Crooked Staff Terrain: New Frostgrave Ruins

After a Short Break...

I've not been posting for a while, partly because I've been very busy with family stuff and partly because I've hit a low patch for inspiration.  When this happened last time I built some ruined walls for Frostgrave/Dungeons and Dragons, which helped get me motivated again.  Lets see if that works again.

Why More Ruins?

My current set of Frostgrave terrain is 'eclectic', to say the least, you can see pretty much everything I've got in this battle report.  It certainly works, but I'm aware that more is better when it comes to the game, and many of the pieces still need finishing (usually basing).
I came across Crooked Staff Terrain on YouTube a short while ago, specifically his (then) latest video building ruined corners.  OK, I thought, but nothing I can't do myself.  A closer look suggested that not only were the ruins very nicely done, but looking through his back catalogue, his cladding method produces very good results, particularly for the time and money invested.  I definitely wanted to more Frostgrave ruins as cheaply and quickly as possible, and this looked like the answer.

I would certainly want to extend the ruins to multiple floors and, perhaps, add some extra details to the flat surface of the buildings, but recent posts suggest that he is addressing that, with a second video and download soon.  This seems to be additions to already built ruins, so time to build a basic corner ruin and see what I think.

I'll not give instructions on how to build the ruin, he does that very nicely on the video, but here are some photos of the first corner ruin I made.

Norse 'knight' in doorway.  The ruin height is about 3", and the sides are about 3" and 6"

From the inside.  The window is just the right height for the archer

Comparison with one of my carboard ruins.  This was the closest I could find in form and function, though it does have  partial first floor.  The Crooked Staff ruin is better detailed and was a lot faster to build

Results

So that's a ruined corner built.  It's my first try with Crooked Staff Terrain, and I'm very pleased with the results.  I could have been neater with the cladding and I certainly need to make sure that I have a new sharp blade,  my first cuts were very ragged, tearing the foamcard.  

In comparison to the cardboard ruins I've built previously these work out slightly more expensive, using purchased foamcore rather than free cardboard, and I suppose the printing costs are a small extra, however, no paint is required, so that probably balances out.  The biggest advantage is the speed; it's much quicker since there's no painting involved, and they look brighter than my early cardboard corners.

I like the pale grey look and the weathered stones.  The artwork implies some 3D texture, and I believe the next set will actually add some more relief.

More Ruins for the Future

I'll certainly do some more and I'm thinking of basing the ruins to add extra strength, probably just a card strip wide enough to enable a bit of texture to be added.

I do like the idea of a whole integrated set of this pattern of stonework, designed to pack nicely in a box, that I can just pull out for games of Frostgrave.  I may even slap some thick white paint on to represent snow (which would mitigate my messy cladding), and I suspect hitting them with a spray of Matt Varnish will help protect the printing from moisture.