Games Workshop Realm Battletable: Tutorial
I am working on the rather large, extremely awesome Games Workshop Battle Table. For those who aren’t familiar with the Battle Table, it’s a plastic molded table. It’s 6′ x 4′ and comes in 6 tiles each 2′ x 2′. I read the GW article on how to paint and put the whole thing together, which is all the information you really need. I thought I’d share my experience.
I started out hitting it with some gray primer right off the bat. After the primer dries, I hit the rock area with some flat black primer.
I’m using the GW Terrain Kit as well to paint and grass the whole thing. It comes with almost all the things you’ll need to make the table I’m making. The only thing I needed was some black and white acrylic paint, which I had laying around! I then used the darker brown paint form the kit and painted it all over the gray part of the table, leaving the black paint visible. Its not really important at this stage to have nice careful lines around the black. I pretty much slopped it on.
The drying time is the hardest part for me. I waited until the brown paint was dry then went over the rock area with an “overbrush” of a nice gray paint.
It makes it look pretty great right off the bat. After a few minutes when the paint is dry, I did a “drybrush” paint of a lighter grey color over the stones, and then once again, did a very light drybrush of a pure white color.
Then I made sure the skulls and bones are painted with the pure white color, to make them stand out.
I watered down some PVA glue (not a lot of water!) and painted the glue on the table. The first couple of panels I worked on I put in too much water. The water evaporated before I was ready to put on the grass leading to some big gaps in the grass. Make sure you have enough glue! Also, the grass will so your glue brush strokes, so make it random.
Then dump the static grass all over the board. I haven’t taken the time to break up the clumps of grass in the static grass bag, but I really should have. It would make the process easier. I use a piece of cardboard to put under the table so I can collect the grass that falls off. I dump almost the entire contents of the static grass bag each time I make a panel. I collect most of it when I’m done.
Once the glue is dry (one hour) turn the table upside down and tap the bottom with your hand to knock off all the loose grass. It will make a rather large mess of static grass in a huge pile. I then folded the cardboard and poured the cardboard into a bag. Once it’s done, the table is almost done. A spray of varnish later, and it’s all done.
You can see more pictures of the table in the review article I wrote, also on this site!
