Roads are a necessity for anyone gaming WW2 and if you're gaming in NW Europe you need lots of them!
I've been looking for a source of cheapish roads for a while. I've experimented with foam and felt but never been happy with the results. I tried making a few pieces from Plasticard and whilst they looked good they where unfortunately only good for flat tables, quite expensive at £1.50 for an A4 sheet, and it's a bugger to cut the curves.
Today however I think I may have stumbled on a solution when I wandered into the wargamers treasure trove that is Poundland. They sell Vinyl floor tiles in packs for 4 for (you guessed it) £1, the tiles are 30cm square. These are cheap, flexible, a doodle to cut with household scissors and have an adhesive backing so you don't even have to worry about covering them in glue. I bought 2 packs to experiment with.
After this I popped over the road to Wilkinsons to buy some more supplies. First I picked up some of their bird sand from the pet section. This is always a good buy and only costs £1 for a Kilo of the stuff. Considering that GW's modeling sand is now £5 for 100 grams , the wilkos alternative is quite literally 1\50th the price of GW's. Doesn't that make your head spin?
Wilkos Acrylics |
After cutting the tiles into pieces I removed the backing and covered them in sand. It adhered nicely, thought there where a few small bald patches that I touched up later with PVA. Once painted though this should seal the sand nicely.
A few of the pieces after they had been sanded. |
One of the pieces after being painted. |
Tomorrow I shall drybrush and flock the test pieces and post the reults!
Sadly, our poundshops (dollar stores) never seem to have paint. I found tiles at our DIY store and bought them with the intention of using them as tiles form my table to easily switch out terrain. They are a bit flimsy to my liking for bigger terrain tiles but they did allow me to really try out some techniques for table making.
ReplyDeleteI never thought of using them for roadways... Argh! Thanks for the tip.