This series of blogs has been purposefully designed to supplement our discussion on the inspiration and creation of our army, Pannithor’s Nightmare, as shared on the Counter Charge Podcast. Hopefully we have shared enough information on our decisions and the process used to inspire you to create something unique of your own. In this installment Rob takes you through the process of creating the display board for this army.

Our original idea for the display board was a giant book as included in our very first concept sketch. However, over time we gravitated to the idea that the books would be better suited as part of our basing. We circulated through a ton of other ideas from a giant table, a wizards library, researchers study and everything in between. We also decided on a backup plan in the event that we ran out of time, which was a distinct possibility. Our backup plan would have been a large wood planked floor to match our basing. Ironically it would have been similar to what we ended up with if has we not included any furniture. In the end we finalized on the a display board as originally described in our December brainstorming session. A basic room with a wooden book shelf and a desk. We were attracted to the idea of a display board that was vertical yet relatively shallow in depth. With the idea in hand I created tons of sketches until I had something that felt right. After measuring the height of each unit with basing I mocked up how units would fit together on the book shelf. We used this information plus the relative scale of the books being created for the basing to determine the size of the furniture and the number and height of shelves in the book shelf. Finally I used CAD to draw up a simple sketch of the finished board. This step forced me to visualize the various pieces, dimensions and ensure everything will fit together. The is also the point in which I started to figure out how I’m actually going to build it.

With the design plan in hand my first step was to determine what materials I would use and what I needed to buy. The board that the furniture attaches to is made from a 1/2” thick 24” square piece of plywood. This is the size board that fits on my custom built cart created for my Salamander army that I use to move armies around events. However, had I not had the cart this display could have been much smaller as the verticalness allowed us to stack more units in less space. The “flooring” was created with 1/16” thick x 1” wide balsa wood strips. However, unlike the basing the flooring was just sanded rather than being carved up with a wire brush. To complete the wooden floor look I added a few tiny silver finishing nails in a couple of places to make the boards look like they were nailed down.

For the desk I used the same 1/2” plywood to make the top which was sized 7 1/2” wide by 12” long. The legs were made from a prefinished 2” square banister cut into 4 pieces and attached with screws from the top. In retrospect it would have been better to use an unfished 2” x 2” as it would have made staining much easier. The decorative skirting on the front was jig sawed from the top of a wooden gift box. Then additional decorative elements were added to the front using a mix of 1/2” and 1” balsa wood strips that were 1/16” thick. The top of the desk was covered with 1/2” wide balsa wood strips carved with a wire brush exactly as was done for the basing.

For the book shelf the side and shelves were made from the 1/2” thick plywood assembled with glues and nails. The frame is roughly 6” wide and 18” tall with the space between each shelf being 6”. I then covered creating the decorative element on at the top and covered the shelves shelves exactly like the desk. To keep units from sliding off I add small strips of 1/4” square balsa wood to the back of each shelf. Finally I added some vertical molding to the front of both uprights using premade doll house floor boards that were 1/4 scale and came in 36” strips.

Here are a few shots of the finished board before staining an painting.

With the furniture and display board assembled I worked to find a satisfying layout for the units. I did my best to intermix the armies so that each shelf would have Night Stalkers and Forces of the Abyss. I also tried to break up heights and place the coolest units on the desk where they would be most visible. One change from our plan shown below was we did swap the location of the Tortured Souls and the Soul Flayers once we decided to add LEDs under the desk.

Since the furniture and board were entirely wood I used a dark stain over all the surfaces. While it turned out great on the flooring I ended up repainting the furniture with Raw Umber and dry brushed to match the better match the basing. It had the added benefit of contrasting the furniture from the floor with a slightly lighter tone. Drawer pulls for the desk were made from craft beads. I closed the hole on one end with green stuff and mounted them to to the desk with a piece of brass rod after painting. I varnished all the surfaces with several coats of matt varnish. With the furniture complete they were secured to the board with L brackets. I tried several materials to create the back wall but in the end I went with 1/2” thick black foam core. It was painted with an airbrush in several shads of green to build up a warm hunter green color and mounted to the back of the furniture with Velcro. The addition of the wall really brought the whole board together and really sells the idea that you are looking into a room.

We added a few finishing touches that really helps make the room feel lived in. First I created rows of book that were in roughly the same scale as the books on the bases. Obviously these books only filled 1/2 the depth of the shelf but they really made excellent backdrops.. Each section was made out of a single piece of extruded construction foam with each “book” being formed using my Proxxon Hot Wire Table. Because these would mostly be covered up in the front by units and that it would be very dark towards the back for the shelf I painted them with an airbrush using brighter colors than can be found in the rest of this project.

Next up I mounted Halfling artwork from Mantic in a frame created using the same molding used on the book shelf. The frame was airbrushed gold prior to mounting on the wall with Velcro. We then added some LED lighting mounted under the desk to shine down on the Tortured Souls. Finally we had a cloth runner, a crocheted rug, some ivy and a few potted plants to make the room look more worn in.

To complete the theme and add to the experience we pulled together a few extra accessories that we felt took the army to the next level for folks at the event. Dan created a name plate for the army using a leather bound journal. The journal continued the book theme and included our background story along with a spot for our opponents to leave their mark. Dan also created army lists on weathered and stained parchment that we delivered to our opponents rolled up and secured with a wax seal. On my end I took a wooden book box and turned it into a dice and widget carrier with a built in turn and score tracker. I airbrushed a simple demon image in green on the cover to tie it in with our army. Turns and scores were tracked by silver and gold skulls that attached to the track with magnets. Finally we picked up some off the shelf dice from Baron of Dice that matched our army quite well.

And here’s a few shots of the finished display board.