he Battle of Cold Steel Ridge shown in the Apocalypse expansion demanded a giant snowscape complete with pipelines, train tracks, ice flows, and refineries. The final board measured 12' x 6' and required the full might of the Studio Hobby Team to complete. Showing how to build the entire board would fill a book of its own – instead, we'll take you through how they made some of the key features of the battlefield.

Click any of the images on this page for a larger picture and text explaining how the terrain was built.

To start the table, we drew a rough sketch of the terrain onto the MDF hardboard base. This allowed us to get an idea of scale, and how much room the terrain would take. Once this was done, we could start assembling the base. We made the hills from 1”-thick polystyrene insulation foam, whilst we made the ice itself from polystyrene foam ceiling tiles.

We glued down the ceiling tiles while leaving holes for the broken ice where necessary. You'll notice that the expanded foam hills have been covered with ceiling tiles to ensure a consistent finish on the board.

Once we were happy with the layout of the board, we sketched out areas of broken ice onto the ceiling tiles. These would count as areas of difficult and dangerous terrain in the game. We used a marker pen to draw the cracks in the ice and cut them out before gluing the polystyrene tiles to the hardboard base.

The rail tracks were raised up to form a vast linear obstacle which would span the board. We built this structure by using polystyrene coving topped with strips of 5mm foam board. We used a large ruler to check the alignment.

We glued down the pieces of broken ice at different angles to represent the uneven nature of floating ice. You'll also notice the pen marks to show where we wanted the pipeline to be placed (more on that later).

To angle the pipes (and create some variance on the board), we simply bought some 45-degree elbow joints. These slotted together easily and are available from any hardware store. After test fitting, we joined the pipes using a hot glue gun.

Similar to the corner sections, we made the ends of the pipes by buying some 90-degree elbow joints. By angling these down, it gives the impression that the pipe network carries on under the battlefield (this was made even cooler by some special rules that allowed the Genestealers to appear from burst pipes when the game was played).

The pipelines on the board were made from plastic pipes used for plumbing. We elevated them from the battlefield using supports made from 1"-thick polystyrene insulation foam. Due to the scale of the games, we decided to use high-density polystyrene rather than regular polystyrene for anything that needed extra support, as it's density makes it more durable.

We made the junction boxes by cutting and stacking blocks of 1"-thick polystyrene insulation foam. To provide support for the pipes, we ran a length of 10mm foam board down the middle – this would also allow us to build a walkway on top later.