Saturday 11 July 2015

Back of Beyond Battlefield

Mongolian Steppe

At the club we have a very yellow sheet of heavy duty cloth that we use for games in the Back of Beyond. It's not bad visually but isn't really the right sort of terrain for the region, which is more dusty steppe grassland than proper sandy desert. It also does funny things to your photos, giving everything a weird alien glow.

See what I mean?

With this in mind and with a game set for a week on Tuesday, I thought I'd have a go at modifying a spare Citadel grass mat into a steppe battlefield. Now, I'd love to be able to afford a sixty quid cloth from Cigar Box Battle Mats but this would be way beyond my pocket money, so I'll be using what I've already got in the terrain box instead.

£60.....ouch!!

I have three of the old Citadel grass mats, so I can afford to muck about with at least one of them using spray paint, dry brushing and even some household cleaning products, to create an alternative arid steppe meets the wild west style battlefield cloth. If it works, the other spare mat may well be adapted to create a winter wasteland mat, complete with muddy patches of ice and snow.

It may well end in a complete mess...but it should be fun to have a go!

3 comments:

  1. £60! Ouch indeed. I would go with the spray your own option first.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Someone had the open desert mat at our club on Thursday, I was totally underwhelmed, much simpler and better to buy a suitable cloth and spray it

    ReplyDelete
  3. I had a good try at this and it looked pretty good. I then decided to wash the cloth to get rid of the creases. End result...all the acrylic spray disappeared..AAAAARGGH.

    I won't do it that way round again!

    The end result doesn't look too bad but it's not steppe yet!!

    ReplyDelete

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