Deadzone: Raising the Base

When I first started looking into playing Deadzone it was obvious that the terrain that makes up the playing board acts as a third player in the battles, such is it's importance. I also was caught by a video I watched on Andy 2D6's channel in which he had a pre-built board with trenches below the ground level of the map. That looked like an excellent idea but as it was a fixed battle board it also lacked the flexibility I look for in my terrain, I presume it also took up a fair bit of storage space.
The idea stayed with me and I thought about a way to give the same upgrade in interest to my board but with greater flexibility. With the announcement of Deadzone v3 I decided this was the spur I needed to bring the dream to reality. 

Having used Warbases before for a custom job I sent them an email with my initial design and asked them if it could be made up in MDF. The initial design had a series of grooves around the edge of each piece and to mark out the 3 inch squares to help the buildings sit in place but as these could not be cut we eventually agreed on a more simple design and after a few delays due to Covid I received the kits last week. 

After gluing them together I put a mix of Polyfilla & paint around the edge, I'd designed in an overhang to allow for a textured wall and the ability for the pieces to still align up next to each other. I then set about the pieces with some craft paints to add some colour. I will probably come back to them once we hit spring and the weather is warmer so I can work outside with spray paints.

In order to give the required flexibility in use I had four sets of pieces made each consisting of four pieces in the sizes 9" * 9", 6" * 6", 3" * 6", & 3" * 3". This is enough when all used together to completely cover a standard 24" square Deadzone mat. Well it would be if Deadzone used 3" squares, in fact it uses 7.5cm squares. But my custom mat I had made uses 3" squares so these fit perfectly on that mat and the slightly large area of the pieces allows the Deadzone buildings to sit securely on them.

On a standard board size you could easily create some trenches by removing a few of the small pieces and leaving the rest in situ.

You could also pile them up to make the basis for boards with extra height, much higher than you would normally put the buildings together to achieve.

Overall I'm really happy with these, they do exactly what I'd wanted which is to give a flexible way to add some interest to the Deadzone battlefield and they should help spice up my games for many many years to come.

In fact these have worked so well I've been laying down ideas for a Stalingrad battle board based on this design but with extra slots which would allow buildings to be attached direct onto the base pieces. I think this would be easier & cheaper to do if I owned a laser cutter so certainly not something I will be doing anytime soon.