Assembling the maps

This is the Semper Fi Fox Hill map, before assembly. Here you can see the map cut into the different contour levels, with each level glued to a layer of styrofoam. The gray rectangle at the top is a piece of cardboard that serves as base for the map. The green lines visible on the cardboard are what was left of the map after all the higher contour levels had been cut away.

The styrofoam I use comes in two thicknesses. The thinner one is 2mm thick and I buy it in hardware stores as a roll of insulation wallpaper. The other is 3mm thick and comes in flat sheets, about 75x100cm large. Originally, I used the 3mm for Leros and 2mm for the Semper Fi and GD'40 maps, but I have now switched to 3mm for all maps. It fits the scale a bit better so the finished map has quite realistic proportions with 20m contour levels. More importantly, the material is both stiffer (which means the maps hold up better to the occasional slip while handling) and more finegrained and therefore easier to cut. The drawback is that it's more expensive. I intend to continue using the 2mm stuff for games with 10m contour lines (such as GD'41 and Omaha).

Note on the assembly process: I start producing the different levels from the hilltops downwards. The hilltops I just cut out and glue to the styrofoam, but this does not work so well for some of the lower levels. As the paper tends to warp when it's been cut into very thin strips (such as some of the bigger pieces on the Fox Hill, Leros, or Objective Schmidt maps), I typically glue the highest remaining contour levels onto the styrofoam while it is still attached to the rest of the map. The best way of doing this is to mark the contour lines on the back of the map (e.g., by taping the map on the window and tracing the lines against the light with a pencil, a process which takes about 20 minutes per map) and apply glue only within the borders of the contour level. Then place the whole map on the styrofoam, gently pressing down the parts to be glued and taking care that it lies flat (i.e., no warping), and cut the unglued rest of the map off along the contour line, leaving only that one contour level on the styrofoam. If you're quick you can do this before the glue dries, so if your application of the glue does not exactly stay within the contour lines, you can still easily pull the rest of the map off the styrofoam after cutting. The process is then repeated with the next lower level. For large maps with complex terrain this will not work any more either, but the solution is simple: just prepare the lower levels first and glue them to the next higher level in several pieces. This is how I did it with GD'40.

One layer of the northern Leros map under construction. The layer is already glued to the base material, and partially cut out.

One layer of the Semper Fi/Changchon Ambush map, glued to the base and with the rest of the map already cut away.