I love to play miniature war games. They offer me more than just sitting down with my Sony PSP. Sure I have fun playing my PSP, and with a high-speed internet connection, I can even play along with others. It just doesn’t give me the same feeling as playing tabletop miniature games. The strategies are different, the characters are different, and the battles are different. Tabletop gaming doesn’t require lightning fast reflexes for button pushing, button mashing or killer combos that use every button on your controller. The games don’t rely on high-powered graphics or in depth 3D maps. They do rely on our imaginations. We bring the pieces to the table and imagine what is going on. What happens on the board is what we want to happen, what we see happen in our heads.

See, the games are more fun because you are more involved. You are playing against real people that you can handshake with, share a pizza and such. It’s more of a party playing these games than playing Halo online. Sure I can eat pizza and play Halo, I can even share it with the few guys that stay at my house and play with me, but I can’t share with any of the people that I am talking to online. Being in person with one another adds to the fun.

Videogames aren’t created by just anyone. People are paid good money to be good at graphic design to make these games look amazing. They spend hours crafting digital images and blending real life to digital life. Unless you have a job at one of these companies, the chances of the average joe designing a game or a level of a game for everyone isn’t very high. It is fair to note that some games are giving you that ability, but we are still a long way away from me building a pat of your game.

Again, here is where tabletop gaming is different. Anyone that plays the game can make the terrain pieces.

What is a terrain piece? Terrain for a tabletop game is much like terrain in real life. When you go outside you see all kinds of terrain. Buildings, roads, lakes, rivers, trees, grass; all of this is the terrain around you. For tabletop games, you have a lot of the same. You make buildings, trees, caves, cliffs, rocks, grassland, water towers, anything you can think of. Most of the players of these games try their hand at modeling something, maybe a building or a small forest.

The first thing you need to do is decide what kind of terrain you want to make. This is a generic concept, like is it an outdoors scene or a building of some kind? Once you decide, now you have to get supplies. For the purpose of learning easily, let’s start with a piece of field terrain.

Here are the supplies you’ll need.

• Foam board
• Fake moss
• Tree bark
• Glue(elmers or other)
• Exacto knife
• Scissors

To start, you need some kind of a base to make the general shape of the terrain. Usually I make my bases out of foam board. You can get at any local arts and crafts store and larger chain stores like Target or Hobby Lobby. Now, pick a shape you want to make. Mine was essentially an outline of an 8. You don’t have to be restricted to that though, you can make a square, oval rectangle, anything you want, the shape is all up to you. For this model i used an officially size mechwarrior terrain template.

Next I drew out the shape on the foam board and with an exacto knife I cut out the shape. To make things look like a field that would hinder movement, I used the moss and tree bark. The moss comes in a big bag, (or small if you didn’t want the big bag), and is in sheets. Just tear off as much as you want, it’s dirty though, this stuff is basically the real deal just. Using everyday elmer’s glue I poured it over the foam board. I broke up the bark and placed it on the glued board and then layer the moss around it. You might have to layer the moss in some places to get it level with the bark.

Leave this sit over night. Once it is dry in the morning, use a pair of scissors to cut the excess moss off of the board. It will be overhanging in some areas that you glued it on it. You can add things and build the model up as much as you want. You could add some large and small rocks, small twigs can look like downed trees, anything.

For a more advanced piece, you can add a stream through your field. Use some modeling putty to make a riverbed; them glue your moss around it. Paint the clay/putty in blues and fan them out to brown and green colors at the edges. Then you can pour a bottle of instant water mix into the riverbed. I’m serious, they have bottled water mixture. It dries clear and the paint you apply in your riverbed is what gives it the appearance of water. As it dries you can press your paintbrush into the liquid to give the appearance of moving water.

So I don’t want a piece of field, I want a building. Your process for that is pretty much the same. You need the same basic materials. Instead of the moss and bark, stones and dirt, you can use pieces of balsa wood, popsicle sticks, old medicine bottles, water bottles, screen, anything you can find around the house can be used, even aluminum and vinyl siding.

You need to decide how big you want the building to be. Make a measurement of the building size and cut your foam board. Use the balsa wood or more foam board to make the walls and roof of the building. I use popsicle sticks and coffee stirs for trim pieces. There are even companies out there that sell sticker sheets that look like building exteriors that you can just paste onto your building once you make the frame of it. Gives it a more realistic look.

Truly these are not hard to assemble. They do take time investing to cut them and paint them. If you go the route of spending the money to get the sticker sheets, that makes things even faster and gives it a more professional look.

Remember, you can use just about anything to make terrain. One piece of terrain I saw built used pieces of cardboard cumpled up and glued to the board. The cardboard was then painted a slate gray color with light gray highlights to give the appearance of exposed slate in the ground. You’d be surprised at what you can come up with!

Enjoy your modeling!