Project Foy - Timeout Result

This past weekend I helped our junior terrain makers finish their school project. Their 6th grade Social Studies assignment was to re-create something from ancient Egypt. Many of the kids picked the obvious "pyramid made from sugar cubes" project, but my son came up with the idea of picking a famous battle from that time period and building a terrain board and rule set for it. He volunteered my help, but I wanted them to come up with the ideas and, more importantly, to do all of the work.

After digging around on Wikipedia for a while, they settled on the Battle of Pelusium in 525 BC. This was a battle for the fortress of Pharaoh Psametik III and took place in the eastern Nile delta. The boys did a great job of doing the research and deciding what the board needed to look like. I can't say that their idea for the fortress exactly matched the historical account, but we all make allowances in our projects to make them fit our time/space/budget.

The boys used a lot of the techniques we have already presented:

Honestly I was not sure what we would do for figures, but I was hoping to find a set of plastic Romans at least to pass off for Egyptian warriors. As luck would have it, our favorite hobby store, Greenfield News and Hobby, had not only Romans, but Egyptians too. We were also able to pick up some cheap palm trees to add character. They look a little cheesy: if we had had more time, I would have gotten the procedure that John uses to scratch build them and had the boys make them. Similarly, the boys ended up only having enough time to mark the bases of the figures to indicate what side they were on. I am hoping they will be interested enough to go back and take a stab at painting them up.

For the Nile River tributaries, I showed them how to blend a variety of colors going from darker to lighter as they moved out from the center. For such an advanced technique, I thought they did a very good job. I finished the river sections off by brushing on Liquid Water after the paint had dried. I just wanted a shiny top-coat. I was not going for the depth that we normally use for rivers and ponds. Overall, I was very pleased with the effort and result.

I did stumble across one new technique as we were trying new things. I found that a Burnt Umber wash over the spackling compound rough coat results in a pretty good river bank. In this case, you want to go easy on the sanding/smoothing.

If we can get it on the schedule, I am going to try and convince my son to run a full-fledged game at Little Wars in February. We play-tested their rules on Saturday night and it seemed to be a reasonable game. But, finally back to Project Foy!!

Project Foy - Timeout

Well, it's been about a week or so since I have had a chance to complete any significant work on Project Foy. My son was assigned a project at school on Egypt and he thought it would be a great idea for his dad to help him make a game board depicting a battle from ancient Egypt. This is a group project so it has meant several sessions of the "project team" coming to our house for the design and build. It has been very interesting to see them go through the same build process that we are.

Originally they came up with a design that covered 4'x5'. Within the Battlefield Hobbies group, we take turns playing the VOR role. That is the "voice of reason". It is funny that even at 11 years old, your project build plans wildly exceed reality in the early planning stages. So, after I stepped in as the VOR (did they realize a board that size takes about 30 hours to build?), their design shrunk to a more manageable 2'x2.5'.

The team has gone through most of the design and rough construction work. This weekend we will put on the final finishing touches. They are also planning on putting together a rule set so they can do a short playtest for the class.

It has been a real experience for me as I step back and allow the boys to create their own vision. I have helped with suggestions and demonstrating techniques, but I am doing my best at resisting the urge to step in and clean up their work. So far, I have limited that to just the most difficult cutting operations.

Anyway, we should be able to get Project Foy back on track next week. I have a series of finishing photos that need to get uploaded before we show the final stages.

Project Foy - Finishing Part I

The two things that really set a terrain piece off from the rest are the finishing step and detailing. You could very easily place some buildings and model train trees on your rough board and have a reasonable playing surface. We strive to add more realism to our pieces so that you actually feel like you are part of the game. A properly finished game board should introduce elements that make the game more challenging. One of the first games I ever played with what would become the Battlefield Hobbies group was Brecourt Manor. This game board has an elaborate network of trenches. One of the MG positions was so well camouflaged that I did not see it until my squad was taken under Op Fire (even though the figures had been sitting there for nearly an hour). That's what we are trying to achieve.

I probably mentioned this earlier, but I like to use as much natural material as possible. That means my finishing activities start with a trip around the yard. I am looking for anything that will 1) look reasonable at our scale (20mm in this case) and 2) fit in the general geographic area we are modeling. You would generally not see a 50' flowering bush, so you need material with small details. I try not to get too caught up in trying to exactly match floral and fauna, but you certainly would not use a palm tree in Northwest Europe.

Recall our game takes place on Christmas Day. This simplifies the trees that we need, but makes the foliage a bit harder to find. Luckily we are building in the fall so I have been able to find plenty of dormant plants. I have never been very happy with the pre-made deciduous trees so I was pleased to be looking for winter landscape candidates like this:

In general, you will find one or two bushes or trees in your yard that produce the type of look you are after. I find myself picking through a fair amount of trimmings before finding what I am after. Of course, you want to take care to find varying sizes and shapes.

While I am at it, I pick up as much brush-like material as possible. Weeds, rather than actual plants, have been more productive for me. Michael's Art Supply is a store that we have found invaluable. It feels kind of odd browsing around a crafts store (all the employees want to HELP you!), but they have a great selection of lichen and moss. I was able to find two varieties in their floral arrangement area that seem to work great for my winter scene. If you don't have a Michael's in your area, you should be able to find similar products at any arts and crafts store.

For the evergreen trees, I found a spectacular line from Bachmann Trains - SceneScapes. These are somewhat expensive, but the quality is outstanding. I am planning to make the evergreens removable on the board so I can maximize this investment. I am using the snow-covered version for this game. We will probably also use them on an up-coming Winter War series of games. They look kind of strange right now, but once the snow cover is down, the effect should be perfect.

Once you have a nice selection of trees, lichen, moss, and other brush we can start the finishing process. A nice by-product of sifting the dirt earlier is that you wind up with a pile of small rocks. I pick out a few of these and that's where I start my finishing. The rocks are glued down with Tacky Glue (from the art supply store). They need to be randomly placed and grouped. Generally larger rocks can be by themselves while smaller rocks tend to be grouped together in piles. I use enough glue that it squeezes out the side when I press the rocks in. After everything is placed, I go back and sprinkle dirt around the rocks, making sure to cover all the extra glue. Once this dries, you can sweep away the extra dirt and the rocks look more naturally embedded in the soil.

In this shot you can see one of the larger rocks right in the middle of the picture. Notice how it looks nicely weathered and you can just pick out the band of dirt around the base.

Placing trees is the next step. For these, I just start going through the branches I collected and find interesting and varied shapes. You need to try and mix big with small and thick with thin. Remember here too that you are making a gaming table so you need some room for figures unless the area is supposed to be impassable. Once I find a suitable shape, I just break off the branch and snip any outlying pieces. The finished "tree" is then simply pushed into the game board. For the thicker trunks, you may need to actually cut a hole with a hobby knife to avoid the springing effect of the poly board.

Here are a couple shots showing the trees in place:

Once I have the trees placed, I go back and secure them with Tacky Glue into the hole and the same dirt finish as the rocks. I still have not found a reasonable method for trees with leaves. I do not like the look of the ones you can buy. Next summer, I will be on the lookout for a good source in my yard. I'll let you know if I find anything. Next we will go through the final finishing steps ...

Project Foy - Rough Surface Examples

Here are some pictures from the sections I am still working on. The rough surface is almost complete. Only one more small section to go. But this gives you a closer look at the spackled surface before I rough finished it with turf:

This section needs a sweeping before I start with turf to get all of the fine debris off. The section at the very top is already roughed. I will go through the process for creating the trench you see in the middle when we talk about detailing. I guess it probably should have come earlier. Trenches can be created at any time, but it is just easier to have more room when cutting into the boards. On the other hand, I tend to be more careful once some of the finishing is done so I probably do a better job.

Here is a section after sweeping away the extra turf:

And here is a section after the extra soil has been added. This section will be swept one more time to remove any loose material. You will see what this looks like when we start in the finishing section:

This is actually a very nice sequence of pictures. You can see how each step adds a little more depth and realism. This carries into the Finishing steps that we will go into next.

Project Foy - Rough Surface

Now that we have a prepared surface, we can start to add the actual terrain. What you use for roughing and finishing is going to depend on your scenario. A scenario in heavy woods is going to look a lot different from something in the desert. The materials are generally the same, just different colors. And the process is exactly the same regardless of what the final look should be. I will outline the steps I followed specifically for Foy, but you should be able to apply the same steps to create any look.

Project Foy is played across rolling farmland through several small villages in southern Belgium. The battle itself takes place on Christmas Day, 1944. On this day, there was moderate snow cover, so this will be a winter scene. Given that, you might ask why we did not just stop with the white, prepared surface. The plan at this point is to use model railroad "snow" to cover the entire board after it is given an autumn look. First, I think it will look more natural, as snow rarely covers 100% of an area. Second, I want to try and remove the snow when we are done so that the board can be used for non-winter scenarios as well. Given the time invested, it would be a shame if it were single purpose.

The rough surface on Project Foy is a mix of fine Yellow Turf and fine Blended Turf - Earth. We use Woodland Scenic products:


I try to incorporate as much natural material as possible into my boards. So, I also throw in a handful of fine dirt. This is just soil I take from my yard and pass through a very fine screen. A few small pebbles are actually desirable, but I try to get it as fine as possible. It is always easier to go back and place more stones. The mixture proportions are more art than science. Unfortunately, I can give no better advice than "until it looks right". One tool I did use was to take a picture of a small section of my board and compare that against a picture of my backyard in autumn. The overall color balance of the two photos was similar - so I assumed the mix was good.

We have always used standard Elmer's glue as the adhesive for our turf. I pour a generous amount over the area I want to cover and then squirt acrylic paint into the glue. Burnt Umber is a nice undercoat color. The purpose of the color is to hide the spackle and/or foamboard if the turf happens to rub off. It also helps to add a little more color depth to the turf itself. Then I use a paint brush to both mix the color and spread the glue to cover the whole area evenly. The glue dries relatively slowly so you can work over a pretty large area.

When the glue is spread evenly I start sprinkling the turf mixture over the area. The application is fairly thick (at least 1/4" - 1/2" but probably thicker) so you will use a lot of turf mixture. However, you will reclaim most of this mixture later on. Let your initial application sit for 10-15 minutes and you will see that in some areas, the glue has absorbed all of the turf mixture. Simply sprinkle on more turf. Repeat this process until no bare spots are seen. After about 30 minutes, go back through and pat down the turf mixture, taking care not to sweep any of it away at this point. This just gets the mixture nicely embedded in the glue and makes for a more consistent surface. Remember - this is the ROUGH surface, not our finished piece. Now let this dry at least overnight.

Once the area is completely dry, the excess turf needs to be removed. We have used two methods. You can lay a tarp on the floor and simply overturn the gameboard above the tarp - shaking slightly. Or you can use a wide, soft bristle brush to "sweep" off the surface. I am tending to like the second method better. It is a lot easier to reclaim the extra into a small bin at the side of the table by brushing. I also like the distressed look it gives to the turf. You can control exactly how much of the turf you wash out.

I do NOT rely on the undercoat color however to wash out the turf. After sweeping I use a spray-on adhesive to adhere more soil to the board on top of the turf. This takes a little practice, but the idea is to generate random areas where the turf has gotten washed away or never grew. Short controlled sprays from an aerosol can do a remarkable job of this. Then just sprinkle fine dirt over the "puddles" of adhesive and allow to dry overnight. For my board, I also immediately sprinkled a very small amount of the turf mixture on top of the fine dirt and blended them by tapping (not sweeping) the paint brush around the area. This resulted in a very nice blend between the turf and dirt. The final step after drying is to go back over the area with the soft brush to remove any loose dirt or turf (the spraying will pull up some turf).

During this project, I was trying a bunch of different methods so I never roughed out more than a small area. In general though, you will want to rough finish the entire board at one time so you get a consistent surface throughout. I will edit this post later with some pictures from the Foy board of the roughed surfaces I recently finished. Now though, this is where the fun part for me starts - Finishing the surface ....

Project Foy - Surface Preparation

Once all of the elevations have been created, it is time to prepare the surfaces for rough finishing. In this stage, we are trying to take all of the rough edges off our transitions. The goal is to make everything look as natural as possible. It helps to start referring back to the pictures you have of your terrain area. When you are done with surface prep, you should be able to visualize the finished piece.


I start with the highest features and work my way down. All of the sharp edges can be smoothed with the Ryoba saw. You do need to be careful when doing this to preserve (or introduce) some randomness. Very little in nature is found with smooth, sharp edges. There are some places though that need to be "less natural". You have to leave enough playable surfaces for figures to stand flat. Try to leave some room for vehicles to go off-road too. It is a fine balance between complete realism and playability.


After smoothing out the rough edges as it were (or roughing out the smooth edges!), we apply a layer of spackling compound to the whole game board. This layer further fills in and smooths out transitions. It also provides a slightly harder shell to protect the soft polyfoam underneath. We use a product called DryDex:

I have heard other people use a two-part compound and still others use a thin Quickcrete mix. The DryDex is probably more expensive than most, but it has always been very workable for me. It also goes on pink and changes to white when it is dry so you can tell exactly when it is ok to start working again.

I have experimented with several different methods for roads. One of the methods was to try spreading a thin layer of spackle and then cut in tire tracks with a dental tool. In the end, I was no happier with this result than any of the others. The resulting roadbed is very brittle. I can easily see the "tire ruts" cracking or chipping during the first game. I am still searching for a method I like. So, I no longer treat the road beds with spackling. They remain bare poly at this point. More on the things I have tried for roads in a later post.

After the spackling coat has dried completely (I usually give it two or three days), it helps to sand the entire board with med-fine to fine steel wool. This is a very very messy operation, but if you skip it, you will find that there are sharp edges to the spackling that snap off and show white over your finished terrain. This again provides that final smooth look to your transitions.

At this point our Project Foy board looked like this:

I could not resist another playtest, this time with a few buildings set in place. Of course, the vehicles are not the right scale or type, but with a little imagination, the game is starting to come together. Now that we have a solid foundation, the finishing work can start ....