To play SAGA, I've been lugging my large 6'x4' table out of the shed and laying it on the table in my dining room. This is because my shed isn't climate controlled and frankly it's starting to fill with junk, so it doesn't make a great playing space. And moving that large board around is a pain, usually requiring the aid of my darling wife. So I decided to make a smaller 3'x4' board, which is the size for most SAGA games and would make it easier to move it in and out of the house.
My large board is covered by a static grass mat. You can buy these from a couple of suppliers, and they look very nice, if a little uniform IMO. Since most of my terrain was based to match my current grass board, it was the natural choice for my 3 x 4. Now, my current board was actually a hand-me-down from a friend, so I can't say for sure exactly how he glued the mat down, but I seem to remember him saying something about PVA glue. I had previously put together a table for X Wing so I figured I would have a pretty good handle on this one.
Apparently I was wrong.
I bought a 900 x 1200 MDF board from Bunnings, and a grass mat from eBay. A proper 3 x 4 is actually 914.4 x 1219.2, but finding a board large enough and having it cut to the exact size seemed like a lot of work, so I compromised and got a board that's a tiny fraction smaller.
My mistake was to try and use some spray adhesive I had left over from my X Wing table. This stuff is great, works just as advertised and provides a very strong bond. For my X Wing table, using a printed vinyl space mat, it was perfect.
For gluing down a paper grass mat it was not.
Firstly, the grass mat doesn't 'roll' as nicely as the vinyl, leading to lots of creases in the table and secondly, the bond created by the spray adhesive is so immediately strong that I was unable to tug the edge of the mat to remove the creases. This wasn't a problem with the stronger vinyl mat, since I could pull quite hard on it to get the creases out. But pulling that hard on the grass mat would have simply torn it. It was about halfway through the application of the mat that I realised the project was doomed and aborted it, with much cursing and a foul temper. In hindsight I should have used PVA glue watered down and through a spray bottle. The less adhesive PVA glue would have allowed me to adjust and remove wrinkles and creases as I went. Also, I could have been more careful with the application, trying to avoid wrinkles in the first place. As it was, I assumed it would be a similar process to applying a vinyl sheet and was a bit carefree with the application.
Anyway, after much cursing and deliberation, I returned to Bunnings and bought some paints (A light brown spray can, and small tins of green, bone and yellow) some painting sponges and a spray can of satin topcoat. This turned what should have been an ~$80 project into a ~$150 project, much more than I wanted to spend, but I was angry and wanted the project done. The paints were expensive, but I didn't want to use cheap poster paint since the table would be getting a bit of wear.
Once home, I sanded the glue off (mostly) from my MDF, then flipped it over and started painting on the 'clean' side. I sprayed the whole thing brown, then dappled bone all over it with a sponge to give a dead grass/dry earth impression. Then I worked it over with the sponge, mixing up different shades of green as I went. If you're working on a project like this, it's essential to have a large working space that you don't mind if you get some paint on. And don't be afraid to experiment with the application. If it doesn't look like how you wanted or imagined, you can blur it out with the sponge and try again. Try out different pressures with the sponge, different grips, different amounts of paint, etc. You are trying to mimic a 'realistic' grassland effect, so you want different patches of green, but you want them to blend into each other subtly.
I wound up with an effect I was pretty happy with, and after a few topcoats of satin varnish to protect the playing surface, the board is ready to go. And a good thing too, since my 6 x 4 is starting to look a little haggard.
Here is the finished board, with some terrain:
I didn't take any pictures during the painting process, it's a bit of an organic development and once I was in the zone the thought of pausing to take some photos never occurred to me. There's a bit of glare in the photo, but under normal lighting there is much less glare. If I'd gone for a matte varnish there would be less glare again, but a matte coat tends to get grubby quicker and isn't as hard wearing.
Stay tuned in the future for some more terrain related blog posts!
