Malifaux Board for Beginners - Part 3 - Basing, Textures and steampunk terrain

Another weekend down and some serious work on what will be my Arcanist themed board. I started by cutting up and laying out two complete sets of GW movement trays, to act a hard pavements. The intention with this board is to put down a number of surfaces that imply a hodgepodge of architectures. I imagine this to be an evolving rail or factory area for the Arcanists, something that has evolved over time and is their take on claiming old Malifaux. I want a mixture of new and old industrial apparatus, in a mixture of conditions, to imply this evolution. I'll throw in minimal natural resources, the odd broken tree stump, some ruined grass, maybe a polluted stream, to show these arcanists aren't one with Mother Nature.


I then went at the board using a selection of textured wallpaper I've hoarded over the years. I only had off cuts, so nothing's going to fill the entire board and besides that's not the theme I was going for. As I was doing this I was conscious of ensuring I still had adequate spaces for my Steampunk buildings that ill hopefully be receiving from Impudent Mortals Kickstarter within the month. (Below are a couple of examples)








I cut out template 4x6 and 6x8 shaped buildings on paper and checked that there was still spaces to place these in a modular form. Ultimately the board will have the textured paving area but it should still be possible to achieve different setups by keeping the buildings modular.


I've used three different wallpapers so far, one had a fantastic cobblestone pattern, which I cut up and will be using in conjunction with sand or snow to imply the oldest layer, probably some old Malifaux streets.

Then came an abstract pattern, which could easily be painted as a snow or sand texture, this will be the only natural area of the board.





There's also a black cloth material which has a more industrial cobble look to it, much tighter and uniformed. This was by far the hardest to fit and I'm not looking forward to fitting the rest of this, working with wallpaper is far more forgiving and easier, but is the one material I can source locally in abundance.



Lastly is this brownish wallpaper that I might use to represent an internal area, it looks a little more refined.


Then came a splurge on eBay, where I bought 30g of watch parts for converting buildings or making standalone machines and this old airfix kit for a bit of hard machinery and line of sight blocking.