"Best Base for 2' Terrain Tiles?" Topic

If you were building 2' x 2' modular terrain tiles, what material would you use for the base?

* wood
* MDF
* cardboard
etc.

MDF. Available at the local Home Depot in a 4'x2' piece, and the cut is free.

Exterior grade plywood. I have found MDF very susceptible to damp and warping.

500mm square is too large to avoid warping on any but the thickest MDF. Even plywood needs careful handling to avoid it.

I'd go for foam of some sort – the dense blue stuff is good (if pricey).

So 500mm is about 19 inches? 500/25.4 = 19.685?

2' X 4' is 8 square feet or about 203 square mm?

All my boards are 50cm square and made from 9mm MDF. These have been covered in green flocked mat, sand, paint & pva. The oldest is over 10 years old and shows no signs of warping. I have also created 25 x 50cm boards

They have all been treated with decorators pva (both sides & edges before any surface attached.

With green flocked paper

With pva, sand and paint

The DBF is a great base to add fixed terrain features eg hills, cliffs etc

This solution is very robust

When not being used I stack them in a pile

For a 500mm square I'd expect 9mm MDF to warp but it does depend on how you treat it. Sealing both sides can work but I have known even 12mm MDF to warp with similar treatment.

If you can be sure of getting top quality MDF and treat it before applying any texturing it looks like you can get away with it. Beware though, top quality MDF isn't easy to find, the average stuff you get from local DIY shops is often rubbish and even absorbs moisture from the atmosphere.

Must have sealed mine well – or its good quality? They reside in the Shed at the bottom of the garden and it can get a bit damp. But no Warpage yet ;-)

I did make some boards out of chipboard 30 years ago. It was about 15 mm thick, I used paint, PVA glue and sand. Threw them away three years ago when I moved to a much smaller house with very little storage. It's heavy, but seems pretty stable, if kept dry.
The blue foam is good, but I think it needs some protection on the edges. One of our club members made some excellent terrain from it, but, if I remember correctly, he edged it in ply.
I am also a railway modeller and use 9 mm ply for boards, properly braced it's very strong and stable. I always drill out holes in the cross girders to reduce weight and it also creates wiring channels.

The best material I've found is the 2' interlocking foam floor mats.

They're light, flexible, waterproof, easy to cut, won't warp, and are nearly indestructible (they were meant to be walked on).

I used a bunch to make a sea surface, essentially the same way as outlined in War Artisan's sea mat tutorial. I've been meaning to make a bunch of land tiles by applying latex paints and sand, which is how Thom Foss made the canvas in these photos. War Artisan also sent me this link and this link to tutorials for using latex caulking and flocking that would also work on the foam tiles.

The biggest caveat to using interlocking floor tiles is to buy all you will ever need at the same time. The puzzle-piece edges are mismatched between manufacturers and even between lots by the same manufacturer, so you are extremely unlikely to find any more that will fit an old collection. I made 32 sea tiles so I could cover the largest imaginable table (there's a 6'x20' table in the area), just in case I ever want to do a game that big.

- Ix

For the base plate of Styrofoam board tiles, I have had very good results with corrugated plastic panels:

The extreme light weight, weather resistance, easy of handling.

Or you could buy 600mm foam tiles from TSS…cheap as chips and the TSS people are exceptionally helpful if you want some thing special. We have about 30 or so dating back about 20 years for the older ones.