Saturday, February 7, 2009

Angmar Army Board

I have finished my display board for my Lord of the Ring Angmar army. I will be playing in the Gathering in the Desert independent Lord of the Rings Grand Tournament at the end of the month. My painting scores in the last couple of events I have attended have been very close to the top but I need a little something more if I will have a chance a best painted. A display board is a must.


Angmar is described as a broken and dieing land. It is not the total wasteland like Mordor but that is the direction it is going. With this in mind I wanted a rocky and barren board with only slight amounts of vegetation. Naturally the board would need to match the basing of the army so the color selection was easy - just use what I used for the figure bases.



A lot of army boards will have holes cut so that the figure bases sit flush with the board surface. This generally looks very nice BUT if you change the army you might not be able to reuse the board. I put too much work into this to risk having to junk it if the army changed. I elected to take the approach of building it like a piece of gaming terrain.

The base of the army board is a framed bulletin board from Walmart. It cost about $7. For most of the build I had the frame taped off because I wanted to preserve the fake wood finish. The hills are made of cork tiles with a very coarse texture - basically the stuff that people in the '70s put on the wall between the mirrors...you remember, the dark brown stuff. Anyway the stuff break apart easily to make very nice and large rocky formations. The rest is the usual rock, sand, gravel with some model railroad flocking.


For those who will be at the event look closely. This is the actual army I will be playing. This is the only hint you will get.



6 comments:

Tom O said...

Well done Robert. I keep going back and forth on whether I want my terrain board to have holes so the figures are flush or to do it like your board. I like how your board came out and due to time constraints I'm thinking I'll do mine the same way.
Keep up the good work!
Tom

Tim Kulinski said...

Dude, the first picture looks awsome! I thought it was real! Rob you did a great job on this, I admit I had my doubts about the cork, but I knew if anyone could pull it off it would be you! Great job man!

Mike G. said...

Looks great Rob. I cannot wait to see it in person as I want to check out the cork. I know most people use cork flooring so I am interested to see these tiles in particular.

Anonymous said...

There is only one word to describe this....

WOW!

Regards

LIG

jlong05 said...

Rob, as everyone else has said, Great Job! I think it may have looked cleaner with the models sunk into the board so their bases weren't as obvious, but it still looks great. Can't wait to see the army in person. Curious on the model count. I think I only counted 44 models. Granted there are shades, a troll and wrights as well as what appears to be stalkers?

Very fun army to play against.

Space Hulk Enthusiast said...

Very nice.

The moment I finished my one display board (with holes) I wanted to change my army.

I wish I had done what you did here. Looks great.