Down, Down To Goblin Town...

I recently picked up Games Workshop's new The Hobbit: Escape From Goblin Town set and found myself wanting a 2'x2' board to play the scenarios on. I've actually been wanting to put together a new small skirmish board for a while. My green grass board is beginning to show its age with a few bald spots and some dents (kind of like me), and I figured this would be a great opportunity.

So, armed with four 1'x1' floor tiles and some spray paint, I managed to put this together:

I sprayed the tiles black, then found a suitable dark grey textured spray to go over that. It's a little dark, but I think it captures the deep underground feel.

I've come to like the textured sprays Rustoleum puts out. A single can can easily cover a large area and the texture is sandy without being chunky. Miniatures slide over the surface with ease. The walkways pictured are the Goblin Town terrain included in the Hobbit set (and can be bought separately for ridiculous prices). The rocks are some of Gale Force 9's terriffic pre-painted Battlefield in a Box pieces. Luckily with such a small board, you don't need much to cover it.

Of course any small skirmish game or RPG could be played on this board. I have in the past played compact games of Song of Blades and Heroes on a 2'x2' board using their 15mm scale measurements with 28mm figures (my 15mm collection is woefully small). Combats for D&D could also be played out using inches instead of squares.

Hayden the Slayer encounters some aberrant monstrosities in the Deep Dark.

It will also serve to host other Lord of The Rings SBG scenarios in Moria or maybe even the black ash wastes of Mordor.

Frodo and Sam fend off a Moria Goblin in the rocky tunnels of Moria.

All in all, the best part about this board is that it was pretty cheap. My tiles were free (extras from re-flooring a space at work), I already had a can of black spray and the texture spray was around 6 bucks. But if I had to buy it all from scratch it would be less than $20. It's a bonus that the tiles all stack and store in a 1'x1' space and can have other things stacked on top with little chance of damaging them.

Happy gaming!