MATERIAL USED 4' x 4' MDF board. Eight 20" x 4" pieces of balsa wood (the thin stuff). Four 1"x 1" thick wood batons, 48" in length. Two small business card holders. One large business card holder. One 12" x 12" polystyrene kitchen tile. Four 20" x 20" x 1" thick polystyrene tiles. Eight cake decoration pillars, approximately 6" high. PVA woodworking glue. Sand. Four ruined buildings from The Fellowship of The Ring boxed game. Eight plastic road sections (available from most good model shops). Citadel paints: Codex Grey, Fortress Grey, Shadow Grey, Ghostly Grey, Bestial Brown and Tentacle Pink. Chaos Black undercoat spray. We also took the pots of Codex Grey down to a paint shop and, using the mixing machines there, matched it to a colour and bought a 1/2 ltr pot of that colour. This service can be found at most good DIY centres. A large paintbrush.

PLANNING

Making any type of scenery, let alone a themed battleboard, can be a daunting prospect for many gamers. However, we know from experience that the only way to get better is practice! When we were asked to get involved in The Lord of The Rings project, we jumped at the chance.

Most gamers are quite happy to improvise with various bits of scenery, but the Balin's Tomb scenario is set in a cavern deep in the heart of Moria and deserved a special piece of terrain. To construct this we would have to build a self-contained board with a subterranean theme.

We gave ourselves three days to complete the task and, bearing this in mind, we knew that it should be more representational than a faithful copy of the tomb shown in the film because it would be for playing the scenario in the rules manual. It would have to be more functional than aesthetic, and had to be suited for The Lord of The Rings game to be to played on.

The first stage was to gather as much imagery about the game as possible. Luckily, we managed to get our hands on a copy of the rules manual and we soon began to get an idea of what we needed to make a great board that would do justice to the game.

The board was to be 4' x 4' and would look very similar to the map shown in the scenario, although there would be a few slight variations.

We decided to make our board look more symmetrical and that the emphasis would be around the actual tomb of Balin. Also, because the tomb is meant to be within the abandoned halls of Moria, it needed to look ruinous.

The centre of the board would be a raised platform with the tomb on top. Surrounding this would be eight pillars set in a circular formation. Plastic buildings from the game would be placed into four rooms to represent separate chambers. Inside these would be smaller tombs that had been desecrated. The outside of the board would be surrounded by a wall and a walkway which would make the tomb appear to be underground.

PUTTING IT TOGETHER

We began by sawing two of the long strips of wood down to 46", then screwed each strip onto a board edge. This would help stabilise the wood and stop it from warping when we put the sand on later.

Next, we screwed two pieces of balsa wood to each side of each board edge, allowing for an exit as illustrated in the plan – the bottom of the balsa wood had to be in line with the frame we had just screwed underneath. This would be the outer wall and would help the board look like a chamber. Cutting the large polystyrene tile pieces into long L-shapes, we placed each into a corner, gluing them into place on the board against the outer wall.

Next: Inside The Tomb