"In Clouds of Glory terrain board projects plus Starter kits" Topic

Hi All

We just started up a new terrain building project. In the game you insert the fligt rods directly into the foam terrain boards in order to get rid of ugly stands and hexes. But our old boards are several hundred games and almost 20 years old.

Here is an old pic from when they were new…

So it is time for an update. The old ones are made from expanded polystyene and they work very well. But we decided to raise the bar a notch. Currently we have designed the boards and have made the first ones by making a negative cast in casting sand and then made the board in in a rigid castable polyurethane foam.

The board sections measures 60x60 Cm and in addition we will make a number of "special" boards such as frontline boards and an aerodrome.

Here is the layout of the boards:

They can be combined in various ways:

I will soon post some pics of the rough cast sections.. We have a vain hope of getting the boards ready for the Hamburger Tactica wargames show in late February.

On another note: We have started building and shipping In Clouds of Glory" starter packs in order to help people getting started with the game.. The packs contain seven planes in 1/350 (1 Camel, 2 SE5a, 1 RE8, 2 Alb D.Va and a Dr.I) along with insignia decals (from Doms decals), cockpit panels for the planes, nose mounts, flight rods and a set of printed adhesivie laminate foil for making the turn and gunnery templates. We ship this for the cost price (around 40€) plus shipping. Contact us at contact (dot) icog (A T) gmail.com if you want to hear more.

Terrain boards can also be made MUCH quicker as can be seen in this German project – based on a "get started easy" approach with easy boards and a "starter kit" like described above.

More on his project and approach here:
zinngebirge.blogspot.dk

This looks like a good idea, keep it up and cheers

Here is a sneak peak from the first four boards. It seems that we will be ready for Hamburger Tactica! Still missing is water surface, houses and other detailing.

Test for the sea boards ( German W.12 floatplane and RN Thorneycroft 55ft Coastal Motor Boat).

The first four new boards – still missing water surface which will be made of "clear bond" and lots of detailing. Later a village, an aerodrome and four frontline boards.

NOTHING is cuter than your approach. But it still gives my "steward's sense" a twinge to see those flight poles shoved into the fabulous looking "ground"! I take fanatical care of my models and toys, so it just seems wrong to deliberately poke holes in all that labor. But that's for you to do, not me! I really enjoy the pics and look forward to more….

Playing double-devil's advocate here (insofar as my own approach to gaming WW1 aircombat as well as my professional modelbuilder's "aack" reaction to poking holes in nice terrain models) I have to say that I greatly admire the dedication to the hobby/genre exhibited by Svend et al.

IMO this thread should be cross-referenced to the terrain board.

It should be stated that Thomas who is currently building the new boards is a professional movie set-designer and prop-maker with many years experience in finding special materials and combining them in very innovative ways. It should be noted that there is some extra care taken: If you look at the foot of the flight poles on the pics you will see a small aluminum tube that is the mount for a thin needle. with these new stands, the full rod is not inserted into the boards but only the needle. As a result the impact on the terrain is hardly noticeable.

Another plan we have with the boards is to play WWII micro armour in 1/285th scale which would look great…

Looking really good. I have some questions:

- So, how do those new mounts work?
- Is that castable polyurethane foam easy to find and affordable (tutorial please)?
- Is that a PanzerGrey building?

Truly outstanding work, and I'd love to see a tutorial (in English, if possible, but no worries if not) on the casting process. I looked into using expanding urethane for modular terrain at one point, but backed off on it due to concerns about controlling the expansion sufficiently to ensure regularity in the final product (and because CNC wire cut foam hex blanks were so cheap (in bulk) from a commercial foam fabricator as to make the urethane too expensive by comparison).

Doug

Hi Doug and Nuno

Thomas will brew up a "how to" with some pics at some point.

But the short answer: The foam is from any home renovation shop and cost about 8€ per board section.

The house is designed by Thomas. But we have a large number of PanzerGrey houses and i will take a boatload of pics when they are painted and mounted on the boards.

Great. Can you write a small review, please? I would like to put it with the photos.

Thomas is currently working on the village board and is trying out layouts of the village. Note the cast foamboards fresh from the sand cast

Houses are prints and resin from our own designs and from the PanzerGrey shop on Shapeways

I will update when we get further with the build

Combinataion test of the 6 boards.. With just 11 days to Hamburger Tactica we are in a bit of a hurry.. Painting up some 25 houses along finishing the last boards.

I can hardly believe my own eyes. Imagining, I am, "flying" over that. What a super cool system. Thanks for posting!…

That is SO DAMN COOL!!!!

I salute you! This whole approach is Magnifiicent!

Mollinary