1. What system are you using?
   The system you use can determine a lot of what you're going to be building. If you're building for Warmachine, for example, that informs your decisions for how tall you want certain buildings to be, what scale buildings you want to buy, if you buy them, and what things should look like as well. A 1.5" tall fence in one system might imply completely different things for another system.
   
   
2. What types of terrain do you need?
   If you're building a city, you'll likely want to make a bar or a tavern somewhere. Maybe a clock tower. If you're building for a field, or a farm, you may want a barn or a water well or some stables or feeding pens. Maybe you're making some kind of crazy alien tentacle-scape that requires cracked xenomorph eggs. When you're building a set of terrain, it's important for the feel of the terrain to be cohesive. Figure out what you want. Draw it out, make it all one at a time until you have what it is you want. Make a list.
   
   
3. What genre is the game you’re playing? (gothic, Western, modern, near future)
   Okay, so you've decided you want a little town. Does the town have a bar, tavern, or saloon? What's it made out of? Sure you can get all the materials you want to make a city, but if all you've got is balsa wood it's going to be difficult to make a bunker for a group of cybercommandos. You'll want to make sure you have the right materials. Make a list.
   
   
4. Locale
   So you've decided you want a gothic town for your Mordheim games. Where in the world is it? When you finish putting it all together, will your players recognize what country it's in? Just a few accent bits can make it that much more familiar and engrossing. Maybe you should put them on your list.
   
   
5. Modular or static? Do trees, etc., need to be moveable?
   The difference between making a pond that never moves and a pond that can be placed anywhere on the board is pretty significant. You might want to include this on your list.
   
   
6. What will you make it out of?
   Now that you've got a list of all the stuff you want to make, you need to decide what it will all be made from. Cardboard, maybe? Or will you go whole hog and get laser-cut MDF or plaster bricks? You may want to make a shopping list.
   
   
7. Where and how will you store it? Does it need to break down for easy storage?
   This might be the most important thing of all, especially if you live with someone who would hate you for cluttering up their space with all your poo poo. My suggestion is to make everything store neatly in totes, or shelves, or at your FLGS.
   

1. Varieties of terrain – What do you want anyway?
   Now that you've got your list, you need to decide what little bits you need to fill your playing space. They break down into categories.
   
   
   1. Boards/Land
      
      • Modular
        Modular boards can be taken apart, rearranged, and put in different configurations so you can use the same pieces in different combinations. This is most commonly accomplished by breaking the board down into squares of a regular size so they can be rotated and swapped around. Good ones will have a way to clip the pieces together. Advantages are that you can use the same terrain for multiple games and have it be different. The major disadvantage is that it can be difficult to make cohesive boards that have roads or rivers or some other inclusion that goes between two or more squares.
        
        
      • Static
        A static board will be one solid piece, one coherent thought. They look better than modular boards generally, and can have much larger structures and better looking, more interesting terrain features. However, they're a huge pain in the rear end to store and you only get one landscape out of them.
        
        
      • Pre-shaped Stuff
        Some companies are actually making full-on terrain sets that you can assemble however you want and work well together. The best example I know of is the Tablescapes line by Secret Weapon Miniatures, which is made to store easily and is pretty drat modular. Unfortunately it's not out yet, but they'll be selling on their main webpage soon enough.
        
        
      • Covering the landscape (sand, grasses, streets, etc)
        You're going to want to cover your board with something so it's not just a big mess of terrain with hardboard or foam underneath. To make it look like it's actually made of miniature grass or sand, a lot of people paint sandpaper or use vinyl that has been printed out to look like ground. Another option is to use foam and cut it out for shapes, and then paint the foam. I'm sure there will be a lot of posts to link to for this bullet point eventually.
        
   2. Add-ons
      
      • Landscape features (rivers, hills, forests, etc)
        I rarely see a table that doesn't have hills, rivers, forests, boulders, etc.. on it to make it look more alive, so it's not just some city out in Utah. These are pretty easily made out of foam. Mesas can be made out of stacked slices of foam, hills can be made out of shaped foam (flat on top so you can put minis on it), rivers.. are a bit more tricky and deserve their own section below.
        
        
      • Buildings
        Buildings are there when you're anywhere other than rolling hills in some kind of echalon formation, taking the fight out of the streets simply because there's not enough room for your army. If you're doing any kind of squad tactical thing, you're going to want buildings. Mechanically, buildings generally serve as large pieces of hard cover that block line of sight, and sometimes provide interesting vantage points when they're climbable.
        
        
      • Scatter terrain (Things that provide cover)
        Fences, boulders, barrels, machinery, rusted out old cars, or whatever. Scatter terrain is the stuff that you use to make your landscape interesting from a tactical point of view.
        
2. Materials and tools
   
   1. Foam
      
      Hubis sez:Owens Corning XPS Foam (AKA "Pink Foam")
      It seems like there are a lot of people out there with a lot more experience than me working with it, but I figured I'd add my own knowledge gained from my first project with it.
      
      
      • Tools
        Keyhole Saw - The hot cutters mentioned above are all best for detail work or where you need smooth cuts, but I got a lot of use out of a basic keyhole saw (usually used for enlarging a hole in drywall for fitting outlets, etc). It's great for doing large rough cuts. If you don't have a hot cutter available, this is even perfectly serviceable for cutting out your main pieces as well, provided you're ok with doing some sanding.
        
        PVA Glue - Used to harden and protect the foam. XPS is pretty surprisingly hard, but it will take dents from sharp points very easily, and totally mess up any paint work. A little watered down glue will form a nice, hard shell that makes the piece about as tough as you could reasonably want without adding anything in terms of appreciable weight. I used two coats of standard Elmer's Wood Glue, diluted about 70/30 with water to make it flow better. You can optionally mix a little bit of generic playground sand in with this layer to give your object some texture. Alternatively...
        
        Texture/Effects Mediums - Consider these instead of more expensive basing material for large objects. I played around with some of the Liquitex Texture Mediums at my local craft store. They are usually some kind of textured material like sand, grit, fibers, etc, suspended in a kind of gel that will disappear when tried, leaving behind an interesting, layered texture. Many of them can also take pigment directly, meaning you could possibly mix your base coat color in there and then just skip to shading and drybrushing. They also have the added benefit of often drying hard as a rock, for added protection. For my project (a set of stackable modular hills) I covered the top in a "Medium Pumice Grit" medium which basically made the top like a pice of skateboard grip tape which aside from looking like excellent rough ground had the added benefit of totally preventing any sliding around once I stacked my foam. Alternatively...
        
        Cork Sheets - Useful on the bottoms of your terrain pieces to prevent them from sliding around. XPS is extremely light and usually pretty smooth, meaning that on a felt surface like a Hotz-Mat it will readily get knocked around. You can find rolls of thin cork (used for making pin boards, etc) at your local hobby store. Just place your terrain piece on it, trace and cut an outline with a hobby knife, hit the cork with some spray adhesive, and then press your terrain onto it for a little bit to set. Paint the edges of the cork black with a paint pen and you'll never even know it's there, but it will make the final product feel a lot more substantial. You can set some washers into the base of the foam as weights before this step if you want to add some weight as well.
        
        Dual-Temp Hot Glue Gun - Great for gluing down static grass, rocks, accent pieces, etc. like always, but the key point here is that it needs to be dual-temp so that you don't risk melting the foam.
        
        Long-blade Knife - A razor knife is good for cutting, but a knife with a long blade allows you do do things like "chip" away at the edge of the foam by cutting into it part way and then "twisting" the knife.
        
        Sanding Block - Good for smoothing the edges of pieces if you cut them with a saw or knife, also good for carving a few "notches" to give a broken ridgeline effect.
        
        Dust Mask - Melted XPS fumes smell bad, but honestly it's probably not as bad as breathing in the actual dust. If you do any sanding at all, make sure you've got a dust mask of some sort.
        
        Spray Paint - Spray paint/primer is a no-go with XPS as far as I understand it, because there are chemicals in it which will cause the foam to just disintegrate on contact. An airbrush, on the other hand, would be tremendously useful for getting smooth, even layers across the naturally flat big spaces you are likely to have.
        
        
      • Precautions
        Don’t do any heat-based foam cutting without proper ventilation. Melted foam fumes can be seriously bad. Don’t breathe foam.
        
   2. Wood
      
      • MDF
        Laser-cut MDF is being used these days to make terrain basically out of jigsaw puzzle pieces. It’s interesting to look at and goon Lumbering Troll is even making some himself! You can buy this stuff online in kits.
        
      • Balsa and other tiny woods
        Balsa wood strips are great for adding wood accents to anything. They’re cheap and light, though not the most durable thing in the world so you wouldn’t really want them to be your main material.
        
      • Tools
        Cutting MDF on your own is no picnic. Someone please contribute more to this section, as I generally don’t do it myself. I can tell you that for Balsa, standard PVA is my go-to, but I break that stuff up by hand.
        
   3. Water
      
      • Various things that make stuff that looks like water
        A lot of companies make realistic-looking still water. Vallejo and Woodland Scenics both make great realistic water. They come as liquids, both single and two-part, and sometimes as gels. They can be colored to look murky or radioactive or whatever you feel like!
        
      • How to use these things
        Let me just link you what Bruce Hirst has to say on that subject here and here.
        
   4. Brass
      
      • Printed
        Brass can be laser etched! You can see lots of companies these days making incredibly thin brass etchings to make things like razor wire, scaffolding, or lettering. It’s really neat stuff.
        
      • Rods and tubes
        Brass rods and tubes can be found at most hobby stores that sell the nerd hobby stuff like train sets. They can be welded or bent to the shapes you prefer. They’re also pretty cheap.
        
   5. Sculpting clay, putties and similar things
      
      • Sculpey and Super Sculpey
        Can be made into anything your heart desires. Someone please PM me if you want this expanded.
        
      • Two-part epoxies
        The most prominent types to my knowledge are greenstuff (also known as kneadatite) and brownstuff. Greenstuff is used to sculpt with an easier time sculpting, and brownstuff cures to be as hard as aluminum. They’re both very useful for making accents.
        
   6. Resin and prefab stuff
      
      • Why resin?
        Well, if you’re making your own stuff, resin is a hard, lightweight material that can be used to make very fine detail things in molds. But for most of us, resin is the material of pre-made terrain stuff we buy from companies that specialize in resin terrain. I’m not opposed to this practice one bit, any more than I am opposed to buying pre-sculpted miniatures that I paint.
        
      • Places to buy good resin poo poo and other prefab poo poo– Please PM me with additions to this list if you have experience with them.
        https://www.secretweaponminiatures.com http://pegasushobbies.net/catalog/
        
      • Precautions
        Resin is some pretty bad stuff to breathe, and if you drill into it or sand it for any reason, you should probably wear a mask.
        
   7. Paper terrain
      
      • Terraclips
        Terraclips is a high quality paper terrain system made by Wyrd, the people who are responsible for Malifaux. From my understanding, it’s pretty good stuff and it collapses very easily, though you gotta set it up and that takes time.
        
      • Print and play stuff and places to buy it
        Print and play is another option, and you just download the PDFs and go hog wild. I highly suggest you get a craft cutter such as a Silhouette to cut everything out perfectly. You can buy them on the internet, at places like http://www.worldworksgames.com
        
      • Heavy duty paper is a good way to make terrain: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3570772#post419624883
        
      • 
        
   8. Casting
      Examples: Cavern accessories and sewer water
      
      
      • Molds
        You can use silicone molds to cast your own terrain bits out of plaster. HUGE plug here for https://www.hirstarts.com. I absolutely love the stuff Bruce Hirst makes, and I have 10 of his molds myself. Basically the idea here is you crank out a ton of little bricks and go crazy Lego style. You’ll run through a ton of glue doing this. You will also have very good-looking buildings.
        
      • Materials – Plaster and Resin
        Bruce Hirst recommends using dental stone (I use and love Merlin’s Magic hobby stone), especially for small pieces with high detail. He also recommends you use some kind of surfactant to prevent bubbles, and a whole slew of other tips on his website. You can also use resin and cast using that, which will result in a lighter, but vastly more expensive product. He recommends Smooth Cast 300 by Smooth-On.
        
      • Making your own molds
        You know what, just go to this link: http://www.hirstarts.com/moldmake/moldmaking.html
        
      • How to cast
        Again: http://www.hirstarts.com/casting/casting.html
        It’s way easier than it looks.
        
   9. Plasticard and other cardlike materials
      
      • Plasticard: A high quality plastic product available in a huge variety of shapes, sizes, and thicknesses, that you can use to accent terrain or miniatures, or really whatever you want to with it as I believe it is also shapeable if it has heat applied to it. It is also very expensive if you buy it from a company called Plastruct, though they have a very good variety of the product. For the same stuff cheaper you'll want to look for "plasticard" or "High Impact Polystyrene"
        
      • Cardboard: Great for building things around. Small boxes that happen to be in the same size and shape as a house you want to build allow you to simply build a house around the box. Keep your amazon boxes, people!
        
      • Hardboard: Good to use as a base for terrain, but you need to be sure you get it thin enough that it doesn’t cause elevation problems. Depending on the thickness it can be easy or difficult to work with. It is easy to find, but can be very heavy in large quantities.
        
      • Cereal boxes – The cost of this stuff is negligible as you already own it, it’s great for mounting paper printouts to, and can be used much like cardboard. However, it can be time consuming to make sturdy, and it’s not very durable.
        
3. Tools Tools Tools….
   
4. A big list of links for good premade terrain
   
   1. Historical
      
      • http://www.renedra.co.uk/
        
   2. Sci-Fi
      
      Sci-Fi Terrain Vendors (6mm/15mm):
      
      • XMARX.com - generic sci-fi, particularly well-suited for Battletech
        
      • Armorcasts - Good sci-fi, 6mm and beyond
        
      • Pfeiffer Stylez Customizing - 3D Printed pieces with a Battletech focus
        
      • Brigadier - 3D Printed pieces for use in sci-fi or modern. Some neat buildings here!Angel Barracks - Resin pieces focused on vehicle/infantry scale, rather than generic city-scale
        
      • Seeds of War - Lots of small scale 6mm battlefield buildings.Gamecraft - Buildings of various materials and genres
        
      • Micropanzer - Resin pieces, mostly 15mm scale but work great for 6mm. He has a modular "bits" section at the bottom for small resin pieces you can use to add detail to home-made terrain pieces, as demonstrated here.
        
   3. Paper stuff
      
      • http://www.davesgames.net
        
      • http://www.fatdragongames.com
        
      • http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/
        
5. 3D Printing/Shapeways
   Someone write this up and I will include it
   
   • Pros
     - Detail: The material on Shapeways seems to hold fine detail almost as well as resin.
     - Weight: It can be incredibly light-weight, since many of the pieces are made hollow (and often are as a cost-saving measure)
     - Easy to work with: Takes paint well and usually requires little-to-no cleanup.
     - Variety: Since the pieces are made to-order, you can find a lot of stuff that wouldn't otherwise be worth the effort of resin-casting
     
     
   • Cons
     - Expensive: Cost scales with overall piece bounds and total material. I've found that this will vary based on how crafty the designer is at cramming pieces together, but you can pay somewhere in the range of $10-15 for a piece the size of a standard 28mm figure.
     - Fragile: Some pieces may be slightly fragile, as makers will try and cut walls thin and hollow out large sections to save cost. I haven't had any breakage problems yet, but I'm definitely wary.
     - Textured: The technique uses to make the pieces can leave a rough, sandy texture on surfaces. I'm not sure that you can sand it away (though a coat of varnish or just transparent medium might make it disappear) so it's something to be aware of. This may be eliminated by some of the slightly more expensive materials with satin finishes.
     

signalnoise fucked around with this message at 14:12 on Feb 7, 2015

• A graveyard: http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?noseen=0&threadid=3570772&perpage=40&pagenumber=1#post419615506
  
  
  
• Dragon's Teeth (tank traps)
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGNHsuXzfns
  
  
• How to get terrain on the cheap? Simple: Go to a pet store and look in the fish section.
  
  
• Or you can pull something out of some halloween decorations!
  
  
• Water features the Dr. Clockwork way!
  

signalnoise fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Sep 23, 2013

1. Warmachine
   
   • Unit heights
     
   • Elevation heights - All you need to qualify as “elevated” is 1 inch, and for ease of play it’s best if you try to keep your hills/elevated terrain low. Steep sides, graded sides, these are always a debate so your mileage may vary.
     How concealment works and what you should think about when making forests - For concealing terrain, like a forest template, the Steamroller tournament rules suggest terrain features be 4”-7” in length or width. Sticking to that will make for fun games and limit the times one guy gets bogged down in a forest and hates you. The entire base of the terrain is considered concealing, as Warmachine is not a “true line of sight” game. And due to the precision movement and placement required, it’s best that your trees are easily removable once models enter the forest.
     
2. Warhammer
   
3. Infinity
   
   • Unit heights (can be broken down into categories: low remote, human, TAG); affects partial cover
     
   • Cover is extremely important - ways to make partial and total cover obstacles
     
   • The often-forgotten - Low Visibility Zones, Zero Visibility Zones, difficult terrain. Should be easy to recognize what is LVZ, ZVZ, difficult/very difficult/impassable, mountain/jungle/aquatic; can fences be seen through? Shot through (with what modifier if any?)? Climbed? It should look clear so there’s less ambiguity and dice-offs during the actual game.
     
   • Theme your terrain so that c) above fits the rest
     
   • Table imbalance! (so there’s a reason to start second): catwalks, sniper towers
     
4. Malifaux
   
5. Historical/other wargames (2mm-25mm scale)
   

Dr. Clockwork fucked around with this message at 19:47 on Sep 18, 2013

enri fucked around with this message at 23:40 on Sep 18, 2013

Gravitas Shortfall fucked around with this message at 18:12 on Sep 20, 2013