Simple Wargaming Board Ideas

In this article, we’ll cover some quick ideas for building simple wargaming boards. Setting up for a game with friends after work or on the weekend can be quick and easy when you have a collection of painted terrain, leaving more time to get stuck into rolling dice. But if you’re starting from scratch, having a theme in mind and a simple paint scheme can mean getting your wargame board ready in no time. So here are some simple ideas and inspiration to get you started.

Swamp Ruins Board

For this board, we’re using the models from the Gloaming Wilderness range, like the Bamboo Temple, and some from New Eden (which the Bamboo models are based on). These models all tie in together really well and have a good mixture of playability and visual impact with their multi-level components and open areas. We’ve sprinkled in some Gloomwood Trees, too, for good measure. The board is plain plywood painted green, various green flocks sprinkled, and some medium ballast focused around the terrain. We have a paint guide for this terrain here.

Cursed Shadow Realm Board

This board uses many models from the Shadowfey Wilds, with the centrepiece being the Tower of Insanity model. This terrain and board are great for wargames with a bit of RPG flavour, as all the buildings have interiors, and the tower is fully open to explore as well. The board is a neoprene mat with some dark green flock sprinkled around the buildings. We find this is a quick way to visually “place” the models on the mat, helping them blend in. We also have some tutorials for the trees, ruins, and skull model to get this terrain ready for the table.

Ancient Alien Planet Board

This board uses New Eden buildings and scatter terrain on polystyrene mounted on MDF. This is a great way to make a modular board that saves a lot of time in the future. Just create some random shapes of polystyrene, mount them on MDF and cut them to the same shape (or MDF first, up to you), then glue on your terrain, paint it, flock it, and seal it in. Instead of laying out 20+ models, you can combine them into these chunks and create a board with just as much variety. The board is just a neoprene mat that matches the colour of the flock used on the polystyrene chunks.

Dwarven Fortress Board

Here’s a great board for a more narrative-oriented wargaming session, with models from our Dwarven range protected by a wall of Ironhelm Ramparts and Bastions spanning most of the board. Here, you could have one player on defence, the other on offence, or you could break the walls into smaller “scatter-like” chunks. All the terrain goes together nicely, but a simple sprinkle of snow flock ties it all together. Sprinkle some on the rooftops and walkways for an immersive look and feel. Here’s a painting guide for the dwarven terrain to get it tabletop-ready.

Pits of Hell Board

Here’s another narrative board with a wall and ramparts dividing the battlefield. We’ve used models from the Demons range, like the Doom Ramparts and Stairways to Hell. You can remove the wall sections and leave the Bastion towers from the ramparts for a more open board for a pitched battle. The portals could make for great objectives to defend or even have special house rules for getting behind enemy lines. The board is again a thematic neoprene mat. Here’s a painting guide for how we did the demon terrain.

Ruined Medieval Village Board

Here’s a classic medieval village in ruins using King & Country range models. We focused on using the ruined versions for all models, as the more open space of ruins lends itself more to wargaming boards. Small fences and half-destroyed buildings make great cover and line-of-sight blocking terrain, which is especially important in certain skirmish games. Some Wildwood Trees complete the look of the decayed village, and a neoprene mat with roads helped inform the town’s layout. Here are a couple of painting guides for medieval stone and textures that could help get your models tabletop-ready.

I hope these quick wargaming board ideas have sparked some inspiration; we certainly had fun laying them all out. You can build many combinations of terrain to make awesome boards, and even simple ones like these can bring new levels of immersion to your quick after-work wargaming sessions.