Guild Ball Pitch

The tale of when I went a bit crazy and built a Guild Ball table!

 

I'm not one for usually building/making terrain, its not something that I particularly enjoy, and usually down to impatience, not something that usually goes very well, but for some reason a couple of weeks a go I thought I'd build myself a table!

 

A quick trip to B&Q saw me pick up a nice piece of MDF off cut for £5; cut to size. I got it home, cut the left over bits to make a frame and used some beading to curve the corners.

 

 

The plan was to give the board some height, but just enough so that I would be able to turn the board over to use the other side for an alternative setting; probably a city scape, but more of that another time.

 

So with some blue polystyrene foam, I created some hills for my board, making a valley to play in. 

 

Next I used some filler to smooth off the hills, fill the gaps and also create the area for the stream/small river that would travel from one corner of the board to the other.

 

I then added bases for the trees that would adorn the board when it was done. The trees would not be attached to the board, but placed on when playing. The bases were again smoothed onto the board using filler.

 

Once the filler was dry, the whole board was painted brown, this would ensure that if any of the grass that would be added later wore off, the ground would still look natural and not bright blue

Once the paint was dry, the whole board was coated in PVA glue and then covered in static grass, once dry, the boars was turned over to removed any loose grass, and any gaps then filled. This was done a few times to ensure there were no gaps.

 

Once the grass was dry the rocky parts of the board were painted, firstly undercoated black, ever increasing amounts of white were added and the paint applied to the rocky edge of the lower hill, and the raised parts of the river bed.

 

Again the board was left to dry. Once it was, all of the grassy area was covered in watered down PVA glue, to ensure that the grass would not rub off during play.

 

Next bushes, and if you look closely, some flowers were added to the board. The frame was also painted black. The river/stream was coated in PVA glue to seal it, this would prevent the Realistic Water from seeping into the wood.

 

Before adding the Realistic Water, the stream/river was painted a mix of green, brown and blue.

 

Again delaying the addition of the Realistic Water, the pitch markings for Guild Ball were added. I expect this board will be used for other games such as Saga and Dux Bellorum, if that's the case, then these lines make handy deployment zones.

 

It was then time to take the plunge, and add the water. I poured it in and it took gravities lead and ran off down the stream. After a bit of levelling, the water stopped flowing and it was left for 24 hours to set

 

Whilst the water was drying I built the trees

 

The water didn't behave, and some of it did escape the edge of its proposed route. but once it was dry I was able to peel off the excess, block up the hole and add a second later of water. I also added some more stones to the ford in the middle of the pitch

 

Once the second coat of water was dry, the flooded area was repaired, you'd never know there was an issue

 

After painting the rest of the edges, it was done. Just in time for some lovely weather outside and some artistic shots of the board.

 

Best crack on with my team now, and look forward to my first game on my new board...

....now what shall I do on the other side?

The fully finished pitch, with Morticians goal, in glorious sunshine

The river/stream splits the pitch into three parts

The withered trees protect both left and right flanks

A view down the river/stream

A side on view of the pitch

The final addition to my board was a handle to help carry it around the house and to our club.