With my Blood Bowl team pretty much done (pictures coming up soonish), and armed with experience gained from building my BB pitch, I’ve decided to start a new project. I went through my boxes of old stuff some time ago, and dug out the old Leading Edge Aliens board game that I bought for a pittance years and years ago. I’ve played this game so many times in my teens, due to its solo play option. I remember sitting in my room at the age of 14 or 15, and just playing the game over and over and over again.
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It wasn’t too difficult to form the following chain of thought: “Hmm, I really want to play this game again” to “I have loads of Colonial Marine and Alien miniatures” to “I wonder if the playing board accommodates 28mm miniatures – no” to…oh, you know how it goes. So now I’m looking to build a 3D gaming board to recreate the main – and in my opinion best – scenario from the game. It’s of course the reactor room one, where most of the CM squad is ripped apart. It’s a pretty difficult and brutal mission, but perfectly captures the feeling of the movie. Don’t believe me? Try the Flash version and come back!
With this in mind I picked up a sheet of blue foam and the Aliens game board and did some calculations. The original board is 14 by 25 squares. When I translated the squares to 30mm ones and left some extra room at the sides, it amounted to a 42,3 cm by 75,3 cm board. Perfectly reasonable size, only a bit larger than my Blood Bowl pitch. Storage is always an issue for me when it comes to wargaming scenery. Or rather, it has started to become an issue due to not being an issue before.
The Blood Bowl pitch project certainly taught me something, and that was to be careful with measurements and cutting. As a result, the Aliens board is much more symmetrical and the square grid much more even. I used the same push-pins and string -technique to build the grid, and used a felt-tip marker to mark the corners of the squares. Much more fun an easy than with the pitch.
After doing the grid, I marked down or the obstacles on the board so I know what to build and where, and that’s where I’m now. I’m thinking of attaching the various bits and pieces of the game board – at least the larger ones – with magnets, so they can be removed for easier storage.
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(No, it’s not that irregular – the camera angle’s doing some nasty tricks there!)
What’s next? I’m thinking of buying a suitable plastic or metal mesh to use as flooring. While there are some nice stuff in resin and etched brass out there, I’m trying to optimise the cost/looks ratio. For the obstacles it’s going to be lots of scratch building, green stuff and some resin accessories I have stashed away. That’s one great thing about starting projects, especially thematically similar ones: you can use leftovers or stuff bought for something else easily. And of course I have all the Marines and Aliens I need already.
Ideas, comments, insight and encouragement warmly welcomed.
Dawn of the Lead 