40k realm of battle painting tips

[grantix89]

Hi all,

I am thinking about getting a citadel realm of battle board just so I have something proper to play on for a change. However I am a bit of a terrible painter so I am a bit nervous about painting it and don't want it to just be a grey slab of plastic!

Does anyone have any tips on painting them? I'm looking to paint in a grey cityscape style to put my imperial sector scenery on. All the tips for painting the boards seem to be to make them green...! Not useful!

Any ideas would be great!

Thanks all,

[SaveModifier]

I'd say that the Realm od Battle isn't your best bet for a city scape, its got a lot of slopes and stuff, if you can stretch your budget to the Forgeworld city realm of battle however, thats more like it.

Painting boards is very different from miniatures, you want a big house painting style brush and probably want to get a few grey and black acrylic paints from an Art and Craft shop, you'll probably been a few tubes of each colour you want, slap the paint on and use drybrushing over it to pick out the details

[grantix89]

Problem with the forgeworld stuff is it is sooo much more expensive. Instead of a board for £175, you are getting a board for £430 (of the same size) which is ludicrous. Even the regular realm of battle board is very expensive and on the verge of not buying because of cost. But I do take your point, the FW board would be far better for the cityscape stuff. But i think i can make the regular one work.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

As SaveModifier says: Don't bother painting it with GW paint, those tiny pots hold nowhere near enough. A much better bet is a hobby store (like Hobbycraft) where you can pick up a few tubes of acrylic paint, and then get some large brushes (the sort you'd paint a wall with). I did this and knocked out my RoB within about a day.

Helpfully, you can get great results just by applying a base colour and then drybrushing over the top of it, because of the textured surfaces. For an urban landscape, if you can find a dark grey then a lighter grey to drybrush over, you'll probably be surprised by how good you can get it looking.

[lattd]

You could always consider other game boards or make your own? I've made some flat grey boards but shy of 6 by 4 but they work well.

[grantix89]

How did you make them?

[lattd]

6 by 4 mdf board cut into 2 by 2 squares, one side add support to take the weight and make said support thick enough to support some form of connection mechanic. On top I just mixed sand with black paint two or three coats then went over it with different grays.

[Deadlift]

I airbrushed mine and it took about an hour from start to finish. If you don't own one I could easily see using aerosol primer paint being an option.
I primed mine up and then just layered on dark grey, light grey and then white for the snow. The lava was airbrushed and would be a struggle with spray. The actual board wouldn't be too hard at all.

[Cap'nSmurfs]

That looks real nice, DL

[Tooze]

Frontline gaming has a nice alternative mat if your looking for a cityfight table

[url]http://www.frontlinegaming.org/shop/frontline-gaming-and-tablewar-gaming-mat-urban-combat/[/url]

Very high quality job done, just got mine last week and its great work for the money.