This was an idea that I took from the Facebook group "Super Cheap Wargaming." Someone had printed out these terrain tiles, stuck them to flexible magnetic sheet and then used a metal surface to keep the tiles from moving around. It looked amazing. I decided to try it, but have had a few issues with it which I will document here.
As you can see I had to shrink them down. I essentially screen-clipped the PDF images onto a Word document. I did my best to make sure I kept them all roughly the same scale and this was largely successful. If there is an easier way to shrink them all down 80% then I would like to know. I think they have scaled down quite well. If I were to do it again I would make them slightly larger so the bases fit exactly within each square.
I am lazy. I wanted the most straightforward, least time consuming method of creating these terrain tiles. First I spent an evening chopping out the tiles. It was lovely, I put on a WW2 documentary and had a blast. Then I realised I would need to attach them to the
white side of the magnetic sheet. I would either have to make exact cuts on the magnetic sheet or cover the white. I decided to cover the white with black paper - this happened. This will not do.
After some reflection I decided to reprint the tiles on card, cut them out, and stick them on squares of magnetic sheet. The magnetic sheet does not need to be the same size as the tiles as they are thick enough to hold miniatures.
This is a seamless edit as I have at this point completed some tiles.
Well it turned out that the white side of the magnetic sheet was something you peel off to reveal a self-adhesive layer! Thus, I haven't needed glue or double sided tape. It has been a dream. See below.
Each tile has a strip of magnetic strip. Smaller than the size of the tile, cut roughly. They hold miniatures well enough. It will just be a bit time consuming cutting it all out and sticking strips of magnet on the back. I am excited about this though.
I should also at some point buy a non-used baking tray to use exclusively for magnetic terrain.
I’ve done something similar, and here’s a few suggestions. Your pdf program should have an option to scale the output when you print it, rather than having to copy and paste it. If not, you may be able to use Inkscape or similar programs to open the pdf and scale the image directly.
ReplyDeleteFor a board, I got a comfortably sized dry erase board that the magnets will stick to. Add some dark poster paper to cover the bright white and I have an excellent board to set up on.