There IS a Library in the Northern City - Frostgrave

Hey hey there folks,

As some of you know, I had spent the better part of 6 weeks prior to Cangames getting ready for running a Frostgrave game/tournie with Duncan and Mike.  My end of the deal was terrain for one table and 2 warbands.  The bulk of work that I had to undertake was directed towards getting a table together.

I was heavily inspired by a picture of Petra that I had seen online, as well as the library scenario I found in the MRB...I had not ventured much into terrain in the past years, and I had certainly not tackled any fantasy or medieval type terrain.  However, I was pretty impressed with Frostgrave and definitely wanted to give this a shot.  Oh, another part of my motivation comes from a future project I have on the go...I only needed a little practical work and experimentation to better figure out what I needed for this future project, so making Frostgrave terrain seemed like a great learning experience.

Bottomline: The table took me roughly 5-6 weeks to put together from first literal cut of MDF board to final drybrush of white paint.  The cost of the table is roughly between $20-40 Canadian...that's like about 50 cents American, lol...

I used 9 square feet of MDF board (cut into 9 individual 1 foot x 1 foot tiles) which I had sitting around in the basement...probably cost me about $8-10...can't really remember...I then mounted 1/2 inch thick Styrofoam on each terrain tile.  I purposely did not buy foam for this...my research showed me the better material to use, however, I was trying to spend as little as possible...anyway, the Styrofoam was donated from a friend and was the crappy kind that I shouldn't really use (according to my research)...but I'd rather make a mistake on free stuff than bought stuff...it hurts less.

So, $10 spent so far...I then used glue I had laying around for sometime...call it about $2 worth...a bunch of sand from the local playground...and some new UNUSED cat litter.  The paint I used had been bought upwards of 10 years ago...so very little cost there, I did need more black for the base coat so lets call it $6 on paint...I did go and spend $3 on wooden bookends that my wife had found...so wer're up to about $18-20...

Overhead view of the table...all the styro was donated...the ground cloth came from my buddy Tod who was giving it away at the club...so, yoink...free cloth my way.

The interior was carved over the course of a week or so...painting the base coat took another week or 2...the follow on layers went on pretty quick...the bookshelves were built over 2-3 nights...painting took about 4 days in total...the books were sculpted by my wife from Sculpey or Fimo clay.  The books took about 30 mins to sculpt and about 1-2 nights to paint...I initially was going to paint them individually, but settled on heavy dark and strong washes instead...the wash really made the books look weathered and old...I was very happy with the outcome... 

Wooden bookends bought at a local thrift/mission store...

As I progressed I became much braver in my styro carving...I eventually started to cut through layers and slice sections off of the styro, these were surprisingly smooth considering the messiness of this type of styro...I was able to carve a secondary entrance that reminded me of Petra...

The majority of the perimeter styro was from 3 inch thick slabs...I was initially stressing that I barely had enough to work around the perimeter...until, I made the accidental discovery that I could cut the slabs I had in half (creating 2 long triangle shaped pieces, instead of 1 big rectangular piece...d'oh), it worked like a charm...and because I did not cut all the way through, when I pulled the pieces apart I had some great texture relief halfway up the piece as they stood...I really like the effect and adjusted my painting plan according to this...I hit the middle part with a heavy white dry brush...

Experimenting with other improvised materials...I used a section of gridded plastic normally used for needlework for kids crafts as my iron gates...worked out pretty good... 

Looking into the library...

The setup for our tournie was a run through a coop table for a game and then players could move to any other table they wanted for follow-on games...it seemed to work really well and we gad a total of 8-10 participants.

A couple of action shots...warband deploying into the library from the main entrance and the secondary 'Petra' entrance...

Deploying into the library from the back door...LOS blocked by a well placed boulder...real Canadian shield stone...

Moving troops forward...

Adventurers make it to salvageable treasure...

A scrum develops as competing bands rush for the same treasure...

And last but not least...a couple of shots I was able to take of the opening table and other option...unfortunately all my other pics did not turn out...sigh