While re-organising my game collection I came across these boards I made about a year ago.  I’m a massive fan of the board game descent and while browsing the web I came across Hirst Arts moulds.  Using just simple plaster with these moulds you can create some brilliant 3d terrain to bring your games to life.

First I read the tutorial here on their site about how to use the moulds and then the tutorial on making the descent boards here.  Then I got out my credit card and within 3 weeks the moulds were in my hands.  You can get these quicker by ordering from the UK on ebay but I was so eager at the time I just ordered straight from the Hirst website without looking for other suppliers.

With the two moulds for descent you can make any amount of dungeon flooring that you need as long as you have plaster.  I made a massive amount of the tiles and it still was not enough to make all the boards for Descent: Journeys in the dark, let alone all the expansions that I own.

To make these boards I used a thin piece of plywood and secured the tiles with simple white craft glue.  This glue is brilliant for this task as you can move the tiles around while the glue is wet to make sure they are perfectly aligned then I added smaller modelling stones if I think the board needed it..  The other nice thing about this glue is that when it dry’s it loses all it’s colour and becomes clear.

Once I was happy with the position of the tiles I then left the boards overnight to make sure that the glue completely dried. The next step is to paint the boards.  I used a dark green to under-coated the whole board then dry brusehed with a beige colour.  Then to highlight the raised areas I used white, dry brushed very lightly, on top of the beige.

I added grass in the deep pits just to give the boards some life as they can look all the same if your not careful.  I also changed areas by placing blood trails and wooden boards over some of the holes.

The moulds also give you some extra accessories like doors and treasures for your game.  If you are serious about making terrain for your games then you cant go far wrong with these moulds but I did find that the price of all the plaster can mount up quite quickly.