+ inload: Adeptus Titanicus board-building +

+ Welcome to Calth: building an Ithraca board for Adeptus Titanicus +

+ Sound the warhorns! Like me, lots of happy hobbyists received their copy of Adeptus Titanicus over the weekend, and I spent my spare time reading over the rules, poring over the models, and generally enthusing. I haven't played it, but the genuine enthusiasm that the designers have poured into the game is obvious. The rulebook is littered with thoughtful designer's notes that make it clear this new game is a love letter to its forebears, but it has been redesigned from the ground up, streamlined and generally combining the best bits of history to make something very impressive (entirely fitting for the Adeptus Mechanicus!) +

+ There are lots of reviews and discussions on various aspects of the game, so I thought I'd exload some thoughts on building a board, along with what little advice I can offer. The third army is something I think will be vital to a good game of Adeptus Titanicus which, like Epic, appears to be a game of manoeuvre. +

Look at how the Titan is given context as a giant within even this work-in-progress cityscape.

+ Theoretical +

+ First off, why build a board at all? The answer to that is fourfold, and it ties in with the different ways of playing listed in the rulebook. 

+ Open Gaming  This most accessible way to play, when you simply pick models and get going, is sometimes sneered at; but I think it's the core of play. It's simply more fun to play on a pleasing-looking board, and if you're looking for new people to try it out, having something beautiful is more likely to attract and interest them. Adeptus Titanicus is also aimed at older games, who may well have children of their own. If they're interested, Open Gaming is a natural way in; and what better way to get involved than with the art and craft of building a board? +

+ Narrative Gaming  From a narrative point of view, a modelled gameboard helps with immersion. It's much easier to imagine yourself as a Princeps stomping through a city when there are some tiny walls, car-parking lots (or the distant future equivalents) and so forth to suggest scale. Building a new board for every game you play is all but impossible, but creating something for a specific campaign – whether all the way through, or for a special scenario – will help set the scene and make your storytelling all the sweeter. +

+ Matched Gaming  You can, of course, use an existing table or board, but the more you use a board or mat, the more familiar it becomes. Testing your skill as a general in the real world is as much about mastering the terrain as your troops; and having a new board will give you some and your opponent new challenges. +

+ Finally, if you're not confident with your painting skills, then be assured that fielding even the most basic models will be hugely enhanced by a nice gameboard. In the same way that a good frame can gives a touch of class and status to an average painting, a proper gameboard will enhance your work and show it off to best effect. The converse is also true: even the most beautiful models are made to look less interesting on a undecorated table surface. This really gets to the root of tabletop wargaming as a visual spectacle: models are small (well, duh!), and from a gamer or spectator's viewpoint, they have much less impact than the board itself. +

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+ Practical +

+ To hobbyists used to lavishing hours on a single model, it can look exhausting even to consider modelling and painting such a relatively large area. However, building a useable board can be surprisingly quick. Remember, don't think of it as the artwork; think of it as the frame. A good frame enhances the focus, but doesn't draw it. Unless you're going for all-out one-off visual spectacle – as in the astonishing Legen project of (the equally astonishing) Gardens of Hecate [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], and Iron Sleet's brilliant Thorn Moon project {+noosphericinloadlink embedded+] – you don't want to overdetail an all-purpose board, as it'll draw attention from your models, and be less versatile, giving it a shorter gaming lifecycle. +

Board-building can be cheap: I built this Ithraca board using junk from my garage, some DIY materials and a few select bits from my bits box, but to make a similar board from scratch would cost just a few quid.

+  It can also be spontaneous. Having built my first Warlord (see below), I took it downstairs to prime, and got completely carried away. A bit of texture gel, PVA and polyfilla later, I'd turned a spare bit of thick MDF into a serviceable little board. It's an odd size – roughly 3½ft square – but that's right in the middle of the suggested sizes for smaller Titanicus games. +

+ While I do encourage you just to get stuck in, as I did for Ithraca Calth, If you do want to make a board, here are some practical considerations that can help make your board more useable for Adeptus Titanicus in particular:

+ Keep texture subtle  Gluing sand down is a time-tested way to create texture on the board; but for smaller scale gaming, it can look too coarse – particularly for urban areas. Instead, try skimming the surface with polyfilla or similar [+LINGUOSERVITOR APPEND+I think Spackle is the US equivalent] will approximate tarmac texture and give visual interest to large flat areas. Plaster will also work, but make sure to 'key' (i.e. rough up) the surface beforehand to prevent it flaking off. This is a lesson learned from my Purefinder Chanterwick boards [+noosphericinloadlink embedded+], built for Court of the Sun King project [REF: pagetab above]. Heavy texture looks great, but it's awkward to place large buildings on, particularly if they themselves have a flat base. You end up with wobbly or awkward placing, which breaks the immersion. +

+ Consider incorporating a feature  A focal feature is optional. Leaving it off will make your board more flexible and versatile, but less characterful. I chose to add a large crater, which I embedded into the surrounding polyfilla, to help hide the ugly edges and improve the immersion. A crater is anonymous enough to add to the visual without completely taking attention. Other features like hills or parkland would work similarly. If you're building a feature board, you might consider something more eye-catching, like a mine entrance, landing pad or other definite feature. +

+ Break the lines  Avoid placing roads, rivers, canyons, building foundation plates and similar features at right angles to the edges of the board, and each other. A grid system feels 'safe' and will allow you to tile your board with others more easily, but always looks less interesting and natural. It's also bad for Matched Play, as it allows for metagaming distances etc. Keeping the terrain at angles other than 90º will keep you and the other player guessing. Similarly, avoid placing features too near the centre, as it makes for predictable games. Having a clear area here gives maximum versatility – remember you can always place scatter terrain or a standalone feature here. +

+ Use manufactured materials  For Ithraca, I laid down some mesh tape to indicate the roads. When I skimmed polyfilla over the top, it leaves a subtle ordered texture – using regularly-textured materials like duct tape, aluminium mesh or cross-stitch fabric helps to quickly build up large convincing areas of man-made (or xeno-made) construction that subtly break up the otherwise featureless plain. I incorporated some mountcard offcuts as raised concrete platforms/building plates for similar reasons. +

+ Scale-appropriate detail  I mentioned above not wanting to draw attention from the models, but a few hints of detail will make a huge difference to the overall effect. A few linear strips of low-standing ruins – from the old Epic: 40,000 base sprue – and some gravel and sticks from the garden give the impression of rubble and broken trees, helping to sell the specific scale. Of course, this does somewhat restrict the board's use to a particular game or scale, but I think that's a feature, not a bug – if you're going to the effort of making a board for a game, I think you should go the whole hog, or you risk making a halfway house that isn't particularly interesting. +

Coropedion, Legio Sumer-Nikator (Sons of the Temple)

+ Leave space  Don't overfill the board. Remember that you're creating a framing effect, and that you'll be playing a game on it. The more you cram onto the board, and the more complex road/canal/river systems you create, the less space your models will have, and the less versatile the board will become in terms of buildings/scatter terrain. However, this needs to be balanced. Part of the reason for building the board is to create interesting tactical challenges. You might intentionally restrict the space between two flat areas. This will allow you to create a narrow street that only certain models can fit down in some games by adding free-standing buildings on either side. In others, you can simply leave the flat area open as a market square or gathering area. +

+ Wobbly model syndrome  Due to the size of the Titan bases, texture is particularly important to bear in mind for Adeptus Titanicus games. It's partly for this reason, and partly to help sell the setting and scale of a ruined city, that I've kept the board mostly flat. Having your Titans canted awkwardly highlights their model nature, and generally causes problems. Give your Titans room to walk. +

+ Storage  Consider what space you have to store the board. The realtively small size of an Adeptus Titanicus playing area means it's potentially practical to create and store it as a single piece (as I've done), but you might want to break it into two or more parts. Consider also he height and delicacy of the details you incorporate – keeping things low and building them sturdily is essential if you have to store your board upright or against something. However, if you have the space to leave it set up, or to store it flat, then feel free to go to town on modelled-on mountains and spires!

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+ Conclusion +

+ I hope that's given you some ideas – and it helps you avoid mistakes I've made in the past!+

+ The sample set-up below shows the sort of thing you can then create on your board with scatter scenery. Even very simply primed, it's already looking interesting with some WIP buildings on it. +