The basic idea was to create a grid of roads bounding "city blocks", all of a standard size (like American urban planning and, frankly, like the Imperium itself - the scene in "Descent of Angels" where the forests are cut down and the hills leveled and concreted over reveals that; a disquieting scene in many ways). Individual pieces of scenery - buildings, ruins, bunkers, statues, whatever - based on boards the same size as the blocks will fit neatly on them and can be reorganized as needed to create new layouts. Blocks can also be left empty for a more open battlefield.
First, I marked out a pattern on the boards. It might not be terribly clear, but it is a simple grid of roads and "city blocks". Each block is 8" square and the roads are 2" wide for the narrow ones and 4" for the wider ones. With the 2" ones on the edges, they will join up to make 4" wide roads when the boards are put together.
I cut out a bunch of 8"x8" panels of ordinary box cardboard . . .
I glued them in place with ordinary wood glue and used an electric staple gun to secure them while they dried (the ones I had contact-cemented to the board yesterday I quickly secured with a few staples so they didn't curl up).
I mixed up a sort of DIY-gesso - a mix of water, wood glue, plaster of Paris, and black acrylic paint - and slapped it all over. This filled in the texture of the wood fragments, the divots left by the staples and gave a fine rough texture to the whole board.
I am quite happy with this so far. I am going to mix up another batch of DIY-gesso using a greater proportion of black paint and give it another coat, and then paint the roads black and the blocks gray. I will paint some markings in yellow and white on the roads, some detail on the blocks and so forth.
I have some nice bits of polystyrene packing, cardboard tubes, foamcore, soda cans etc. etc. which I am going to use to build some quick and dirty scenery to go on the blocks.
=][= Danforth Laertes
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