Cave Tiles - A New Way (Part 2) - Painting

Part one can be found here.

I finished off the tiles yesterday and got a chance to try them out last night.  They worked well, though there are some things I might tweek in future versions.

Following the 'Black Magic Craft' undercoat (black paint and Mod Podge) I sponged on a heavy coat of medium grey, followed by a lighter coat of light grey.  I then very lightly sponged on a reddish brown to dirty them up a bit, and a dark green focusing mostly near the walls.  The pit props were given a coat of dark brown and then an overbrush of VGC Khaki.  To finish off the top surface was given a good coat of a Wilko test pot colour called Nearly Black or similar, its actually a dark brown that rather reminds me of the old Citadel Foundation Charadon Granite.

Here they are in all their glory.  This is part of the old dwarf mine complex in The Lost Mine of Phandelver.  The heroes (and assorted dogs) have cautiously approached a dead end.  Amongst the rubble dwells an Ochre Jelly, which did have trouble hitting the heroes, but when it did, it hurt!

Appart from the odd 'boulder', actually some of the beads from the polystyrene, there is no texture on the cave floors.  I could fix this by adding sand or even hot glue; if this was done before painting, even better.  Also the edges look scruffy; again not a big issue for this quick build, but they could have benefited from cardboard cladding.  I actually will make a few more as I found I was short of right angles for the mines and could do with more cave edge tiles for the bigger caverns.  These will be done to match the existing set though.

In the future I am tempted to make another set fully compatible with my Wyloch Cardlock castle tiles, though this would be a more involved project.  Using foam board as the cave floors would allow me to add more texture, and cardlock bases eliminate the scruffy cut corrugated card look.  I'd probably use XPS foam rather than polystyrene ceiling tiles as well, though the rubble top surface looks good, they are messy to work with and I'd be able to cut thicker walls and give them more detail using my Proxxon cutter.

Cave Tiles - A New Way (Part 1) - Planning and Construction

If you've read many of my posts you'll know I've tried many ways of showing terrain for role playing games, especially in dungeons and similar environments.  There seems to be two ways of looking at this; either craft each piece specifically for that adventure, or find a modular system.  The former undoubtedly gives the best result, you can make sure it matches exactly what you want, but it is time consuming to make every piece for every adventure, and needs a lot of space for storage, though  I have heard of crafters who donate their terrain after use to their FLGS, especially if it is based on a commercially available adventure.
The second system is obviously more generic, and inevitably means some compromises are made, but it is the most sensible option, especially if time and space are limited.  Anyway, you can always make that odd special room as well, just make sure it fits with the generic tiles.

If you look at the stuff available commercially, either ready made or to 3D print, then small tiles representing ten foot square (usually 2") are the norm.  The main disadvantage here is the set up time for each room, but self locking systems allow you to pre build the various rooms, or at least those likely to be needed in a session, and present them when needed.  I have looked at Wylock's tiles,especially using his 'cardboard lock' system, and these seem pretty near perfect.  So much so  that I have a set already that I have used for the ruined castle in The Lost Mine of Phandelver adventure.  Now the heroes have reached Wave Echo Cave I need some way to show the caves and mines.  The obviously artificial look of the tiles I have built so far didn't work, so I had to make something new, so here are my mine and cave tiles.

I'm using Wyloch's 1.25" squares for the reasons he gives in this vid.  I decided that tiles representing 20 foot squares would work best; three of them should give the average distance most heroes can see easily in the mines, and I intend to reuse many of them, removing them when no one is on them, to give the party mapper some extra fun.  As with most of my newer stuff I am going for 2.5D.
I should also say that I have redrawn the mines somewhat to fit my tiles.  The adventure remains the same.

Each tile is based on a 5" square of corrugated card.  This project was originally designed to be quick and cheap, so relied on easily obtainable materials (my castle/dungeon tiles are more complex, I'll do a build of them sometime if anyone is interested).  I've used single corrugated card, but each base is two sheets with the corrugations at right angles for strength, and to reduce warping.

Three 5" squares of corrugated cardboard, (actually six, they are double thickness)

My first plan was to use more of the same to build up the walls, but then I thought about using polystyrene ceiling tiles.  they are cheap (though oddly hard to find these days), the right sort of thickness for a 2.5D effect and already have a nice rubble texture on the top.

Polystyrene ceiling tiles, the right hand piece shows the rather nice rubble texture

Here I'm making a dead end.  Simply cut a 5" square out of the ceiling tile, then measure the central 2.5" of one edge.  This needs to be as accurate as possible to match the other tiles.  The shape of the dead end doesn't really matter because, well, it's a dead end, but there should be enough room for a couple of heroes at least.

Now the tile is stuck to the card base using craft glue (I use Hi Tack All Purpose, available from most UK craft shops, such as Hobbycraft, and Amazon).  To help with scale and mapping, and because it's supposed to be a mine, I included pit props marking out (roughly) the central ten foot square, or in the case of this dead end, just the nearer two.  These are sections of a thick skewer cut to about 10mm and glued in holes poked into the top layer of cardboard.

The original dead end, plus another, and a corridor tile.  The pit props show up better in the corridor

Here are some more of the mine sections given a Black Magic Craft style basecoat of mod podge and black paint.  The unpainted section is one of the cave tiles I am also working on.

I'll get them painted today or tomorrow (I need them for tomorrow night, so no pressure).  It will just be a simple sponged paint job, DM Scotty style, rather like my Deadzone buildings here.

Part two, showing the finished tiles, is here.

The omens will be good for the Spartans!

I am hoping that the gods will look favourably on my Spartan army now that we can sacrifice before battle.

Mantic Release Free Vanguard Rules

Mantic have release free PDFs of the rules and basic army lists for Vanguard, their skirmish game linked to Kings of War.  The rules (and free rules for all their other games) can be found here.

The campaign stuff is missing, but you won't need that to begin with, and by the time you are ready for it you can buy the book (currently half price on pre order).

I'm already looking through some singly based models to see what I can put together, and of course, I painted a goblin warband up a while ago, you can see them here.  I'll need to tweek them a bit (oo er), the points values have changed a bit, and some of the options have been removed (I wasn't sure quite what some of them were supposed to be anyway), mawbeasts really benefit from being fielded with at least two of them for their Howl! ability to be of use.  I found my goblin command pack and that will provide some nice extras, the Biggit and Wiz in particular.

Some of my goblins are from Dungeon Saga, well that's a game I have had for a while, but done little with.  Last night I got a couple of games in as the roleplaying group was at reduced strength.  The three of us played the two introductory games to learn the rules.  This worked well with all of us agreeing that the game is worth getting out again soon.  Indeed one of the group is now looking to buy a copy (the other player already has a copy) for family games.  I guess I had better get some more of the minis painted.  Actually, if I do anything immediately for DS, I think a better box insert for the various bits would be a good idea.

Oh, and while I'm writing, this kickstarter came to my attention today.  While its another I'm not planning on backing (lottery results notwithstanding), it certainly appeals.  I'd like it if the figures came in twelves, to make Dragon Rampant units easily, but the one mini that really appeals is the bonus piper.  This works for me, and ties in with my other main hobby