Modular Board
Description: Designed for regular play, mainly for use with Mech Warrior from Wizkids.

Size: 48" x 48", broken down into 12" squares

Materials: Based out of 1/4" masonite, buildings are mat board. Base is covered by flock, ballast for road sides and train banks, and sandy debris piles for hindering. Craters are cast out of plaster, half of which are attached, and the rest can be moved about. Hills are made out of styrofoam.

Method: My first step in this project was to order the masonite board. I bought it in a 4 x 8 piece and had the lumber company cut it into 12" squares. This was a huge time saver, because cutting a 4 x 8 sheet requires help when using a table saw! Even better, was that they were mostly square, which is a necessity for modular game boards.

This was my first try at epic scale, and probably the only thing thats proper size on the table is the train track. I know this, because it said so on the package!
The buildings turned out far too small to be high rise towers like they were intended to be. In other spots, spray paint lids sit in future building sites. Most of the board was left open on purpose, and also only one piece of water terrain was built on the board. Water can be a powerful tool in the game, and becomes a bit of a vantage point to battle for.

The most fun part of making the whole board was mashing up mechs and vehicles to add here and there. Dead infantry can also be found laying around, as well as a dead guy in the pond.

Craters
Description: Extra craters for the epic mech board.

Size: 1.5" to 3"

Materials: All plaster. Decorated with sand and paint.

Method: First the craters were cut from styrofaom with a hot wire cutter. Then sculpy clay was pressed firmly over the whole piece to create a mold. Once baked, plaster was poured to cast the crater. I decided to use cooking grease in a spray can as a mold release for this make shift mold, and it works rather well. The sculpy was rather durable, and resisted the twisting it took to remove the plaster craters. Although it's not meant at all to be used repeatedly for this type of practice and it cracked after 12 or so castings. Superglue fixed it fine for a half dozen more fortunately.

Gameplay: These were only designed to add an extra visual aspect to the board, but they could also be counted as hindering terrain. It's also fun to move them around to the locations were artillery has missed.