Welcome back, Dear Reader, to my ongoing hobby and competitive progress series for 2025. Previously on Road Through 2025, I had won the TabledTalk GT at my local game store and was riding high on that particular success – and let me say “thank you” again for all the kind words, comments, and well wishes I received after that. Winning my first GT was a great feeling, and it’s kind of surreal to see some of the work I’ve put in over the last four years pay off. I legit don’t know where I go from here, except that I need to focus on the WCW and my next event.
So this week it’s back to the grind as I work on a display board for the WCW and start prepping for my next event, the Challengers Cup. The big focus today will be on the display board, which has occupied a lot of my hobby time over the past week. Well, that and painting Aethon Shaan for the model review last weekend. He’s not done yet and I’m not wild about finishing him now that particular article’s done, but I’ll get him over the finish line at some point. I don’t really have the time to devote to him with the Emperor’s Children needing work.
Prepping the Display Board
My big hobby project – other than actually painting the Emperor’s Children I own – is getting the new display board together. This typically starts with a picture frame. I order frames that are 16″x20″ as these generally hold an elite army well and fit into my suitcase for transit. The goal here is something that’s functional and pretty but also relatively flat and easy to travel with – big display boards are a pain in the ass and I’ve got to fly to Atlanta, so the primary goal here is something I can put removable pieces on.
This is more or less the same process I used back when I built my display board for the Grand Narrative two years ago – you can find that bit here – doing a flat city street corner with some stand-up ruins and stained glass. I’m still proud of that one, but I want something different and themed specifically for my Emperor’s Children and that means Eldar ruins.
I plotted this out a few weeks ago, but here’s the general idea I was going for: 
The idea here is a large circular Eldar ruin base to act as a raised surface for half of the board/leader models, while the rest is a waste with overgrown Eldar ruins. Fairly easy, and simple to keep a low profile. After deliberation, I think I want the raised platform at the back of the base, just to have a nice raised area to draw attention to key models/leaders on, like my Winged Daemon Prince.
So with that in mind, I picked up the frames and got to cutting. I’m using 1″ foam to do the raised platform, which will give it some heft but not be too insane. I’m unsold right now on how I want to do the runes – they might just be painted or I may do some plasticard on top of that. Not sure yet. Ideally they’d be embossed or raised, but that’s not something I technically have the capability to do… could be something I get a friend with a Cricut to do, though… may be time to hit up Klobasnek and see what he’s up to these days…
Once I’d cut that, I started planning the rest – I’m going to do a layer of corkboard just to have something rough and textured to drop more onto, but this will likely end up mostly covered with dirt, rocks, and grass before all is said and done. I have some Aeldari ruins from the Deathworld forest terrain kit I picked up, and while I need to do some work on those to remove death world plants from them, they’ll largely go on there as-is. My current plan is to do four or five pieces of scatter terrain that serve to provide context and can can be moved around and packed when I need to transport the board. One key piece of this is the downed Ynnari Venom I am working on:
Putting small bases on these gives them a bit of additional weight and sturdiness while letting me do cool effects like “skidding into the dirt/rocks”. At the same time it also means I can re-use the vehicle later as terrain for something like Kill Team, or in other display boards. This guy will likely sit on the open corner and have a base that’s Astrogranite with extra grass and dirt. I’m doing my Emperor’s Children like my Black Legion and Night Lords in that regard – on gray wastes with small patches of dead grass and snow. It’s easy to do and striking, and having multiple display boards that play into that means I’ll have more options if I want to mix things up.
I don’t have a ton of Eldar/Drukhari miniatures, but I do have a couple of kits sitting around that I picked up when I was doing work for the “How to Paint Everything” articles on Eldar, so I have a couple of extra models I can use for basing here. Don’t be surprised if you see a crashed jetbike or destroyed Wraithguard model at some point on these, or my model bases. I also need to figure out how I’m going ot add a bunch of soulstones to the terrain, and I have a few ideas on that. Little touches like that go a long way to imroving a display board visually.
I also need to add way more detail to that board, and some of that will come from dirt and skulls and adding vines and grass. This one’s going to be a bit more overgrown than ones I’ve done in the past, and I’m trying to figure out how to incorporate more of the death world forest terrain in a way that feels like it’ll mesh with the winter/snow theme.
So what’s next? Well I need to get the rest of the corkboard cut, then seal the foam parts with a PVA glue mix so I can prime the board. But before that I’ll need to add a lot of that detail – sand, rocks, gravel, skulls. I particularly need to put sand and rocks in that crack I cut into the raised platform, to give the impression it has filled in with dirt since breaking. I’ll also have to reinforce the underside/back of the frame before I do any of this – it’s a bit wobbly, which isn’t ideal for transport and use, and being held in place by a series of small pins that turn sideways isn’t good enough.
Next Time: Challengers Cup Prep
That does it for this week’s update but come back next week when I’ll be doing final prep for Challengers Cup – list submission was yesterday so we’ve locked in our teams and lists and we’ll be doing some final planning and prep for the event, which will be at the end of September. I’ll also have more hobby progress to talk about, and I’m planning to get in more games soon – can’t rest on my laurels yet!
See you next Thursday.
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