Building The Nomonhan Table: Part One

Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table: Part One
Planning & Construction
with Casey Davies

Designing and building the table that we used to depict the battles at Nomonhan was tricky. Talking to Wayne who wrote the book, and looking at photos and maps of the area showed that there were no distinctive features in the area.
The terrain was undulating steppes with a couple of significant high points, devoid of buildings, farms, roads and trees.

The defining feature of the whole area is the Kalkin Gol river. Obviously the river played a fairly major role at the tactical level, but unfortunately for my modelling purposes it didn’t play a major role in the individual battles. The area close to the river however was quite sandy, making it easy for infantry to dig in.
Below: A few of the historical reference photos I found of the actual battlefields.
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
With the research done I moved on to planning the table. I decided to compress the terrain a little bit. I also decided to take a bit of artistic license and add a dry stream bed onto the table for a bit of variety (I’m sure that the Kalkin Gol had lots of feeder streams) so I don’t think it was too much of a stretch. I decided to make the stream dry because the models would photograph better in a dry stream, and I didn’t want to deal with making a resin river.

Right: My plan for the Nomonhan table.
Building The Nomonhan Table
After translating the plan onto the table I developed the design further and added in areas of eroded sand near the dry stream for more interest. The table is made up of a 4’ x 4’ and a 4’ x 2’ section, with the 4’ x 2’ section being able to attach at either end.

There are two ways to approach building a table. The first is to build up layers of polystyrene. The second is to start from a thick polystyrene base and carve it up. I decided on the second method as I though carving the table would make for a more organic looking table, even though it probably takes more time and effort. Another little trick I used was to draw the cross-section on the side of the table as a reference for where I wanted to carve down to.
Below: The plan translated onto the table.
Building The Nomonhan Table
Carving It up
The next part of the table is quite obvious. I got a couple of different saws, chisels and rasps and started hacking up and shaping the table.

Below left & right: Shaping the table with the saws.
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
It’s worth noting that as I was carving the table down I was constantly redrawing my plan over the top of the table as I was carving it down to remind myself where I was up to.
Below: Redrawing the plan on the table during the carving process.
Building The Nomonhan Table
I wasn’t worries about the finish of the table at this stage as the next step is giving the table a good sanding.
Below left & right: The craving process from a couple of different angles.
Building The Nomonhan Table
Building The Nomonhan Table
Sanding It Down
The next step is sanding the table down to get rid of most of the saw marks. Again I didn’t worry about getting the surface absolutely perfect as I’ll be covering it up in later steps.
Below left & right: Sanding down to contours of the table.
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
Below: The table after the completion of the sanding stage.
Building The Nomonhan Table
I wasn’t precious at this stage and throughout the sanding stage I went back and re-carved sections down that didn’t quite fit my vision. I left the stream bed and areas of eroded sand rough to give a good representation of difficult going.
Below: The stream bed.
Below: A section of eroded sand.
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
Applying Sanding
After I was finally happy with the shape of the table I applied a generous layer of PVA glue over the table and covered the table in a mix of fine and coarse sand.
Below: Applying the layer of coarse sand.
Below: Applying the layer of fine sand.
Building The Nomonhan Table Building The Nomonhan Table
Building The Nomonhan Table Join Me Next Time When...
Join me next time as I complete this project by demonstrating how to paint and flock the table.

Left: Painting the table.

Read Building The Nomonhan Table: Part Two here...
Nomonhan Terrain Guide
In the meantime, here is a terrain guide for Nomonhan to help you classify terrain on your Flames Of War battlefields.

Download a PDF of the Nomonhan Terrain Guide here...

~ Casey.

Building The Nomonhan Table
Below: The completed Nomonhan table.
Building The Nomonhan Table