Camping Mat Foam (EVA) Terrain

For me in small-town Australia, the pink dense "terrain builder" foam (XPS?) is pretty rare or pricey.  I don't have a big enough vocab of swearwords to deal with sty-foam (EPS). However every junk shop sells camping/yoga mats made of regrettably thin but pleasantly tough and dense foam. At a local nerdfest I realised the cosplayers had outfits made using this+hot glue, so when cleaning out my shed I decided to procrastinate with a fun job be environmentally proactive by recycling some old mats I needed to chuck.

 

These are incomplete; they need painting and details added but since the local hardware store is out of $5 spray-paint and I decline to pay $10 a can, they will remain unfinished until further notice. You get the idea of what it will look like, though... I added PVA-d sand for a bit of grit/texture near the crumbly bits.

As I dislike reinventing the wheel, a quick google showed I was not original in this idea.  Here are some sites I used for inspiration. If anyone finds more info/guides on making stuff with this type of foam, I'd appreciate a link. I also got ideas by just googling 28mm medieval ruins and borrowing the ideas from store-bought 3D printed terrain.

The pink or blue XPS modelling foam is rare in my neck of the woods, but these camping mats are $10 for a dozen and are almost universally common. Each mat yielded a 12x12" square (for another project) and enough leftovers for a terrain piece or two.
 

I wanted medieval ruins as (despite hating hitpoints) I like the idea of a Necropolis/Idols of Torment netherworld/underworld battle of the dead (I don't have enough tattoos/like heavy metal enough to be fully into it) and also can use it for ruins for ME:SBG a la Osgiliath or even dwarf city ruins. I also wanted pieces sized to fit into a A4 IKEA box (I got carried and forgot though). 

As usual, speed > spending hours making some perfect display piece. I'm a dad with kids and a job, not a Youtuber.  

I sliced the mat into strips for the walls and scored vertical brick joins.

I laid them down on a base where I sketched my rough ideas and just  hot glued them.

It was actually pretty quick. Probably 45 minutes to an hour each for these bigger ones. I need to score bricks and paving stones and add grit/dust around the rubble.

The bottom one I got a bit carried away and exceeded my size limit, but the top one fits an A4 storage box and has a detachable top floor. I spent most of an afternoon and have enough terrain for a 4x4' board. The terrain is very tough and light and can be dropped (probably even thrown!) without harm.

I also designed them with gaming in mind so there are multiple entry points/passageways through the terrain i.e. the top levels have two access points.

I'll probably make some wall/and/corner sections to make more versatile layouts. Maybe some sarcophagi a la Balin for a crypt? A well to tip a skeleton into ("Fool of a Took!")? What else does a good underworld/medieval ruin need? Maybe a stable? I have some coffee stirrers for planking I plan to add in to connect up levels....

Well, I'm pretty satisfied with (a) the time it took (b) the tough, flexible nature of the terrain (c) the cost - nil so far. I'm sure I could do better with $200 of hot wire cutters, dremels and expensive xps, but this is getting rid of an untidy pile of matting under a table in my shed, so I'm calling this a win.

....Oops! Belated New Years post added....

Review of 2025 goals:

1. Build more terrain/game mats. Success! I have made sci fi boards, and am in the middle of "tankmunda" 15mm ruins and have built a dense Necromundaish sci fi board. Besides my current project.

2. Create Mordhiem warbands. Failed. I have some Frostgrave cultists and skaven but after printing out and re-reading the OG rules I lost enthusiasm. Have been testing solo/horde zombie rules to make my own Vermintide game though.

3. Finalize my tank skirmish rules based on post-apocalyptic 1930s where nomadic tank pirate gangs roam. Success?- I keep fiddling with them. My kids call this "Mortal Tanks." 

4. Collect any missing notable MESBG. Failed. +Expand into a similar system for cowboys or pirates for my kids... sort of? I'm making a cowboys vs undead based on Rail Wars. 

5. Paint my Battlefleet Gothic fleets. Failed. Too fiddly to do all the separate magnetizable options. Decision paralysis so... onto something else.

6. Do a 2025 update and playtest of all my ongoing homebrew rules. Failed. I did do tanks, mechs, weird west, not-Mordhiem, fighter submarines and space gunships a la The Expanse. The goal was a bit broad to be honest.

7. Paint 3 of my 15 unpainted projects.  Success! Battletech, 15mm Lawrence of Arabia & WW2 tanks. 

8. Find wargaming projects for my kids. Failed. I realize son likes playing, not painting so he doesn't get a vote. My daughter only paints sporadically. Did get her some 28mm heads to girl-ify my various warbands.  We tend to do more outdoorsy things - as they are 10 and 12.  I.e this holidays they learned to skateboard and skimboard. 

9. Allow myself one new system - Trench Crusade. Success? I bought it and regret it. The rules are interesting but flawed. I did keep to my "only one new commercial system" though which was the goal.

10. Start a new homebrew system. Success! That is easy. 

Hmm. 5/10? Not a good strike rate. I probably need to set smaller more specific goals....