Another fold-flat scenario test

Here is yet another test for fold-flat terrain, in this case dungeons or sci-fi bases. The wall segments are simple two-sided strips with a folded base to hold the floor piece. Walls are conected by triangular posts, with small paper clips (in this 15mm scale version).

This is what the pieces look when taken apart:

Multiple rooms can be connected simply by adding more posts and walls. The main problem is finding a better way to fix the floor. Currently, it is held between the triangular posts and the folded pieces of the walls, but this is not very stable.

One alternative might be to simply have a large floor tile and place the entire set of walls above it, instead of having separate floor pieces for each room.

A modular board inspired by videogame level design

Since I played Borderlands, I have been thinking about how great it would be to play skirmish games in some of its maps, like New Haven and Old Haven. Inspired by those, I have built this board using simple boxes as a first study. I tried to replicate some elements from the game maps, like varying building heights, lack of alignment between them and lack of symmetry between map areas.

This was built in a reduced scale to play measuring centimeters as inches. The board is 36cm x 48cm thus representing an area of 3' x 4'. Here is a picture with some miniatures.

This is also yet another experiment with modular, flat-folding structures. Each board section has the building locations marked, with two slits cut to fit the building bottom flaps. This way, I can reuse the same buildings in different setups. At the same time, I avoid the problem of accidentally pushing the buildings around while playing, which is very frequent when I play at this reduced scale.

Test building another modular tile design

Here are some shots of the test build of another tile system, designed to play at 1cm = 1" scale, i.e. printing 28mm miniatures at around 40% size. Each tile is made of a 6cm square glued to a base with some slots, creating a simple slot and connector system.

Tiles are kept together by fitting connectors to the slots...

This results in a mesh of small connected squares.

Here is a shot with some miniatures (from Battle Studios) printed at 40% scale.

At this size, I can fit three tiles per page, meaning I would need twelve pages to make the equivalent of a 3'x3' board. Each tile could be two-sided, to add variety too. I think that for 6" tiles -- to play with 28mm scale miniatures, for instance -- additional slots would be needed to keep the tiles aligned. Also, each tile would require two sheets of paper to build, so I do not think this design would be very good for larger scales.

Dungeon Tiles and Walls

Today I built some pieces of the Dungeon Tiles and Walls set, created by Eddnic of the Fantasy Paper Miniature Models blog and published by Avalon Games. There are several products for the creation of paper dungeon environments, from flat tile sets to full 3D scenarios. This one offers a lot of flexibility and modularity with the added bonus of allowing all pieces to be stored flat. OK, calling it a "bonus" is unfair as the set was carefully designed to allow this feature -- this becomes evident when you see the flat-folding stairway...

The heart of the set are the pillars, wall sections and door frames, which can be combined in a variety of ways. Most of the building process involves easy cuts with a hobby knife and some folding. The layout of the pieces on the sheets makes the process of scoring (marking the fold lines with a dull knife or ball pen without ink, to make folding easier) the pieces very efficient. The only parts that require glue are a few tabs on the pillars and on the stairway piece. Here are some shots of the built pieces.

The doors are slotted into the door frames, so it is possible to show the open or closed state of each passageway. There are different versions, such as wooden doors and metal bars. There is also a stand-alone door frame model, which could be used just to add some 3D elements to a flat map.

Here is a shot of the separate pieces that I built. It is possible to see a dungeon tile (there are many others in the set), some connectors, which are used to create passageways and bridge rooms together, the slotted pillars, wall sections and doorways. A clever modular system.

And lastly, the unfolded pieces, ready for storage. This shot highlights the simplicity of the pieces, which are easy to cut and build. To be honest, this was supposed to be a test build just to check out the product, but I really enjoyed making these and so I decided to make a post about it.

Conclusion

I love modular terrain systems, and this was the reason I got this product. It proved to deliver what it promised, with easy to build, good-looking pieces that can be stored flat. A friend of mine has been interested in playing some dungeon hacking so I might make more dungeon pieces to use in that game.

Another Platform Command test build

Since I completed the hover truck and I still had some free time, I decided to make a test build of the structures. This picture show the results. They are printed at a scale of 39.4% (to play with cm as inches.)

The platforms are designed to be glued to foamboard but at this scale, a piece of cardboard had just the perfect thickness to be used instead. Therefore, I did not have to make any adaptations to the original pieces.

Here is a final picture with the hover truck for scale comparison.

A platoon of game tokens

Last evening I was able to prepare some miniatures and markers to finally try some large-scale 5150: Star Army battles. I wanted to do something like this since Okum Arts released the Retro Space line. I even printed some space patrol and aliens in 15mm. However, I'd get stuck thinking, "ok, now I have to make some defensive structures, and bunkers, and vehicles..." and never finished the project.

So this time I went back to the "paper miniatures as game tokens" mentality and built a much simpler set. I made T-frames with Okum Arts minis and recolored sci-fi vehicles from Junior General. I also made some small bunker markers and very simple 3D "defensive modules." Here's the result:

Paper Cars

Today I've built my first paper car from the amazing collection at Inkjet, Paper, Scissor, a papercraft blog run by Grendels_Mother64 also of the Cardboard Warriors forum. This model was printed at 50% scale to make it compatible with 15mm minis. Even at this reduced size it was very easy to build and looks great.

My advice when building them: glue one side to the top, then the other side and finally the floor. Now I have to build a few more to use in my modern games. Come to think of it, I now probably have more than enough terrain to play All Things Zombie. 

Those who are about to die

So I jumped the Red Sun Black Moon (RSBM) bandwagon, so to speak... While I frequently read the Two Hour Wargames discussion group, this title (and its older sibling, Red Sand Blue Sky) had been under the radar for me so far. Actually, what sold RSBM to me were these wonderful battle reports from Carmen's Fun Painty Time (more here and here) and every day new, awesome reports are popping up on the discussion group.

Since this game is played in an arena with sector-based movement, there is no need for a large board even if you use 28mm miniatures -- so I printed a bunch of them to use as my arena fighters. In this picture there are humans from Okum Arts, reptilians from One Monk, dwarves and elves from PERMES, the just-released lion men from Reivaj and orcs from Sanity Studios.

Here's the arena I made, drawing on a corkboard self-adhesive tile. Each of the 9 sectors in the middle is 2" wide. Later on I might add some 3D walls around it (maybe in a flat-folding format.)

While reading the rules I created a few fighters (as recommended) and staged some test battles to get the hang of the procedures. In very broad terms, the game's turns involve movement and when you end your movement in the same sector as another figure, you enter the maneuver phase. The maneuver phase models the fighters trying to find an opening in their opponent's defense and get an advantage. It is an opposed roll that may lead to an attack phase. This is similar to Qwik, but with a lot of additional details both in the test modifiers and in the outcomes. The fighters can also have several special abilities (and some negative effects, too,) referred to as signatures, which add to variety. And while you might roll some handfuls of dice at times, the game flows smoothly and welcomes narrative interpretation.

Fight!

Here's a battle report of my first complete fight in the arena. I played Karos, a red sun dwarf against Drush, a black moon orc. Dwarves and orcs have been fighting for ages, in wars, skirmishes and arenas. The corruption of some dwarven clans by the black moon cults has only increased the hatred of those faithful to the Red Sun. I counted both figures as wearing light armor (AC 1.) The dwarf used a large shield and a halberd, while the orc carried a two-handed axe. Both of them had good fighting skills and while the orc was stronger, the dwarf was a little more agile.

A small sci-fi base

This is a new 15mm sci-fi base or outpost I've created today. It is a kitbash of parts from the Omega Prime, Slagtown: Eden, Slagtown: Salvage, Watchtower 2, and Sci Blocks, all from Finger and Toe Models. The photos also show an S-Cube mech from the same company and the figures from Spacejacker. Here's the outside view of the small base.

The second floor can be accessed by removing the roof, giving a view of the ladder that leads to the first floor. The ramp was created using a bridge from Slagtown: Eden and a girder from the Watchtower 2.

Here's an alternate view of the second floor. The windows were taken from Slagtown: Salvage, and I edited the wall textures in Gimp.

By removing the second floor we get to the first one, which could be some kind of laboratory, armory or storage, for instance. The stacking mechanism is essentially the one used in Slagtown: Salvage.

Here's another view of the first floor...

Only the ladder is glued to the walls; the rest of the furniture can be repositioned so that I can create different layouts as needed. Those sci-blocks are particularly convenient as I can leave a single block to create obstacles or stack two for walls.

Now I have to run a game using this nice little base -- maybe with an objective of stealing something hidden in it...

Data Retrieval Mission

I've been building a bunch of terrain lately so I took some time today to use it for a quick game. In this scenario, a group of three adventurers: Alex, Bill and Cherry, have just landed their scout ship in a corporation-controlled neighborhood. Their contact has hidden corporation secrets in a safe box, and now they must retrieve it and get away while avoiding the corporation security patrols.

I used FUBAR 4th Edition for this game. My unit has three veteran figures. Alex is armed with pistols and wears light armor, Bill has a shotgun and medium armor and Cherry has a flamethrower and light armor.

Post-apocalyptic playground update

Now that I'm building only 15mm stuff (with the possible exception of Into the Fray,) I decided to organize the post-apoc 20mm models and minis into a separate box to make them easy to find and use. I found a cardboard box that was going to be recycled and covered it with some gray paper. The box is about 8"x8"x4".

 Inside, I've put all the models for my "post-apocalyptic playground", props and 20mm scale figures.

There's enough to moderately fill a 2'x2' board for some small skirmishes... good for playtesting new rule sets or for a quick game.

Vault entrance

Here are some pictures of a new terrain piece built by kitbashing Finger and Toe's L.I.A.M. set into some tech elements for 15mm. At first I imagined it as the leftovers of some kind of research facility. After placing Spacejacker's space crew on it, however, I could only see it as the entrance to a Fallout vault -- complete with blue-clad vault dwellers.

Landing pad

Here's a small landing pad built with Dave Graffam's Spaceport Tiles. I've built one of TopoSolitario's Chicharras as it seemed just the right type of vehicle to place on it, and one of Tommygun's air cargo containers on the back.

 Separate images of the Chicharra and the landing pad:

Update: here's the landing pad with a control tower and maintenance shed, as well as some miniatures by Spacejacker.

Rake's Corner map

This weekend I've built a new game board, using Dave Graffam's recently released Rake's Corner map. As the map is tileable, it can be built in many configurations. In my case, I chose to print 24 tiles in 50% resulting in a 21"x20" board. The first step was to open the tiles in Gimp to resize them. Then I arranged them in six pages to make assembly a little easier. I've printed them in 120gsm couché paper and, since that paper doesn't absorb the ink too well, I  sprayed some "waterproof spray" over them.

The next step was to cut each tile to make them ready for assembly. Here's a "preview" obtained just by placing them side by side.

After that, I used spray glue to place the tiles on a large sheet of 2mm thick rough cardstock. Then it was just a matter of cutting around the board. I left a margin of about 1cm to protect the edges of the map. Maybe later I'll cover the edges with some kind of adhesive tape to avoid wear.

Now I plan to make some buildings to place over the map. For now I have completed the warehouse, asylum and cottage of the Rake's Corner set. I've also put the longhouse I had built some time ago on the map.

This project took me most of the weekend, between resizing, printing and assembling but I'm very satisfied with the results. Even the small casks and crates for the warehouse came out well.

Post-apocalyptic outpost

Here's a terrain piece I've built with Finger and Toe Models' Slagtown: Eden set. It's built at 50% scale so the entire piece is about 3"x4". The miniatures are a mix of OneMonk and Slick's Minis.

Slagtown: Eden is like a construction set with a lot of basic components (girders, floors, walls, ladders) that you can combine to make all sorts of structures. In this case I opened the component sheets in Gimp, resized everything to 50% scale and picked up the pieces I would need.

More 15mm minis and buildings

I've been thinking about picking up Dave Graffam's recently released street map and building a 15mm version of it. However, it would be no good without buildings to put on it. This was the necessary excuse to go back to some papercraft... in this case, I built Dave's longhouse and a couple of Sanity Studios militia in 15mm (i.e. printing 4 pages to a page) to see if the results (considering my ability) would be worth the effort.

Overall, I'm pleased with both the proportions between building and figures and their appearance. The figures could be lighter but for this test I printed everything directly from the PDF viewer, therefore I had no options to adjust the brightness of the images.

These test prints were done in 90gsm paper, causing them to be a little more fragile. However, it also makes building the model or cutting the miniatures a lot more comfortable in this small scale (scoring and folding small flaps in cardstock can be very annoying.)