Unbreakable Miniatures
For whatever reason, some board games are just more fun on a larger scale. You can vary the landscape each time you play and it's a great way to attract opponents at a conventions or game stores.
This page contains a description of the Unbreakable prototype we made and a file you can download. Of course, there a million different ways to make your own, so use what you like and ignore the rest. And if you come up with something cool, send us a photo. Thanks!
Download
Some of the terrain features described on this page are available in Portable Document Format (PDF.) The file size is 1.5MB.
| Pages | Content |
|---|---|
| 1 | Hex Template |
| 2 | Craters - print 3 |
| 3 | Lava - print 2 |
| 4 - 5 | Mushroom Clouds - print 3 |
Units
For units, we used figures from MechWarrior. These are ideal because there are 3 types; infantry for squads, 'mechs for walkers, and vehicles for crawlers.
We purchased 1/2 inch (1.25cm) stick-on, vinyl letters and numbers and placed them on the top and bottom of the base of each unit. Decals on the bottom help out when you want to flip a figure over to show a change in its status or configuration.
To indicate that a squad is hovering, stack it on a cylindrical, clear plastic jewelry container. These fit perfectly to the base of the squads, as you can see in the photo.
Hex Mat
For the hex mat, we bought 2 yards of mottled green fabric. It came on a 48 inch (1.25m) bolt, so we ended up with a 4 foot by 6 foot (1.25m x 1.75m) mat. We should have bought an extra foot—it would have allowed us to indicate a crawler's dug-in configuration by draping a bit of extra material over the figure.
Next we made a 4 inch (10cm) hex template out of comic back board (see page 1 in the PDF.) Then we traced the template over and over onto the fabric with a black Sharpie. It's not perfect, but only 1 person so far has even noticed that the mat wasn't professionally made.
To keep the edges from fraying we sewed 1/2 inch (1.25cm), single fold bias tape along the top and bottom edges of the mat. The end result is light weight and folds neatly into a small area.
Craters and Lava
Nothing clever here, just printed larger versions of the crater and lava art from the regular board game (pages 2-3 in the PDF.) However, instead of hex shaped we made them irregular.
Print 3 copies of the crater page and 2 copies of the lava page on white card stock or full sheet labels. Then cut them out and mount on chip board or EVA foam.
Hills
We made hills out of 1 inch (2.5cm) thick styrofoam, which you can find at most craft and garden supply stores. For each hill, we cut out a roughly 3.5 inch (9cm) circle and shaved down the sides to give it a bit of a slope. However, we left the tops large and flat so there is plenty of room for figures. After shaping the hills, we painted them with several colors of acrylic.
Industry
For these we hunted down several buildings from Monsterpocalypse on eBay. A cheap alternative is to use the tin shells from votive candles as seen in the photo.
Lakes and Rough
These were the easiest to make. For lakes, we just cut irregular shapes out of blue EVA foam. And for rough, we cut irregular shapes out of coarse grain sandpaper. You might not want to use your favorite scissors to cut the sand paper!
Volcanoes
We purchased 3 x 6 inch (8cm x 16cm) styrofoam cones from a local hobby store and whittled them down with a steak knife. Then we painted them with several colors of acrylic.
Woods
We indicate woods terrain by placing a single miniature tree in a hex. But don't place every tree in the center of its hex; that makes it look like an orchard.
We purchased a bag of 50, 2.5 inch (6cm) tall pine trees from a model railroad store. Unfortunately, these were meant to be built into model terrain and had did not have bases. So we used 1 inch (2.5cm) metal washers and wood putty to create bases. Finally we painted the bases with acrylic so everything blended nicely.
Mushroom Clouds
Rather than create models of mushroom clouds, we used photos from 1950's and 60's nuclear tests (pages 4-5 in the PDF.) We laminated the photos and pasted them to both sides of some cardboard and put them in stands. You can see a couple of these in the Lake and Lava photos above.
Unfortunately, the two-sided mushroom clouds proved to be a bit unstable so we created the triangular stand ups you see in the photo. You can make whichever type you prefer or do something elaborate with cotton.
Acrobat Reader
All Interformic Game files are in Portable Document Format (PDF.) You can read and print these files using Adobe's Acrobat Reader. If you do not have Acrobat Reader, you can download a free copy from Adobe's web site.
