Bone 2 Almost Here

I just got the latest tracking information for my Reaper Bones II order.  On a vehicle for delivery. :)
Stand by for lots of pictures of white plastic.

2.5D Caverns for Dungeons and Dragons; The Caverns of the Snake People

A bit of a break from Barsoom as both real life (in the shape of work at the office and family holidays) and roleplaying requirements means a new (short) project.

Making Floorplans
I use many different ways to show encounter locations for our D&D group, from erasable board and dry wipe pens, to full 3D cardstock dungeons.   

For the group's latest foray into tunnels beneath a desert inhabited by mankind's predecessors I went with a product relatively new to me,  Heroic Maps 2.5D tiles.  I got some of these in their pre-Christmas sale, and they look very nice.  They use the DM Scotty (and others) method of crafting to produce flat tiles with a shallow rim to represent the walls.

Here's how I made mine.

The raw materials

I had some corrugated card left from boxes from office furniture.  Not double layer as per DM Scotty's suggestions however, so I decided to laminate two layers with the corrugations at right angles to give extra strength and, hopefully, prevent warping.  

 A third cardboard piece was cut to provide the walls, with the corrugations in the same direction as the bottom piece.

The walls were cut out from the floor and stuck to the third card piece, while the two other pieces were glued together.  I used  tacky craft glue for the card as it is low moisture and dries very fast, far superior to ordinary 'school' white glue (both are PVA though).

Then its simply a case of gluing one wall in place (craft glue again), then the floor and finally the other wall.

The finished product

Including a mini for scale

Overall I am pleased with the result.  I normally use Skeleton Key products for cavern type dungeon floor plans but the Heroic Maps are much more colourful and atmospheric.  If I had double layered cardboard I could eliminate cutting out two layers for the base, but I like the fact that the corrugations are perpendicular as it should add strength and help combat warping if there is any damp.  

My only real complaint is the overly complicated walls.  They are very 'rugged', and cutting them out was a pain.  Heroic Maps first tried this system for sewers, and I suspect the straighter nature of the walls makes them much easier to build.

If you want to see more of these tiles, I've built some larger caverns.