Heroic Maps Pharoah's Tomb and Finger and Toe Models Catacombs

I blame Netflix, I do...

After getting the rules, painting up the figures, and doing some terrain boards, our VSF/EOTD project stalled as we moved on to other genres. Now, after watching Penny Dreadful (excellent series - great acting, and the sets are just begging to be reproduced on the tabletop), I felt the need to do some work for the period.

As my faction is Egyptian-themed, from the outset I have wanted an Egyptian-themed headquarters for them, so this became the choice for my project. I imagined a Victorian mansion that looked Victorian from the outside, but had Egyptian decor on the inside.

Due to a lack of storage space, I knew I wanted something that can be taken down and packed more or less flat, but I also wanted it to be interesting from a game-play point of view.

I went to my usual source for 2D terrain: Heroic Maps. After looking at a few of their Egyptian offerings, I ended up getting their free Pharoah's Tomb - Upper pack (there is a - Lower pack which depicts the underground part of this pack.

The pack shows a pillared courtyard that rises in a few levels to lead to an interior.

The architecture of the area represented made me decide to try something I have always wanted to try: a 2.5D terrain. This would involve gluing multiple layers of materials on top of each other, and I knew that the material I would use is 1mm PVC foam sheets, which are now my favourite craft material. Instead of representing the pillars in full-height, I would use something that is about man-height instead.

For the interior, I decided to go for full-height walls. For the texture of the walls, I went for Finger and Toe Model's Catacombs pack. This pack provided walls and pillars "skins" for Egyptian, Greek, and Roman interiors.

After some calculations, I decided to get the foam sheets in 1mm for the courtyard, in 3mm for the walls, and in 5mm for the interior. I had planned on getting wooden thread spools for the pillars, but the art shop did not have them, so I settled for corks instead. To colour the sides of the foam sheets, I also bought a coloured marker.

After four straight hours, I managed to complete the project, shown here with the walls tacked together by removable tape.

Here is a more lateral view of the set-up, showing the elevations of the terraces.

The whole set-up is broken down into three parts: the courtyard with a platform in the middle, a terrace of steps, and the interior space. Broken down, the largest piece has the footprint of just under 28cm x 22cm.

I am quite happy with the result, except that the corks aren't tall enough to block a figure entirely; I might glue two corks narrow-end to narrow-end instead, or just buy some wooden spools from ebay.

(Added: Check out this large battle-board made with Heroic Maps' geomorphic tiles.)