The Forgotten Monastery (Terrain)

Last week I played a game at my club using the Forgotten Monastery battle board/map from 2 Minute Table Top. It is a decrepit ruin, full of rubble and columns, with lots of fire lanes to boot. I printed it in greyscale in poster format which took 18 A4 pages. It took about 30-minutes to trim the pages and mount them onto a big piece of cardboard using spray-on adhesive. Each board was 24x32 inches, so it ended up being pretty big, so I cut the boards half and rejoined them with cloth tape, making them foldable for travel and storage. It cost me about $5 in total, looked awesome, and worked well.  Really for that price it couldn't be beaten.

The end product - ready for battle!

I have always wanted to make some 2.5D terrain, so as I had nothing else planned for the weekend, I thought I'd make a project of it. The plan: to make a 2.5D version of the Forgotten Monastery. I decided to make only half the board, so I made the exterior portion, rather than the interior. Why? I knew I'd make some mistakes, so I treated this as a learning exercise as much as anything

On Friday after work, I walked down to my local art supplier and brought a big piece of 5mm black foamboard - I think it cost about $20. Then come Saturday, I got crafting.

Step 1: Make a backing board. 

Early morning, I nicked down to the nearby shops and liberated a huge piece of cardboard - evidently a fridge box. I cut it into panels with my trusty hobby breadknife, then using Glag Glue/Paste (I have a huge bottle of it leftover from some kid projects that were completed years ago) I laminated it - which basically means stuck two bits together, making one stronger, more rigid piece overall. 

This was massive - lucky I drive a Van!

Here's a test to make sure the final product's going to fit.
If I had wanted to, I could have fitted both the Exterior
and Interior of the Monastery onto my laminated board.

Step 2: Print and trim the paper.

While the glue was drying (in Melbourne weather, it took no time flat) I trimmed the 9 A4 pages that made up the map using a cutting mat, steel ruler, and Stanley Knife. I could have pulled out my picture framing gear, but I was in too much of a hurry to save time (yes, it makes no sense looking back at it).

Step 3: Glue down the first layer.

Using spray-on glue, I stuck down the paper onto my cardboard laminate. Spray-on glue is great, such a time saver. Lining up the map pieces is actually very easy and very forgiving with this particular style of illustrationpapercraft. It is actually a very quick process.

That Stanly Knife - I changed the blades regularly.
I've done a lot of paper craft and there's nothing like a blunt
blade ripping your paper to ruin your day.

You can see I glued the whole map down before trimming the backing cardboard. That's called getting it right the first time around.

Mistake #1 - I need not have glued down the whole map, as will become apparent later.

Mistake #2 - It was that hot that the glue was drying way too quickly. The paper didn't consistently bond to the cardboard.

Step 4: Create the first rise.

A 2.5D board has two-dimensional pictures raised above the surface of the board to add to the illusion of depth. I basically repeated Step #2 by gluing down a whole second board on my foamboard - it used about half of it. The monastery's evidently encircled by a river, that was spanned by a now ruined bridge to the east, with some steps leading up to the buildings. So I cut out the river-related sections of the map along with some of the south-western path leading up the western stairs.

Mistake #3 - I should have saved the river sections!

With that done, I glued the whole lot onto the original map (yes, wasteful, hence Mistake #1) using Spray-on glue again (see Mistake #2 again).

Step 5: Creating the second rise.

I wanted to make the building walls and the like very evident. Using another print of the Monastery (yes, that makes three), I roughly cut out wall and pillar sections, glued them onto my foamboard (using maybe another quarter of my original sheet), the proceeded to cut and trim the terrain features to size.

One thing that might not occur to you if you were to tackle this sort of project, is that you don't have to stay true to the map. For example, a number of the sections within the ruined buildings are quite cramped and tight. I simply just cut a wall a bit shorter - I even went as far as ensuring that every nook and cranny could accommodate a standard mini base. It still looks great on the table regardless + you've got something that actually works better come game time.

To the left is the start of some walls being stuck down.

Running a black marker on the edges of the raised bits also helps a lot. I wasn't too pedantic about it, rather once I had finished, if an edge offended, I blacklined it then and there. 

Step 6: Lots of little fixes

The Melbourne heat - I got into the high 30's over the course of the weekend. As I was cleaning up my workspace, I noticed to my horror that some of the board layers and paper was lifting! I tried a few things to glue it back down but the damage had been done. Some of my previously awesome joins had shifted, and it was very evident where some printed sections started and finished. Also, especially around the river, the paper warped - my backing laminate was warping! I shouldn't have done the first entire map, rather I should have glued the foamcore directly to the cardboard - it would have saved me a whole printout, reduced the amount of glue that didn't stick and might have reduced the warping. Oh well.

So instead of swearing, I glued bits down and even ripped off some elements. That wouldn't have been such a big deal IF I had made templates for things like the river, or even kept my offcuts (see Mistake #3 above). I was able to recreate bits and pieces where the paper rip was particularly dramatic and I might yet do some selective printing to see if I can address some of the bigger gaps etc... or not, as this was as much an experiment as anything.

Step 7: bask in the glory!

And we're done! A lovely board with plenty of fire lanes and cover to make for a great 28mm skirmish game. Now if I only knew somebody who was wanting to test their own game design out some more...

Here are some videos so you can see how it looks in the wild.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Fire away. I think you'll be seeing this particular board getting some use on my Blog for a while yet. I've got some ideas for my next 2.5D project, so watch this space.