"Table Top - need you're ideas (or practices)..." Topic

I've finally got a gaming table in the gaming room.. for now it's simply an 8x4 board on a bench (perfect really if not "cool").

What I have done is purchased a suitable length of polar-fleece type material and spray-painted/flocked/static grassed etc… to give it a nice natural look. All good and well so far. The idea with this (as no doubt many of you have seen or done before) is that you can then place objects under the material to create natural looking hills. I've done this with some of the off cuts of the polar-fleece and it looks very convincing.

However… I've got a problem with getting the material to sit over the hill, without the edges becoming a trampoline for my troops. I think this is likely and age-old problem with a simple solution, which hopefully someone can share with me here. My thought is some sort of extra material such as felt or.. something, to help support the hills..

Not sure..

Any suggestions appreciated.\

Cheers,

TW.

I recall someone here using carpet padding, but I don't recall who.
It apparently drapes well, and is heavy enough to prvent the bouncy areas, then your sheet goes on top.

Editor correct the error in my title!!

(Don't you hate that).

TW

"I think this is likely an age-old problem with a simple solution, which hopefully someone can share with me here."

You are right it is an age-old problem, but sadly there is no simple solution. No matter what you put under a cloth you get folds that don't look right and slopes that figures will not stand up on.

Nearly all wargamers that I know use contoured hills of one sort or another.

The difficulty arises when you use a solid object with hard edges under a cloth.

If you use folded teatowels, lumps of cotton wool etc, the table cloth will merge with the objects underneath. That gets rid of the trampoline effect and (with practice) still gives you hills with a nice slope.

"If you use folded teatowels, lumps of cotton wool etc, the table cloth will merge with the objects underneath. That gets rid of the trampoline effect and (with practice) still gives you hills with a nice slope."

But then the hills are so shallow that it's difficult to determine who is on a hill and who isn't.

Fine for "rolling terrain" I grant you, but not so good if you want actual hills.

Well, simply put, you use sand to level out those contours. It's a bit messy, but it does eliminate the bouncy areas of the cloth, creates great hills, especially if you put your object for the hill down and then contour the sand up to it. You can then make hills of any size or shape and have a firm surface so your troops don't get motion sickness when climbing hills.

One solution is to use a thicker/heavier ground cloth/table covering. The other is to use a foam knife and give your underlaying hills a nice slope. Both work well.

"Well, simply put, you use sand to level out those contours."

Tried sand once. Never again!! Wretched stuff gets EVERYWHERE (and I mean everywhere!).

"One solution is to use a thicker/heavier ground cloth/table covering. The other is to use a foam knife and give your underlying hills a nice slope. Both work well."

Tried those too. The thicker cloth doesn't lay properly and you end up with rolling terrain rather than hills as before. As for putting hills underneath the cloth, why not dispense with the cloth entirely, since it adds nothing.

What about velcro tape under the cloth and around the baseline of the hill?
That way you could "force" down the cloth to the table beneath it,…
Just a thought.
Cheers

Hunks of cotton wool can be moulded to the shape you want. Cotton wool make excellent edges for hard objects that form the bulk of a hill.

Valcro's not a bad idea Trail.. I'll think on that one.. only problem might be it will lose the natural look.

Other than modular terrain I don't think you can beat this technique for realism.. I'll post some picks in the near future..

TW.

There's an NZ gaming group that puts down their hills (books etc) then lays carpet underlay first, then the final covering cloth. The underlay is quite heavy and essentially deals with the issues with edges on hills. The covering, flocked up cloth then sits much better. There's a link somewhere here that will show you how.

I went modular though for my table. More to store I grant you, but none of these issues.

Hey TW,

I know exactly what you are going through – a few years ago, I did this – which was two thick pieces of extruded styrofoam with a grass mat over top – I wanted a river valley and some dry stream beds running to it with a couple of hills beside my own styrofoam hills:

picture

picture

Now the grass mat was a bit stuff, but what worked for me was folding over masking tape and using a lot of it (my grass mat is vinyl backed). You can also use two sided carpet tape.

For a plywood table that is not afraid of holes, you could also use a series of small round headed pins – the kind with plastic on them, and disguise where pins are going in with sprigs of lichen.

[Edit] Actually, I believe this might have been a thick felt – I was trying the Kapati Fusiliers method McWong mentions – see link . Unfortunately, my felt "ate" all the paint I sprayed and I couldn't find anything heavy enough for the underfelt – I work in a Facilities Management organization and in north america, at least, the carpet underfelt mentioned by Roly Herman's friends in the web link has not been used for carpet underlay since the 1960s.

So, anyway, it wasn't grass mat – same practices though – tape or pins will work!
--
Tim

[Edit]

What the hell? I edited and when i clicked "Done", this is what I got – fortunately, I was able to go back and copy and paste my last edit:

Right, this time on the correct board!

Does anyone know who makes ready made Snake/Worm Fencing in 25/28mm?

Thanks.. I've put some pictures in my blog of how mine turned out. Look for the blog update thread I'm about to start.

TW.

Hi, I did the polar fleece thing as wellwith hills underneath. I got some of that heavy packing stuff that removalists use to wrap furniture. Its like a very heavy felt. Got it from Super Cheap Auto. I tend to Blutac the hills down first on to my game board first then lay down the "felt" then the ploar fleece. You do get a little bounce but at least your figures dont get damaged.Have some pics on my blog.
dubbogamer.blogspot.com

I use the Carpet Pad Under Felt (CPUF) method for creating rolling terrain, although it could be used for making a few hills here and there. The key to avoiding the bounce you talk about is to put down a layer of felt as s base cloth (call this the underfelt). Then, lay down the carpet padding hills. Third, lay down a second felt mat (the overfelt) and press it down so that it clings to the underfelt in between the hills.

I do this with 6mm figures primarily, although we also do 15mm skirmish on 3/8" washers. Exagerated hills occasionally cause the figs to not stand well, but overall it looks so darned good I suffer it. Friends don't let friends use stepped hills.

A CPUF tutorial is available here but you may need to join the yahoo terrainmakers group: link

Jim

1/ make your hills from 2" thick polystyrene (the cheap white bead stuff and carve slopes onto that – they of course look rough and ready – but it doesn't matter if you cob=ver it.

or

2/ put an old army blanket down over your books first and then your fleece.

I use a canvas dropcloth over polyfil (the white cottony material they use to stuff teddybears – available in large, inexpensive bags at craft stores) and pin the cloth to a foam board underneath it all to keep the slopes taut (to support the figures) and natural looking.

Photos on my Flickr page of how the table is constructed:

link

And how it looks in use:

link

Regards,

Jeff