Mordheim Report #14 - The making of my new table

Hello again. This time I've come up with a doozy of an update. A new table for Mordheim! Below I try my best to break down every step how I did it.

This has been a long time coming. Drawing up inspiration and lessons from the first foldable table I made some 15 years ago. The actual spark for starting this project came when I was casually looking at some gaming mats (for Kill Team I guess), and realized they actually had deployment zones pre-measured on the table graphics themselves. That was a real tangible advantage I wanted to have in my new table.

From there gathered up the list I wanted to have in it:

- Pre-measured deployment zones. As said above.

- Strong wooden frame. My last one which is made of 2 inch foam is somehow slightly warped in weird directions.

- Make it more pretty. Old one was just two pieces of foam with some spare wood, hinges and other stuff slapped on to it.

- Take more advantage of the foam. Old table was pretty much all foam, but I never carved it in any way. I chose it just for its weight and durability.

- Make it more diverse. This time I used five-ish different textures on it instead of one.

- Try new techniques and hope for the best. Luckily pretty much everything worked out how I thought they would.

Here's the plan of making deployment zones on the table.
I also wanted to mark the center for whatever reason.

I'm used to work without doing any notes or graphs. This time though, I had plenty of spare time and a project I wanted to be proud of. So I made a little drawing to help me get everything out of my brain (not that much, durrr...), and on to the finished project.

The table frame, not made by me (thanks Antti!)

Stained and sealed. Again, not by me.

I commissioned a friend of mine to do the frame. Gave him the measurements, and chose the cheapest smooth wood available. He asked me if I want to to be stained also, and without giving it any thought I think I said "Sure, whatever", or something along those lines. Now thinking about it, I'm sure it was the right decision as I was told it would also resist any warping.

Start of the first zone.
The big circle has no other meaning than to break up the monotony.

Making the stone texture... with a stone.

2 cm (a little less than 1 inch) thick FinnFoam was chosen for the surface, and was cut in 4 feet by 2 feet pieces.
The frame and the surface is actually almost within one millimeter of the 4' x 4' common gaming table size, which is super awesome.

I wanted to work with textured wallpapers, but decided that it would be good variation to do something by hand. One of the four deployment zones would suffice for this.
I made the deployment zone tiles with ballpoint pen, textured them with anything that has a nice texture, and sealed with watered down PVA glue.

The other deployment zones were carved in. I used a soldering iron which has this carving-knife-tool attached to it. Cuts through like butter. Basic wall filler was used if a cut was too deep.

Masking is important.

Carved (or rather melted) the other deployment zones.

One of my miscast sewer grates got a new life here.

Put two textured wallpapers on top of each other and cut them.
Then swap the identical sized pieces and tape them.

All taped.

Use watered down acrylic paste and a piece of cloth for bendiness.

Here's the biggest part of the surface, the vinyl wall paper. For some reason I wanted to mark the center of the table (Mordheim doesn't really have a need for the exact center), and came up with this plaza type cobblestone design of sorts. The main reason for it though, was to break up the monotone texture of the dominant wall paper.

I took a wide slice of the other (green) wall paper, and taped it over the bottom one (red). Then I took a knife and cut through both at the same time to get identical pieces, then swapped out the pieces and taped them in place for gluing.
Flipped the taped wall paper design over, and glue it underside. I used watered down acrylic paste to adhere a piece of cloth to hold it tight.
Because the design marks the center of the table, it is in the spot the table folds, so no glue that dries hard, or warps, or does any other funky business would do.

Some additional texturing to break the monotone.

Here are pretty much all the detail I did to the table. Not much is needed when it is supposed to be covered in other terrain. I couldn't go buck wild with the foam melting either, because the surface needs to be pretty flat. Otherwise the buildings won't stay put.

Making marks!

All glued on and trimmed. Also a road has been added.

This is pretty much the final form of the surface. Wall papers have been trimmed and glued, the gutter and other "bald spots" have been cut through and made visible, and the road has been marked and started.

There was a slight problem with the design though. There is a 12 inch area in the middle of the table that can't be glued because the joint hinge is above the surface level, and would rip the paper off when folded. This left a bit of bulging in the wall paper (as seen above), which I didn't mind as much since it would - again - be covered with terrain. Miraculously though, this flaw corrected itself in the latter work steps. Read below.

The gutter.

Additional minor details.

Rubbing in some sand for additional texture.

The random sand texture to really break up the monotone of the wall paper. This was pretty much the last big work step to be done. I didn't know if it would work, and was super nervous how it would end up.

I made this watered down (to a light creme viscosity) PVA glue with aquarium sand, and some random color just to see where I've applied it. My vision was to rub it in the crevasses of the wall paper and hope the glue would hold it. The reality was that the sand wouldn't really go in the cracks and would be left all over the place. I compensated by adding more of the stuff.
In the end it worked out, really random patterns and the glue held good. A lot of the sand went to waste, and a lot of work (and sore fingers) was needed to rub the excess sand off. But now, my biggest worry was behind me.

The miracle that also happened, was that the watered down glue shrunk so much that it flattened all the bulges that formed when adhering the wall paper to the foam. I was glad indeed!

Lower part of this picture has been rubbed out of excess sand,
the top part is just glued.

A mud paste made out of acrylic paste, water, sand and wood dust.

A muddy road.

The last thing before painting is the road that marks the last deployment zone.
A paste was made from acrylic paste, water, that same sand, and wood dust. I settled on a stuff that was comparable thickness to a yoghurt. Applied it and ran the other end of a brush through it to simulate some wagon tracks.
Then after drying I picked off the bigger clumps to flatten it a bit.

Black spray paint.

A full coat of cheap-o brown acrylic was applied.
After this was gray spray paint.

A few different brown washes were applied at different spots.
Pictured above is the first and the heaviest one.

Without the light gray drybrush.

With the light gray drybrush.

Now was the time to get painting. First up were the gray parts.
The layers were as follows: Black spray, cocoa-brown acrylic (with some added acrylic paste to maybe protect the surface more), gray spray. Over the gray base I washed over with few different browns, leaving random spots and marks.
Once that was dry I went over with the same gray as the base, but with a bottled paint. Using long strokes and the brush almost horizontally, I carefully tried to only paint the raised parts of the vinyl wall paper.
The last thing to do was to drybrush the whole thing with one step lighter gray.

WIP brown parts. These have five-ish layers of different browns brushed and washed.
A few more to go still.

Fresh out of the masking removal.

Brown parts weren't given any thought at all. Just mixing different colors and seeing what shows up over the base color. Some washed, some brushed, and others drybrushed.
I think I ended up painting eight to ten brown layers overall, last one being really diluted smokey ink applied by my index finger.

After all the painting all there was to do was to varnish it, and remove the masking, and voilà!

Some minor repairs were necessary after the masking tape had ripped some of the paint off.

In the end I'd say I'm 90% pleased with my creation. There's a few thing that nag me a bit. 

One being that the few reddish tiles I painted don't really show up, and kinda just look painted on. The other is that the sand particles might still - after so many precautions - get loose, and they might be bad with terrain that has really hard base. I think it would've been better to use wood dust instead of sand there.

Some paint may chip, and holes get poked on it, but that is just to be expected.

So here we have it. My new Mordheim table.

The very next day my table saw its first few games.

A cat warming her butt on a wireless router.

Mordheim Report #13

Quick update on my first tall building. Going's been slow on this one since I need to think the folding again from the start. Hopefully I get it down with this and the next five similar building will come together more quickly.

What I've learned for now is that I should only do holes and bigger formwork before gluing walls to base with hinges. Floor layers are easier to match after that, and details are way easier to do when floors are in place, like that book shelf.

I'm thinking of doing this pretty much paint ready before going ham on the next five.

This first building is themed as a small library, with tiny alchemy table at the top floor (which is not done yet), finished with some sun iconography. The bottom floor is not accessible.

I'm yet to decide all the themes for the rest. Only ones I have in mind besides the aforementioned is a butcher, and fish market/fishing supplier store. Maybe the rest are just going to be apartments and housing...

Mordheim Report #12

These things are now ready. 6 ladders and fences, and 2 walkways.

They had their debut yesterday, when I had my first game of our campaign. Unfortunately I lost, and two on my members got dead!
After scavenging for the Wyrdstone I managed to get just enough money to replace them, and additionally had three bows to spare around. So all in all, I ended on the plus side.

Not much to say about these things. Ladders and walkways are done mostly with wooden sticks.

Fences are done by texture roller over some polymer clay. The first quarter of a single fence was actually just a test piece when I got the rollers. I ended up making six of them because the test piece looked good, and I just had bought some big ice cream sticks which ended up as the bases.

Barrels and wheels are of course those I've made with toy dough.

Mordheim Report #11

My Possessed warband is getting there. Only two Possessed, one Gor, and a few henchmen to go. This time I got Gor, Magister and a Mutant ready, who are posing in the first row in pic below.

Here's the box I have for them. Custom slots for the metallics, and one size slots for plastics.
I've not yet done all the henchmen since I really don't know how many or what kind I need or want besides the three Gors.

Bought a board game

I got Caverna like a month ago. One of the best games I've ever bought.
It's almost like Minecraft survival mode. You need to sow grain and build fencing for animals to keep your dwarven family fed, and also mine tunnels for minerals and space to build additional rooms.
The game comes with a huge box filled to the brim with thick cardboard tiles and wooden tokens, and was pretty messy setting up the first time. The game really needed an insert to keep it organized. And now it has one!

Two pouches are missing in this pic. The player tokens and player aid cards.

The box is pretty big. Picture shortens it a bit, it's much taller than most board game boxes.
Half of its height is used by the many game boards it came with, and the other half by my inserts.

In other news...

Mordheim report #10,5 I guess...

Got some smaller things going on whilst prepping on doing those bigger buildings.
Six fences, six ladders and couple of bridges.

Aaand one simple detail I made. Going to make a stamp mold out of this, so I can get cooler wooden details. Like tables, shelves, stools and such.

Mordheim Report #10 - Bring More Men!

Finished up a few more members for my warband.

Below is Snakebeast (Gor), and Darksoul rounding up the painted henchmen types. Other painted ones shown here were Brethren.

And here is my first hero, a Mutant. I gave him some extra attention with a few extra highlight layers. 

I'm a lazy painter and am always trying to get the job done with the least amount of effort as possible, but painting this dude was the first time that I really was enjoying myself mixing the paints and doing more layers (didn't actually end up doing that many, because I wanted to be finished in one evening). I'm now hoping to get that groove on for my Possessed and Magister too!

Mordheim Report #9

IT IS DONE! The inn and the tower are now finished! Took me a long time to actually force myself not to dabble any more with them. Learned a lot, and hopefully remember what I did for my next buildings.

Here's the full set. The road below can be rolled inside the tower for safekeeping.

One tiny detail I'm proud of is the "enviction notice" on the door. A quick and dirty sculpt followed by a quick and dirty mold, and then stamped with toy clay. The two layer paint job also ended up working.

Here are some of the many toy clay bits painted, the boxes and barrels, the shields on the far side wall, and the stony window frame on tower. Also notice the small shelf in the tower.

Window flaps are also stamped with toy clay. All the torch type thingies, like the ones in the chandelier, are from DIY necklace store. They cost next to nothing, and have pretty good texture.

Next I'm planning on doing a sextet of tall and slim buildings that can be arranged to go around of a big plaza. Here's hoping that those will come together much more quickly.

Mordheim Report #8

Here's a few henchmen miniatures ready to be recruited. They'll be a part of Slaanesh snakey-themed Possessed warband.

Next time the Inn and Tower WILL be ready.

Mordheim Report #7

The big divider block is almost finished. I might do some more heavy weathering and some metallics over the rust.
Others are WIP.

Here we go! Our miniature club is starting again after a hiatus, and so am I. Old Stuff is getting some color, and new stuff is being made.

I'm easily excited. After seeing a bunch of big ice cream sticks, I went and bought some for myself, and then these emerged.

On top of all those I got my first Mordheim warband member painted. It's been so long since I've used white basecoat spray that I kinda messed it up. Sometimes the first few seconds of spray, it leaves this awful rubbley surface, like it has melted the plastic. Fortunately with a bit of work you can scrub it off, but unfortunately I was too quick to get painting, and this poor fellow has some really bad skin problems. (Hence the dramatic lighting, to mask it off).