic models to stay up straight on that stuff. Curious to hear what others think... The dude does suggest trimming it more than he does (at the end there) so that minis with smaller bases (20-25mm) won't look as awkward as these guys in this still shot do