Monday 9 January 2012

Battlefield in a Box

We're quite lucky at our gaming club - we've always got tonnes of terrain to play with! I've been shocked to see the the state and quality of the terrain at some tournaments I've been to, and always counted us lucky to have quantity and quality on our side. Our biggest problem is maintenance! We struggle to look after the terrain we have, and i think that this is largely down to inadequate storage.

Some of you may remember me mentioning the 'Battlefield in a Box' project over the course of this year. The reason its taken so long for you to hear more about it is because I've been hunting for the 'perfect' storage box! This itself was featured on the blog a few months ago when i found one in B&Q for a tenner. "What the hell makes the perfect box?" i hear you cry? Well, for me it had to be of a medium size (you can make your own calculations on that one), and rectangular. Now this sounds like a very simple set of criteria to meet, but i assure you, it was not! Plastic boxes always seem to have these funny indentations in the sides of them, which makes the insides (the most important part) irregular. This box had none of these problems, and so was the perfect candidate for the project.

The purpose of the project? To make terrain fit the box, not the other way around! I think that our terrain becomes abused and damaged because we try to cram as much terrain as possible into the box, so with any luck, tailor made terrain will keep wear and tear to a minimum.

All of the terrain I made for the Sewage Works project was all made to measure for this storage box. It fits easily and safely. Theres even space to spare!



The scatter terrain is in a separate cardboard box.


Oh, here's the finished macerators from a while back! They're in there to!



My dining room table is 6 1/2 ft long and just under 4ft wide. The terrain here gives a pretty decent coverage. The only thing i will be adding is a few more pipes, but aside from that theres a great gaming table there! And all of it fits into a sturdy, easily portable box!


So what do you guys think? I know its kinda teaching people to suck eggs, but to see the idea in action really makes terrain building a much more feasable idea for me (and hopefully you guys to!) I intend to take this lot to club when it restarts again, just to test the theory.

The next Battlefield in a Box will be dedicated to the art of Trench Warfare! More on that over the next few months.

The GunGrave

7 comments:

  1. looking forward to the trench table!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Very nice stuff there Tim! Perfect place for a Nurgle-based showdown now that you think about it...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great Blog !

    Im following you!

    You can follow me too, i got a Painting Blog!

    http://malditoduendeminiatures.blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  4. Simple and effective. Very cool.

    ReplyDelete
  5. nice!!! I find it very clever

    ReplyDelete
  6. I am currently managing to (mostly) fit my work in progress terrain into the cities of death large city box that most of the bits came from. It's kind of a necessity as I don't get to keep it out between working on it... but the fact it all fits is partly luck, and partly due to a game of 3D Tetris I play each time! As the terrain gets more worked on, more detailed and the ground gets worked up, I fully expect the stuff not to fit.

    Not sure what I'll do then...

    I like the fact that you can simply label the box "sewage works" and leave it at that. You can then get to working on another set of themed terrain and throw that all in another box!

    ReplyDelete
  7. Very clever idea all around. You're smart to plan this much ahead. I find myself too many big pieces and then having nowhere to store them. :)

    ReplyDelete

JSA - Yojimbo!!

He has a name you just have to shout every time you activate him! The mad motorcycle monster himself, Yojimbo! The JSA have very limited...