Building a sewer table

For some reason I really like sewers and similar areas as a setting for action scenes. If I had to take I guess why, it probably has something to do with my love for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles-Franchise. No matter if its in movies, tv shows, comic books or videogames, I just really enjoy the feel of those cramped spaces, small cylindrical tunnels and pipes, rivers of sludge, old brick walls and more often than not ridicolously large waterfalls into deep caverns. So when I started playing the two superhero tabletop systems by Knight Models (more on those later) I knew wanted to build a sewer-themed gaming table.



This piece here was the first concept for the project. I wanted to see if I could capture the look of what I was going for. Brick walls, canals, pipes. You know the drill.

Now that I knew what that the colors and parts worked, I began planning the thing. What makes a good sewer? Not like an actual sewer but one that would make a cool place for heroes and villians duking it out underneath the city. You know, a videogame sewer. And how much of that could actually be a playable gaming area?

Batman: Arkham Asylum - Warner Bros. Interactive

The sewers of Paris, appearantly.

I knew I wanted water in some kind of canals, but I still needed a lot of floor for the miniatures to "walk" on, including spaces large enough for models on 60mm bases. I experimented a bit with multiple tiles with fixed canals, similar to the original Forge World Zone Mortalis but that left me with a lot of pillars and very few walls. I also tend to plan ahead for multiple projects and since I had plans for a harbor table later down the line, I thought that movable pieces on a water-ish looking surface area would be a better way to achive what I was going for.

The table was going to be 90x90cm big (or 36"by36" if you prefer) because that's the size for Knight Models systems. Not big enough for 40k but I didn't expect any tanks in this sewer system anyway.

I started with a few walls and corner pieces. To achive the "brick walls and arched tunnels"-look I was aiming for I went strait to model train scenery. I used those directly or the paper-variant and glued those on styrofoam walls. The floors were also made of styrofoam, because it's not heavy, easy to cut and doesn't bend when glued like wood sometimes does.

Next was the centerpiece. I knew I wanted at least one pipe big enough for characters to walk through, with a big gaping open end that would just flush them out if they stayed in there too long. I used a cardboard tube, because it was easy enough to cut. I tried regular plastic pipes from the hardware store and while they look nice, they are way to thick. And I needed to cut out pieces, so you could still move the miniatures inside.

It's flushing time!

Still, I wanted more pipes, so I used smaller plastic parts on another piece. That one's not really playable much, but it enhances the look.

Next was what I called the Entrance. Again, going back to tv shows and comic books, imagine some kind of pipes that connected the sewers straight to the ocean or a river. Happens a few times in various Batman shows/movies. So I build a larger wall section that could also function as one end of the big pipe that leads out into larger bodies of water. And planing for future tables, the other side can always be used as part of a harbor table.

With a few more corners and walls, I have enough pieces to fill a 90x90cm table. I had walls, corners, doors, pipes, walkways, stairs. And then I put all the pieces on it.

But what about the water? I was thinking about achiving the look with paint and wood glue but in the end I settled on just using a printed playmat with swamp theme. That way the individual pieces sit better on the surface. Ordered one from Playmats.eu because they had just the right color of green. Then I just had to paint the pieces and voila, you can almost smell it.

 Now if only I could get a 2nd game in on that darn thing.