"interlocking foam squares" Topic

I was watching a youtube video (little wars TV) and they had a tutorial where they used these interlocking foam squares underneath their battle mat to easily stick their trees/fences, etc…..to their table.

I can't for the life of me remember where I've seen these. Anyone know where to nab these for a reasonable price? Tried looking online at Target, Michael's but didn't really find much. Couple sites had them for pretty outrageous prices but they looked like they were for office floor use.

Thanks

I got my tiles at Lowe's. I was also lucky to score a bunch when a job I was working on was throwing a bunch out.

I wrote the commercial for LWTV. I can't claim credit for the idea, but I love how flexible and great terrain looks using the system. I think you'll get a lot out of it. Hopefully your Lowe's has them. They were around $25 USD for a pack of 5 back when I first bought them.

Got mine at Home Depot, 4 packs @ $20. USD I used the dark grey ones.

I used Latex house paint as the base then covered with Woodland Scenics turf (T-49) while still wet. They make a great base layer

Harbor Freight sales them too

Harbor Freight has everyone else beat on price: four pieces, plus edging, for $8.99 USD‌, without a coupon.

I've used them before. I applied inexpensive craft paints to them, to dress them up as a cavern floor. I did random patterns of brown's and yellow's. I also cut a 1/4-inch deep, grid pattern into mine, so I could insert card stock walls into them, to create 2.75D buildings (TMP link1 to my first project using these mats; TMP link2, showing the cheaper mats, painted -- they began flaking off the white latex paint, shortly after these photo's were taken -- Ahhh!!!).

I tried other, less expensive brands (Chinese knock-off''s, see TMP link2, above), which were pre-painted with a pattern I could not use. I thought I could just paint over these, with latex house paint/emulsion… The latex peeled off quickly, and easily. Go with the HF versions -- they're already inexpensive, but they take acrylic paint very well, without peeling, or rubbing off. The HF mats are all I will use for terrain basing of this type.

I have a third set of these, painted up using gray's, white's, and some other highlight colors, for use with insert-able card stock dungeon wall sections. These function identically to the 2.75D Steading of the Hill Giant Chief wooden palisade model, in TMP link1, above. I will only use HF foam mats for these -- not worth my time to mess with Chinese knock-off's, as all of my painting time invested, would be a complete waste… Cheers!

I have been making sets of these since the mid-90s. My 2'x 2' and 18" x 18" tiles are from home improvement stores, like Lowe's, Menard's or Home Depot. I got my 1' x 1' squares from Kids R Us. The trick is to put the terrain on the back side, where the foam is open-celled, so that the paint or caulk that you're using for a base has something to adhere to. Anything applied to the front, closed-cell side will peel off, sooner or later. They run about $1.00 USD per square foot at most outlets.

They work for both land and naval games. An example of land terrain tiles:

And an example of them being used for a naval game:

And a link to my tutorial for making "Sea-o-morphic" tiles for naval games:

PDF link

Jeff

This technique is for use underneath a game mat, which allows you to use trees and fences with pins in them so you don't need bases. It works great for trees on hills especially. No need to paint or flock the tiles or hills (just cut them out and sand the contour smooth).

youtu.be/tu-hl43j3f4

Yep, thanks Pizzagrenadier.

This is awesome. The video was even better :)

War Artisan, nice work! I will need to revisit my crappy tiles to see if latex paint will adhere to their bottoms. They were different than the HF tiles I initially used. They also have a small, rectangular, texture, which I don't care for. I used the bottom on the HF tiles, as they had a smooth texture. They work superbly.

Love your ocean terrain. Love your tutorial. I only used natural sponge painting on my non-ice tiles. I used a normal wall roller for the initial white base color, followed by sponge application of some blue and green patches.

Need a Flickr account, however, to view your additional photo's of your tiles. Thanks for sharing! Cheers!

I got mine from Toys R Us, (are they still in business) 15 years ago. It always bothered me that the interlocking keys showed through. I then found some quite cheap on line and ordered. The interlocks did not line up :(

I painted with latex and then flocked.

I then found some quite cheap on line and ordered. The interlocks did not line up :(

Tiles from different manufacturers are never going to match up. Sometimes sets of tiles from the same manufacturer, but purchased years apart, may not match up either because they have retooled their dies in the meantime. It's always best to buy all the tiles you think you're going to need from a project at the same time, from a single source.

Good advice. I ended up trimming off an inch or so of some of tiles of each company and gluing the smooth parts together to make a transition piece from one style to the other.

5 Below often has them as well.

Nice! Never would have imagined "Five Below" would carry such an item. Thank you! Cheers!