Dungeons and Lasers Prismacast Caves

I finished removing my Archon Studios Dungeons and Lasers Caves set from the sprues, and thought I'd report back on it. I spent a little time playing around with the layouts, and learned a whole bunch. This shows more or less the amount of tiles you get in the retail Caves set. I've only put walls on one of the rooms at this stage, but it gives you an idea of what you get.

Bear in mind when looking at all of this that all I've done is cut these tiles off the sprue. They come pre-painted - as I understand it they're painted by machine - and the paint quality is as good as I'd likely be bothered to do on some dungeon tile terrain!

The tiles come with moulded points to add connectors which join the tiles to each other and the walls section. They go together quite easily, and it's a firm connection so they don't come apart as you move them about.

Here's how a small room might look once you've made it up. The holes can be used to add walls, or you can add a simple grey peg to fill the space if you want it to be an open area.

You then add walls on to finish the effect. The curved pieces are two parts that fit snugly together before you push fit them into the relevant connectors. You can put them on the sides, or create a wall across the middle of a room if you wish.

At the time of writing, you can buy this set unpainted for £75, or the painted one for £95.

I will caution that it's quite a bit of work to set them all up - you need a little bit of oomph to get each connector to go together, and when you're doing a bunch of rooms, it gets tiring quick! I gave up on getting everything out at around this point - I'd definitely started with the intent to put walls on everything. 

I also got three smaller "themed" sets too. Given the aforementioned loss of oomph, I didn't get everything out - but I wanted to give an impression of the kind of thing you get. This is the spider set, which has narrow bridges held together with strands of web, and tiles covered in web and egg sacs. 

You can see the "Deep Mines" set floor tiles in the bottom room. There's also a bunch of walls with cool crystals that come with it that I did fail to photograph.

The Deep Mine set has two pairs of these stairs up to a pile of gold and treasure. This could be excellent set dressing for an abandoned mine, or perhaps a dragon's lair.

I also got the Goblin Lair set, which has this great little mini hut / building that attaches to tiles. I just attached it to the standard Caves tiles at this point, but you also get a whole bunch of themed tiles for a Goblin Lair too.

The goblin lair tiles are a lot more rickety, with lots of planks with gaps and detritus on the stone floors. I think if you were using either the Spider or Goblin sets you'd probably want to have a black cloth underneath the set to represent the gaps. They definitely weren't quite working on my white table.

The goblin set came with a handful of details like this dead dwarf that you can plug into some of the connection holes to add extra detail. There's not enough for every hole, but it's good to add a little variety.

With my experience putting these together, I certainly wouldn't want to try and assemble them on the fly for a randomly generated dungeon, or as I went according to a map. Assembling a whole large dungeon map also seems like a bad idea from an effort to reward point of view, though I could see an exploration set piece with something to mask sections being quite fun.

If you're actively using these, you probably want to either have some pre-constructed for a fight you're expecting to have at some point, or be pacing your games so a fight starts just before a break or at the end of a session so you can set up for the start of your next one. They do take some serious time to put together and I'd practice doing it a couple of times before committing to doing it on the fly mid game.

I think it's worth noting that you both need quite a lot of tiles, but also get quite a lot in a box. With all the above out on the table, I still had all the below still to use. I got mine through the Kickstarter, but one core set is likely plenty for most standard encounters you're putting together.

If I was going to expand what I have, I'll likely be looking at their older sets that have been converted to Prismacast that are designed as humanoid built dungeons rather than a cave network.

One thing I do need to think about is a better storage solution. I've thrown everything into one big Really Useful Box, and this is Not The One. I was at least smart enough to put all the connectors in sealed plastic bags which helped a bunch, but I think they need sorting by floor tile and wall, and by set.

It was taking me far too long to find the right bits, and it added to the already quite extensive job of putting a layout together.

I'm not sure what the right storage widget is to make this work, but if anyone can think of the perfect solution, please do let me know!

Work in Progress Wednesday - Terrain Connectors?

 

I finally got to the point of having some hobby tools out, and decided to start with the Dungeons and Lasers Caves Kickstarter. This is very fancy pre-painted RPG terrain produced by Archon Studios. I backed the Kickstarter and thought it would be good to get it all off sprue, and into some much better storage boxes.

My logic was to start with the simplest job - clipping out the terrain connectors. Doing a third of the add-ons connectors took up all the time I had that hobby evening. Whoops! Still, it was good to get something done, and its always best to start with eating your vegetables...

UK Games Expo - Miniatures

 

I tried not to go too mad with getting miniatures at UK Games Expo, as its not like I have a shortage of miniatures to paint right now... First up are the multi-part Battlemechs from Catalyst, a I can't really get them from anywhere else...

The Phoenix Hawk and the Wolverine both work as Lyran Guards, so that's nice and simple. The Eris and the Rifleman are both not really suited to the Lyrans, so I'm thinking they'll join my militia force.

Finally, the Stormcrow and Vulture, which are Clan Omni-Mechs. While I'm not against playing my Lyrans in the "ilClan era" (the modern setting), both of these mechs aren't quite right for that either. So, its likely I'll pick a Clan paint scheme for a few Mechs. I'm a bit torn between Sea Fox and Jade Falcon, and will probably end up picking based on a paint scheme I like.

There are a couple of freebies I picked up, which is definitely guilt free. First up is this lich for Necropolis 28. He was being given out loose, and that pointing figure was definitely making me anxious...

I also had a good chat with the person behind Fauxhammer. He had a bunch of painted power armoured figures with his face on it. It was good to chat with him, and I'm sure I'll find a use for this.

I grabbed some filament printed scenery from Crafted Campaigns. I picked these because they were really nice practical pieces that weren't so specific you won't get much use out of it, and they were robust looking scatter of rocks and vegetation that looked pretty easy to paint. I'm not sure where they are on the website, sadly.

I had to pick up the latest miniatures from Bad Squiddo. She's got four halfling adventurers, which given I'm currently painting a few halflings at the moment, I really wanted to grab. These ones have some more obvious spellcasting types, which are good options to have available.

Finally, another freebie, but the miniature I'm most excited about of everything here. This is a Bucklerman for Warcrow, Corvus Belli's new game. If I was some kind of professional, I'd be assembling and painting this as a massive priority for the internet traffic from being early to publish... But I'm busy tidying the hobby space and have a LARP to go to right now, and then have a bunch of stuff I'm in the middle of painting that I want to finish...

Product Review: Dungeons and Lasers PrismaCast Pre-Painted Dwarven Mine

 

While I was clipping the pre-painted Dungeons & Lasers scenery out from the sprue, I thought I'd write a short review. There wasn't quite enough space to lay everything out, but hopefully this will get you enough of an idea of what you get.

The painting quality is really good - someone's hand painted everything, which has then been scanned and painted on the sprue. This is a better quality paint than you could get for the money if you bought it unpainted.

You get six sprues like this - four painted with the centre of the floor panels brown, with another two with the centre of the floor painted blue. This gives you some variation - you could have it not matter, or have the water be deeper and inhibit movement.

This means you've got 72 squares of floor tiles that can be used as corridors or rooms, and each of the six sprues has a door, two torches, a free standing lamp on a stand, four short walls and one long wall. That gives you a bunch of flexibility and plenty to make a small encounter room. For a larger encounter or quest I'd be tempted to get somewhere between two and four sets if funds allowed.

The Dwarven Mine set wasn't designed for Prismacast, so there are spots where it falls down a little. Obviously, they can't paint anywhere that the sprue connects to the miniature. There's also a few spots of mould lines that are unpainted. They've put the base material as a dark brown plastic so it mostly gets away with it, but there's a few places where it's a little more obvious when you look closely.

The free standing lantern poles are the most obvious. There should really be, you know, light there! But the quality line is far, far higher than the Wizkids pre-painted models, so if that's your line, you'd definitely be fine.

So the technology is clever, but at least for this set that wasn't designed for it, there's limitations that a hand painted set would surpass. It's good for the money but not perfect, so if you want it perfectly, you'd need to get the unpainted and get it done the old fashioned way. But for the money, the pre-painted option is very very good and will get painted scenery on your RPG tables very quickly.

Terrain Crate Battlefield Objectives - Brushchewer Inc

 

Brushchewer painted up another Terrain Crate set for me - this time the "Battlefield Objectives". Some of these will be used less regularly than things like the Dungeon Debris or Essentials, but I felt that there was enough to justify getting the set in the sale I picked it up in.

A partially hatched dragon egg or a pile of cannonballs and powder aren't going to be used very often, and neither is this large bonfire / beacon.

As a nice touch, it comes with the fire piece separately, so you can have it starting un-lit and then add the fire when they're lit. There's some fun little fights and objectives that will work nicely with.

I didn't specify anything for the captive or the dead messenger, so Brushchewer decided it would be fun to give a nod to Mario with a captive Peach, and a Mario who didn't make it to the next castle...

Terrain Crate Dungeon Essentials - Brushchewer Inc

 

I got another box of Terrain Crate painted by Brushchewer Inc. This set includes a whole bunch of really useful generic scatter that will see a lot of use. Barrels, chests, tables and doors are always going to be needed for set dressing dungeons!

Terrain Crate Wizard's Library - Brushchewer Inc

 

I decided to commission out the rest of the Mantic Terrain Crate boxes I have to get them all done. I decide to use Brushchewer Inc to get this Wizard's Study set done, and am really pleased with how they've turned out.

The book cases are a nice bulk of terrain, with some more specific pieces that will still see plenty of use making up the rest of the set. Seeing them all painted up, I'm a big fan.

End of February Hobby Review

 

While I kept on plugging through fixing the Mantic scatter terrain and painting the Oathsworn dwarfs I have, I quickly knocked out this Fenris Games urn I got sent as a freebie with another order. It wasn't exactly hard to paint, but I just needed something to be done for the sake of my ongoing enthusiasm.

The monster nest from Oathsworn Miniatures was what made me realise that finishing stuff was what was giving me enthusiasm to keep painting while I slogged through a bigger project. I keep learning and forgetting this over and over, but maybe one day it will stick...

The only other thing I got finished this month were these two crow "dolls" from Statuesque Miniatures. As February last year was when I managed to finish a bunch of Shasvastii paint jobs for Smackdown, my twelve month rolling total for projects is now flashing as "overcommitted". With a massive Dungeons & Lasers Kickstarter arriving, I'm definitely not able to justify starting a new project that involves buying things any time soon.

I'm getting this "Miko the Vampire Hunter" by Bad Squiddo Games painted up as my current "stop myself losing all interest in painting from plugging through a bunch of scatter terrain" (which is now 12 out of 16 done, so nearly there!).

To stop my painting numbers "getting worse" I could do with getting three little things painted, along with one "project" item. Ideally, I'd like to get the last of this batch of Terrain Crate finished. If I can get a little more project stuff done, it would be good to get the Militia Urbanmech done. I do still have the Horus Heresy test paints to do, but trying to do two big painting projects at once has proven roundly miserable. I'll get back to the Heresy models when the Terrain Crate is done.

I'm not really planning the "little things" beyond grabbing a nearby model I fancy and getting it painted. The Oathsworn dwarfs will continue to get paint every time I sit down at the desk, but four miniatures at once are too much for "quick wins".

Actually.

I've literally just gone and broken the dwarfs down into four separate little things. If something isn't working for you, change it! I'll try and get one or two of them finished, and maybe something new, and that should keep me on track painting wise this month.

In want of a title...

 

Another slow week for painting. I plugged through a few more of the Mantic Terrain Crate pieces, but I'll save photos of them for when they're all finished now. I also painted up this monster nest that was a freebie with the first Oathsworn Miniatures "Heroines in Sensible Shoes" Kickstarter. I just needed a quick win, and this was the nearest thing to hand. 

I've also realised that I've been avoiding painting because the hobby room is a mess, and any time I go in there I realise I should be tidying it, rather than painting, so feel too guilty to paint. Now this week's eBay sales have gone out the door, I need to knuckle down and put a bunch of stuff away so I can focus back on the painting.

My "lessons learned" from this whole exercise is firstly that my previously established batch painting limit of five still counts for scatter terrain, and should be adhered to at all costs. Secondly, that I should avoid having two multiple figure batches going at once - the dwarves and the scatter terrain are essentially holding each other up as I switch between the two and finish neither.

The contrast paint fleeing the undercoat problem continues on the scatter terrain, and I've been re-base-coating in places to fix it. You might be able to see it on the barrels at the back. There's only a few bits left now so I'll try and get those finished up before getting back to the dwarves. I've also pulled out a couple of figures from the "Left at the Bottom of the Garden" range, and an urn Fenris Games sent me, to be my simple "single" figures I can complete for delicious endorphins.

It was St Albans Smackdown on Saturday, so I got three games of Infinity in with my Shasvastii. I didn't do particularly well, but had fun with friends, which is the important part. Hopefully I will get a little event report up on the blog some time this week.

Defrosting the freezer?

It has been one of those weeks where mundane tasks, such as the aforementioned "defrosting the freezer" end up taking up more of my time than hobbying. Going out twice last week was probably A Bit Much and I had a few more restful evenings this week as well.

So, I've painted one more crate. There's more paint on other things as well, but the crate is the only finished thing...

I was also out on Sunday at an in person D&D game - a finale for a season of an online D&D game I've been playing in the past few months. It's a Spelljammer campaign with a lot of nods to awful 70s and 80s sci fi, and I've been playing an Astral Elf Bladesinger.

I also got a batch of Onyx Contact Force models back from my assembly person. They'll need the usual basing paste and undercoating, but they're currently sitting behind the Battletech minis I still haven't finished prepping, so it might be a while until you see them...

A chunk of my hobby time each week is still going on the piles of stuff getting listed on eBay, but I think I'm settled into a nice rhythm for it now. I'll be at St Albans Smackdown next week, but I then have a couple of weekends off before I have any more commitments.

Look on my works ye mighty and despair

 

I'm working through a whole bunch of Dungeon Debris from the Mantic Terrain Crate. I haven't got the box done yet, but that's not for a lacky of hobby this week - I've just been light on the painting. I've got half a dozen bits finished, and there's a whole bundle still to go.

This batch has been a simple base coat, Agrax Earthshade wash, then a Karak Stone drybrush to bring stop it being too dark while tying it all together.

I'm continuing to work through the Terrain Crate bits. The TT Combat spray was still tacky days after it was sprayed, and when I tried to use some contrast with it, I found the contrast wasn't staying where I put it and really big patches were forming where you could see the base coat as the contrast pulled away from the undercoat. I'm now brush base coating everything, even where I want to use contrast over the top of it, and that seem to be clearing the issue.

The reason for the lack of painting was not, for once, my spending time listing stuff on my eBay account or binge watching some nonsense TV show (the latest guilty pleasure has been Outback Truckers, of all things). I've been playing games! During the week I made it down to Dark Sphere to play my first game of 9th edition, while I headed over to HATE on Sunday to get in a practice game of Infinity for St Albans Smackdown.

Next week is likely to be relatively slow on the painting front, too. I've got a couple of bits of real life stuff, and my online D&D game is having an in person finale at the weekend, which will take a bunch more time than it usually would. I'll plug through some bits and see how I go. This is probably a bit busier than I'd like to be, so I need to keep an eye on what my commitments are in the next few weeks and try and slow down a bit.

ITS Objective Pack Alpha Review

I recently picked up the "ITS Objectives Pack Alpha" from Corvus Belli, intended for use in Infinity (but quite easily usable in other games). I bought my copy from Shae Konnit Games, but any hobby shop that stocks Infinity will be able to order it in if they don't have it on the shelf.

Price wise, it's a hefty £50 and change. To be clear, you don't need it. You can just use a base or token, or if you want cheaper scenery pieces, you could use some Mantic Terrain Crate or Reaper Bones scatter terrain on a base instead, especially if you don't have different pieces for each different kind of objective. Micro Art Studio also do a "premium" Objectives set, which is in the €80 range, but has more components.

You get 18 different widgets for your money, with 6 different sculpts, ranging from 2 to 4 of each.

They come quite neatly packed in the box, with the usual "Raffle Ticket" packing codes that help process any mis-packs. Corvus Belli have always been excellent when dealing with these, but the numbers help them work out what went wrong, so always include them when mailing them for replacements. As you can see, you also get enough bases for all the pieces in the box.

The pieces themselves are cast in Siocast, and I couldn't see any significant issues. The detail was all there, without much in the way of mould lines. There are quite a few large gates that will need cutting off, but quite a lot are in spots where you won't end up seeing the point of contact, as it's where they glue to the base or another component. Some are single piece, and some need as many as three components.

I haven't yet assembled these models, but my initial impression is positive. They are definitely a premium product with a hefty price tag for "objective markers", but you do get quite a lot of them for the cost. As an optional luxury, they're just fine.

Weekly progress: Egg Car, D&D, Horus Heresy

 

With a lovely relative visit in the past, my huge "what I've been working towards" goal is gone. With an awful lot of worry about getting things tidy in time suddenly evaporating away, a bunch of stress related chemicals had nothing to do any more other than make me feel bad for no logical reason.

I decided to try and cheer myself up with painting. It was marginally successful, but time and some other bits and bobs worked together with it to pull me out of the slump. I've finished the Frameworks Mind Flayer and will be writing a longer review post of Frameworks in future.

Needing a little "quick win" to give me a boost, I gave this egg car a quick paint job. The model was made by the sadly no longer trading Antenocitis Workshop. I was playing around with Magmadroth Flame contrast paint for the orange and was very impressed by it.

I didn't get everything right on this model - there's a couple of splotches that I've spotted since I did it. But I played around a lot more with blending and highlighting while painting this model and really felt like the regular painting I've been doing has helped me get better. Sometimes, I instinctively know how much paint I want on my brush or where to move it to get the effect I want. Not always, but its not something I've experienced before. It made me feel like I'm really growing as a painter.

The other "non project" model I'm working on at the moment is this griffin I picked up from Iron Gate Scenery at Salute. I carefully blocked in the basic "skin" fur and the warmer longer fur. I've then wet blended a sepia and a dark brown for the feathers. That's turned out really well on the top of the wings, but with three layers of feathers on the underside of the wings, that's going to take a little more time to get done.

My big project, however, is the Alpha Legion test paints. Because they require layers of contrast, and the next stage involves carefully painting the inside of panels, I haven't got very far with them, but I'm enjoying the process I've done so far.

This has really highlighted to me the importance of having some "easy" paints lying around to do alongside any complicated project. There's going to be times when you're tired and aren't up for doing a detailed or fiddly job, and having something else to do means that the time isn't wasted - and I've got three models finished this week as a result!