My friend talked me into starting a new period - ok, it only took 15 minutes, but it was his idea. We chose
the North African front of World War II - Montey vs Rommel in the desert Only one problem - I had no
desert terrain - The perfect excuse to build some new terrain boards! They don't just have to be for my
15mm WWII games. These boards will work equally well for Warhammer 40k or my Darkest Africa games.

All of the terrain boards I build start life as MDF boards. These take lots of paint and glue without warping. The
drawback is they are heavy, but as I rarely (read never) travel with them and the storage closet is five feet from
my game table, it's not a problem for me. I usually glue a layer of foam on top of the board so I can carve out
rivers and such, but decided I didn't need to do that with this project, so I worked directly on the MDF.

The first step was to make a plan. I wanted three modular boards that I could rearrange to make different
layouts. I plan to make some loose terrain pieces (a few small hills, an oasis, a village or two) to
add further variety!



One of my boards was to be flat so I sat that aside. On the others I want to model a pair of rocky ridges forming
a gully between on one and a pair of small hills on the other. This is where the foam came in. I used pink
half-inch insulation foam from my local DIY store. After cutting out the shapes with a craft knife, I shaped
the sides into gentle slopes with a hot-foam-cutter. Then I took my hills outside and sanded off any remaining
sharp edges. I tested the slopes with a metal 28mm model to make sure it would stand without toppling over
and when I was satisfied, I glued the hills to my MDF, weighted them with books, and left them to dry overnight.


  

The next afternoon I started on the gully. The rocks are the most frequently asked about feature of the terrain
and they are absolutely the easiest part of the whole thing. They are quite simply pine bark mulch chips, stacked
on top of each other and secured via a hot-glue gun. I scattered smaller sections of these "boulders" on the
other two boards to tie them all together visually.

Then I used a dry-wall repair compound to hide the joins between the foam and the table and blend in pine bark
stacks into the hills behind them. Unfortunately, this had to be left to sit overnight again. The next day, more
sanding ensued until the hills blended smoothly into the table.

I glued patches of rough texture in scattered areas (I use coffee grounds - I don't know why, but I have for years)
and then covered each board with fine sand. The trick to this is working in sections. I spread wood glue, 
thinned with a little water, on a patch about 1'x1' and then sprinkle fine sand over the area. Again, I left everything to
dry overnight. 

The next day, I dumped the excess sand off of the board, fixed a few patches I may have missed, and spray painted
all three boards black. The rest is painting. I used five layers over the black. Although I quarts of paint purchsed
from my DIY store, they matched the following GW colors: Scorched Brown, Dark Flesh, Beastial Brown,
Bubonic Brown, and Bleached Bone. The first was brushed on liberally and as each color was used, painting
gave way more and more to dry brushing. I allowed each color to dry completely between coats so this took me
a couple more days, but the results were worth it!

Scorched Brown...

Bubonic Brown...

and Bleached Bone...

I wanted a little additional texture to break things up (and to cover a few areas where brush strokes were too
obvious) so I added some small patches of dull green static grass. This time I used white glue and spread it small
random patches, again working only on one small section at a time. When this was dry, I used a hand-vac to
pick up the excess grass, I lightly dry-brushed it with yellow ochre and I was finished!

I think my last step, which I haven't taken at the time of this article, is to spray a light coat of matt varnish to
add further protection to the boards so they will hold up to game play.

I will be happy to answer any questions anyone has involving this project. Just drop me an e-mail!