Uncle Nurgle's Ice World Realm of Battle

The icy winds blow strong in Southern Florida?

Okay, so to be more accurate they blow strong on my Realm of Battle Board, Florida (as usual) is pretty fucking warm.



This is the third time I've created an ice world Realm of Battle Board. The first two were for the two stores I managed during my time in GW and I've learned a fair amount from the previous times so hopefully this third (and final) version will be the best.

The first thing I did was sand the top and the sides of the hills.

Sanded Realm of Battle Tile

Sanded Forgworld Realm of Battle Imperial Strongpoint Tile

Now there are pros and cons for sanding your board

Pros:
- Adds friction and grit to the relatively sheer sides to the hills which should help prevent models sliding down, which sucks when playing the game.
[The first board I made was sanded, the second wasn't. Personally I think it looks better unsanded, but not enough to make up for the sliding models, hence why I sanded it this time. I also sanded the tops, merely to make the hills look consistent and I think it's worked.]

Cons:
- Time Consuming! Holy hell did that take ages to do and to bloody dry!
- More expensive. Granted, not that much more, but still it uses up a fair amount of sand.
- Doesn't look as nice. Just a personal thing, but I prefer the consistant look you get when the whole board looks the same.
[Of course you could always sand the entire board, which I have done before, but with the thing already textured, it isn't worth it. Plus it'll be harder to fix if you have an accident and drop the board, more sand = more opportunity for chipping.]

Once the boards were all sanded, I waited for them to dry and then added a very watered down PVA glue over the top of the sand to give more stability to the sand.

[A note for anyone sanding Forgeworld tiles, they HATE PVA glue. Your will spend ages spreading the pva glue on for it to actually put a consistent coat on the board, don't ask me why, but putting glue on that one tile took longer than doing three normal tiles.]

Realm of Battle

Next I undercoated them black. I normally have always used GW undercoat, as I got it cheap/free, but when I went to my local Gaming Store they suggested I try out the Privateer Press black undercoat.

I'm not sure if I like it as much, it doesn't seem to have the same undercoating power and comes off looking like a very very dark grey, but at half the price I can live with that.

Once undercoated I used my wonderful airbrush to coat the entire board in Fenris Grey, leaving out any areas I deemed as 'Rocks'.

Realm of Battle Imperial Stronghold

Realm of Battle Board

That is where I've finished so far, but the next steps are pretty simple. Dry brush black areas with a few different greys, paint a nice ice blue in the gaps between rocks and the skull pits, pick out the skulls and then when everything is dry give everything a nice 'dusting' of white. It sounds too simple and I'm sure by the pictures above you could easily think the board will look crap, but trust me it'll look fantastic.