Designing the perfect battle board

I've recently moved and finally have the space to have a 40k battlefield (6 x 4 foot / 183 x 122 cm) but, like everyone, I have limited budget and not unlimited space plus I need to decide what features I want the most...

My Necromunda terrain. In my last place the floor often served as the gaming table!

What makes a good gaming table?

The most basic of battlefields is an open, flat field - both armies can just move forwards or shoot each other freely. The other end of the spectrum is a dense battlefield, packed with terrain - movement is slow and indirect plus shooting only occurs at point-blank range.

Neither extreme makes for a great battlefield, the open field heavily favours shooting armies and offers no variety, the dense environment heavily favours melee armies, can make moving and shooting cumbersome plus, if you have a large number of models, you might simply run out of space!

I feel that the optimum battlefield sits somewhere between those too extremes, I'm inclined towards a more dense battlefield simply because shooting in Warhammer 40k tends to be stronger than melee.

The key, I feel, to making dense terrain work is to maximise the floorspace where models can be placed so you get the benefits of an interesting battlefield but without taking up valuable battlefield real-estate.

An egypt theme would be awesome but this design is really inefficient. The huge centrepiece would be completely wasted space as no models can stand on it, the same for the Sphinx and the oasis doesn't offer any useful cover.

What makes bad terrain?

I really love the terrain from the old Necromunda box set - packs pretty flat, easy to assemble and disassemble, looks great and offers loads of options to arrange the buildings. However, in practice, it's a nightmare to play with - it's rare that units are moved above the first level of the terrain which means that the top levels are a waste of space, only getting in the way when trying to reach across the board and makes moving underneath a huge hassle. This type of terrain is perfect for skirmish games with a handful of models but for full armies it doesn't really cut it.

I've also had the opportunity to play on the Games Workshop, Realm of Battle boards. These moulded plastic boards are tough, can be arranged in several different ways and have some really nice details but, unfortunately, the detailing often causes models to fall over and it's so slippery that models slide down the ramps leading onto the hills.

So, from this experience I want to avoid:

• More than one level
• Tall scenery
• Excessive overhangs
• Bridges/aerial walkways
• Slippery inclines
• Uneven details or inclines that destabilise miniatures

That's not to say these features can't be included but they're all things that have caused me frustration.

A tiered pyramid like this one would make a far superior centre-piece for a desert themed battle board. The multiple levels are perfect for placing models on meaning it can be an active piece of terrain rather than simply a line of sight blocker.

What do I want from a gaming table?

• Sturdy
• Storable
• Smooth (my experience with flock or sandy texture is an annoying surface to move models across)
• Not too slippery (too smooth and models start to slip down any incline)
• Flexibility (multiple ways to arrange the terrain)
• Attractive
• Lots of scenery
• Not too much scenery
• Variety of terrain (some Line of Sight blocking, variety of cover saves)
• Somewhere to roll dice and store reserved or dead units

Options

The basic - the classic sheet of green/grey/brown felt plus polystyrene and cardboard hills/buildings - functional but ugly.

Gaming mats - for a hundred pounds, or slightly less, I could get a 6'x4' giant mouse-mat with a really nice picture printed on it - attractive, easy to store, affordable and seem good for gaming but purely two dimensional so it would need a lot of additional terrain.

Frontline Gaming's FAT Mat look great but postage is high for EU at the moment

Games Workshop - for a few hundred pounds I could get a fully sculpted board and enough buildings to fill it - attractive and durable but very expensive and requires assembly/painting.

At £500/$825 this Realm of Battle set is damn expensive but it's everything you'd need for an Imperial themed battlefield

Custom made board - for even more money some companies will make a custom board, fully sculpted to your exact specification and ready to go - expensive but, generally, only one fixed set up.

DIY - Somewhere between The basic and the Custom board there's the option to completely hand craft a custom battle board of my own - cheaper but costs can quickly start to add up, exactly what I want but time consuming and any mistakes are my problem.

The aptly named Battleboards make some really amazing custom battle fields. Unfortunately, they're outside of my price-range but they certainly give something to aspire to!

I think my first step is to design and sketch up some concepts before deciding what I should do. Some ideas I have in mind are:

• Volcanic themed - boiling lava, jagged outcroppings of rock, shattered cliffs of black stone
• Jungle themed - inspired by the picture above
• Urban rooftop - a warzone on top of towering, multi-level Imperial hab-blocks, divided by a long fall to the smog filled ground-level, connected by rickety bridges
• Giant Redwood mountain forest - massive trees with trunks the size of tanks, a deep ravine, rocky outcrops and cliffs
• Desert themed - large sand dunes, a crashed space ship, an oasis, a pyramid perhaps...
• Daemon world - floating islands of rock, a tortured landscape of horror, river of blood/acid

Do you have any other ideas for themes? Any of the above you find especially compelling? What method should I aim for? What do you consider a good battlefield or terrain? Tell me in the comments!