The search continues for the ideal travel gaming kit. Several containers have already been press-ganged into use: an art box and a drill case converted with fixed terrain, and an old samples case filled with tiles. All have now been used on various holidays, and they all work as far as gameplay goes, but don’t suit my purposes fully.
The samples case isn’t really suited for being carried long distances by hand, the handle being too small and uncomfortable, and the drill case, while the handle is better designed for a comfortable grip, was already a bit heavy before I added a whole lot of weighty terrain materials to it. They’re both too large to feasibly go in any luggage bags – at least if I want to have enough socially acceptable changes of clothes – and so are only really suitable when there’s a car available, and neither Mrs Doodler nor I drive. The art box does fit in a luggage case though, so can come along with us on the train.
These three cases were made for 15mm terrain, and with the venture into 6mm miniatures I felt the need for another case, and I wanted to see if I could get something that would fit inside my rucksack so that it might work for short-distance trips. A quick online search came up with this folding chessboard:
Closed, it measured 39 x 19.5 cm on the outside, and trim off a couple of centimetres for the internal area. A bit too narrow for most games but, as usual with these smaller scales treating 1 centimetre as 1 inch in most rulebooks, when laid flat it would function as a playing area larger than a 3ft square board. I hadn’t done anything with previous cases’ external areas, so we’d be entering new territory here. Any texture would need to be able to survive being thrust into the rucksack with all other travel essentials.
With the terrainified trays demonstrating that magnetism is as useful for gaming as it is for storage, I wanted to carry that across to this case. The trays would be too difficult to cut up with the hand tools at my disposal, so I bought a thin steel sheet and hacked at it with some snips. I sanded and scored both the steel and the case for added purchase and stuck everything together a with alternating globs of PVA and superglue.
As an extra precaution against the steel’s jagged edges, I stuck down a rim of large cable ties with some old milliput filling in any gaps. This raised border would also mean that each external side of the case could be laid upon a flat surface without the texture constantly rubbing against it.
The texture was simply some sand sprinkled over a layer of PVA and then set with watered down PVA dabbed over it. I painted it over it with gesso, and then used some wall paint for a basecoat, and drybrushed with another wall paint. This was as far as I’d gone with the trays and mini bases but it probably wouldn’t be enough to stand up to the rigours of travel, so I turned once again the the Army Painter quickshade which I’d been using on the scrap-built scenery. Once I’d painted the case walls and rim with brown and silver craft paints, I coated the whole exterior of the case with the de facto wood varnish which should give a decent protective layer. I drybrushed with the wall paint again to bring the sand back up to a lighter shade, and then covered everything with a final layer of matt varnish.
The last thing I had on my list was to stick two narrow sheets of steel to the interior for magnetised storage purposes but, once I’d done that, it felt like a bit more use could be made of the space. They might not be ideally-sized for every game, but a 5 Parsecs crew could come across the odd narrow battlefield. I scrunched up some of that paper Amazon uses to stuff its boxes and grabbed some window netting, and laid them both across each side. Both got a quick gesso undercoat, then basecoat and drybrush before enduring the quickshade treatment. They’re not the prettiest of boards, but they should suit for quick games for minis needing to be indoors or on peculiarly-surfaced planets.
Most of the scrap-built terrain and hab pods fit snugly in the closed case, once I’d omitted the taller pieces. With a little careful checking of heights of doubled-up scenery, there’s also enough room to spare for some modular walls I’m working on.
Going forward I’d like to put together some terrain with this case specifically in mind, especially height-wise. There’s still quite a bit of unused space which could be utilised by having short enough pieces that could stick to both halves and double up. Elevated walkways and the like, perhaps magnetised both top and and bottom to allow stacking in gameplay. Perhaps even incorporating these new chess and backgammon pieces I’ve now got lying around. Time to get to greasing the pipeline again.
There Could Have Been Snakes 