Making a Skirmish Board

If you can’t tell, I really like the Joe McCullough games. I’m probably a bit of a fan boy. I have been reading his new ‘zine called Old Bones. One of the issues had a scenario that was playable in the 2 of the 3 games I play (Stargrave, Silver Bayonet). I’ll pick up Frostgrave sometime soon.

The scenario called for some caves, with some frogs, crocodiles, and a crocodilian. And since I already had crocodiles, frogs, and an Egyptian crocodilian printed, I thought why not create some boards.

I picked up some 2×4 1/4 boards pretty cheaply from Home Depot, some 2×2 foam boards, and started cutting. I can’t cut a straight line to save my life. Probably why I use all my woodworking tools so infrequently.

I did have some wonderful files from AetherStudios Kickstarter called Sky Islands. Seemed like a super fun little project at the time. But time moves on, and my hobby adhd gets the better of me, and I move on to the new shiny thing.

I had these lovely Ground Cliffs from that kickstarter that I thought would work perfectly for the cave rocks. Turns out that 2 inch foam is of course about 1/4 smaller, which was disappointing at first. Necessity is the mother of invention, and all that, it turns out I’ve been sitting on some 1/4 inch plywood for the last year with purpose in mind.

I’m still playing with settings and things, but I won a laser engraver from another Youtube channel. So I can use that to cut some 1/4 inch flooring out for my cave. Which makes everything fit together perfectly.

Now when I finally build my huge shop, I will have the skills to make my scale model of Menzoberranzan. (haha, like my hobby addiction will ever allow me the fortitude to actually build something like that)

So I get to combine some of my multiple tools into one big project. 3d printing, terrain making, and laser engraving to make what I think will be a lovely little hobby project.

This board is a 2×6 board, that will work for multiple small skirmish games. I can play Stargrave, Frostgrave, Silver Bayonet, Kill Team (ahem), and even OPR rules Firefight, and Age of Fantasy Skirmish.