Terrain boards for Afghanistan

A chance find of ten sample posts of a promising looking paint color at the local hardware store has prompted a weekend of terrain board building for my Afghanistan project. The idea is to build some fairly generic rocky desert boards that I can also for gaming WW1 in the Middle East.

Having tried my hand at terrain mats in the past - and finding attempts to built contours up under mats largely unsatisfactory -  I am going to try using flat terrain boards and add-on terrain for the various features. I'm using 6mm MDF for the base boards.

The paint I found was an acrylic 'suede finish' in a mid grey. It dries with almost a chalky surface. As mentioned, they were a series of unwanted color post being sold off for $1 a can - bargain. I'd never seen this finish before and I could see the potential for this use.

Few people would welcome that color sample as being of interest - rich pickings for a wargamer!

I started with a based coat on lightly sanded MDF and scattered some grit over the top while wet. I just used the sandy colored gravel I have use for landscaping, which you can see on my miniature bases as well - a lifetime supply of basing materials!

Once it dried, I knocked off the larger pieces of gravel with a scraper, leaving the more sandy textured finish. To this I added a second coat of suede paint - and a coat on the underside to overcome warping.

Leaving that to dry well - I then sponged on some yellow ochre craft paint and then dry-brushed with a 'sand' colored acrylic.

I finished the boards with a spray of a clear varnish I had at hand - the result is fairly good for an  unplanned project (which, let's face it, most of mine are!).

I couldn't resist taking a a few pictures of the growing collection of terrain and some of the completed Eureka USMC and Afghani 28mm miniatures. The compound design and technique is thanks to Matakishi. My terrain has a long way to go, but the boards are a huge step up from what I was using!