For over a decade I’ve harboured an ambition to own my own terrain board. Surely for many hobbyists this is the big one, the ultimate goal to aspire to. If you’re a keen gamer then what better than to be able to roll dice in style within the comfort of your own home? If your predilections lie more towards the painting and modelling then what project can compare to capturing not just the characters that inhabit your chosen world but the actual world itself?
The downside of course is that it’s expensive, it takes up a lot of space and it’s a lot of work to build. Leaving aside the lack of disposable income, which in itself lead to a lot of careful budgeting and saving up, until recently I just didn’t have the room to store such a comparatively massive construction. However at the end of the day life won’t wait. I’ve been made keenly aware over the last year or so that whilst planning for the future is a very sensible and intelligent move, putting off all your plans to an unspecified future date might just mean they never happen at all. Having managed to set aside a space in the house for it occupy I’ve set about building a section of Imperial cityscape.
Building a terrain board isn’t like other hobby projects. It takes a certain amount of preparation and self justification before you even think about spending all that money (assuming of course you’re not one of those geniuses who can make a convincing fusion reactor out of an egg box and a Pringles tin, which I am most certainly not).
Having convinced myself, with some difficulty, that it was ok, and that buying a few model buildings wasn’t the sort of fiscal irresponsibility that would see me reduced to fighting the other tramps for food in a matter of weeks, the next question is; what kind of board to build? Of course the answer to that very much depends on the kind of games it might be used for. The fantastic landscapes of the Mortal Realms may look amazing but my heart still lies in the 41st Millennium. You can keep the flyers and tanks of 40k proper, I lean towards Necromunda, Inq28 and perhaps a little bit of Killteam so my board in turn will be the close-packed warrens of the Underhive, the decaying depths of a crumbling Imperial city where Inquisitors roam and gangers hold sway.
In spite of my recent resurgence of interest in building this board its story actually began a few years ago when, following some kind of fit of fiscal frivolity, I bought myself the Sector Imperialis board from GW, and then froze like a rabbit in headlights and never painted the damn thing. Instead it just sat there, a brooding avatar of my decadence, lurking in the corner of the room to guilt me. No more I say! We’ve scowled at each other long enough, time to set aside our differences and get some paint on it. After all I may have spent rather a lot on it, and I may have regretted it afterwards, but the deed is done, I may as well enjoy it! For the last few months, in between other projects, I’ve been chipping away at it and at last the first section is ready to show off.









Rukk and Grak set out to explore the crumbling deaths of their territory.

Meanwhile the girls from the Ladykillers gang discover a lurking sump horror has been making its home beneath their streets…

Over the coming months I’ll keep working away on this, adding the rusty, crumbling buildings and industrial structures of the Underhive’s heart. Naturally a project like this takes time (or at least it does if you happen to be me, I know some people power through terrain projects like they’re going out of style but alas my progress tends to be rather slower). Nonetheless keep an eye out and hopefully soon a city will begin to grow here.