Dwarven Forge Mastermaze
- Thread starter Alcamtar
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kiznit
Explorer
I give it up to WorldWorks as the best and coolest bang-for-your-buck dungeon-building accesory out there, but it does require some printing and construction effort.
If you want to seriously get into some do-it-yourself plaster mold love, nothing can compare to the Hirst Fantasy products for sheer customization and modularity. Their example stuff is absolutely beautiful, but I think getting into it would require the kind of free time that you get from, oh say, unemployment. Nonetheless, definitely worth a look.
Finally, Dirt Cheep Dungeons provides the very basics for a very cheap price.
If you want to seriously get into some do-it-yourself plaster mold love, nothing can compare to the Hirst Fantasy products for sheer customization and modularity. Their example stuff is absolutely beautiful, but I think getting into it would require the kind of free time that you get from, oh say, unemployment. Nonetheless, definitely worth a look.
Finally, Dirt Cheep Dungeons provides the very basics for a very cheap price.
Ill second the World Werks. Thats some great looking stuff. The downside is the printing, ink, and cutting/glueing. If you have the patients you can create some awesome sets.
Plus they have different sets for different locals. Like Tavern, Cave, Castle, and Town/City. Check it out.
Plus they have different sets for different locals. Like Tavern, Cave, Castle, and Town/City. Check it out.
MythosaAkira
Explorer
Saba Taru
Explorer
Hirst Arts
We have several Hirst Arts molds and they are simple to use. You can use plaster or dental plaster (which is what we use) to cast them and it takes about 40 mins to an hour per mold to cast one (you can do several molds at a time).
Starting them is somewhat cost prohibitive (plaster = $45 + $18 shipping for a 50 pound box of the stuff, molds = $34ish per mold), but once you have the stuff, with a little patience, you can make just about anything you can imagine. I love them and will be getting more as time and money permit.
Mastermaze stuff is awesome as well, but it's very, very expensive (all things considered and we have 5 sets and some misc. packs of stuff). Needless to say, I prefer Hirst Art stuff to it.
We have several Hirst Arts molds and they are simple to use. You can use plaster or dental plaster (which is what we use) to cast them and it takes about 40 mins to an hour per mold to cast one (you can do several molds at a time).
Starting them is somewhat cost prohibitive (plaster = $45 + $18 shipping for a 50 pound box of the stuff, molds = $34ish per mold), but once you have the stuff, with a little patience, you can make just about anything you can imagine. I love them and will be getting more as time and money permit.
Mastermaze stuff is awesome as well, but it's very, very expensive (all things considered and we have 5 sets and some misc. packs of stuff). Needless to say, I prefer Hirst Art stuff to it.
kiznit
Explorer
Renocide said:
To pimp Worldworks a little more...
The printing can, indeed, take a while and be a little expensive. It helps if you have access to a high-end industrial color printer at work or something. The construction on the other hand is relatively fast, I was surprised how quick it takes to cut, score and paste the various corridor sections together... like about five to ten minutes each piece.
You can put together all your basic dungeon needs in a couple of hours, and with all the little bonus acoutrements (bookshelves, tables and chairs, etc - stuff you have to buy seperately from dwarven forge, BTW) it takes about a day. Still, an entirely modular and potentially infinite dungeon for about fifteen dollars and some cutting and pasting? Not bad.
Sam
First Post
Re: Hirst Arts
I've been looking at this system for a while now. Can't seem to get over the time. How long does it actually take to build a series of components that you can use for an actual dungeon? I'm running RttToEE now for my group, and though I wouldn't anticipate having anything done with Hirst stuff, I wonder how long it would take to effectively do the dungeon (recycling parts as they move through) in it.
Saba Taru said:
I've been looking at this system for a while now. Can't seem to get over the time. How long does it actually take to build a series of components that you can use for an actual dungeon? I'm running RttToEE now for my group, and though I wouldn't anticipate having anything done with Hirst stuff, I wonder how long it would take to effectively do the dungeon (recycling parts as they move through) in it.
Saba Taru
Explorer
It depends...
Hrm... We've got one fieldstone floor mold and one fieldstone wall mold (both used to build the warlock house on his site) that I've been casting pretty heavily the last few days. On and off casting (IE: In my spare time after work and before bed) from Thursday to Saturday (a little more time to spend on the weekends) netted me a complete set of custom movement trays for my warhammer army (Tomb Kings, so lots and lots of figures to base and rank). I'd say I have enough to build the dungeon (in sections) from RttToEE if I decided to do that. We used a lot of dental plaster, but since we bought 50 pounds of it, we still have a lot left.
Bah. Didn't really answer your question, did I? Let me try again...
With the molds mentioned above, 22 casts (at about 22 hours total), if I remember right, will allow you to construct that Warlock house on the Hirst Arts site, and you can cast both molds at the same time. That about... let's see... 220 full floor tiles (1"X1") at 10 per cast, 44 long wall sections (3") at 2 per cast, 22 medium wall sections (2") at 1 per cast, and about 110 of the 1" wall sections at 5 per cast, assuming I've added those up correctly (fear my uber math skills!). You also get a 3/4" wall section per cast (so 22 total) plus some extra bits to make windows and sconces out of, but my favorite bit is the skull you get from the same mold. You only get one per cast (which sucks), but it's neat.
Honestly, the time seems bad, until you realize that you're busy for about 10 minutes out of every cast. The rest is just waiting. You can paint, do laundry, make dinner, etc. between casts, so the time really isn't that bad. Once cast, they take about 12 hours to completely dry out (but that's just laying flat and unstacked on a table somewhere), but once dry, they can be glued or pieced into just about any formation you can imagine. And they're easy to sand and shape if something just doesn't quite suit what you need it to do. Dental plaster is also strong enough to withstand a heafty fall if it needs to (but I wouldn't recommend repeated abuse).
Hope that helps a bit. Sorry for the ramble.
Hrm... We've got one fieldstone floor mold and one fieldstone wall mold (both used to build the warlock house on his site) that I've been casting pretty heavily the last few days. On and off casting (IE: In my spare time after work and before bed) from Thursday to Saturday (a little more time to spend on the weekends) netted me a complete set of custom movement trays for my warhammer army (Tomb Kings, so lots and lots of figures to base and rank). I'd say I have enough to build the dungeon (in sections) from RttToEE if I decided to do that. We used a lot of dental plaster, but since we bought 50 pounds of it, we still have a lot left.
Bah. Didn't really answer your question, did I? Let me try again...
With the molds mentioned above, 22 casts (at about 22 hours total), if I remember right, will allow you to construct that Warlock house on the Hirst Arts site, and you can cast both molds at the same time. That about... let's see... 220 full floor tiles (1"X1") at 10 per cast, 44 long wall sections (3") at 2 per cast, 22 medium wall sections (2") at 1 per cast, and about 110 of the 1" wall sections at 5 per cast, assuming I've added those up correctly (fear my uber math skills!). You also get a 3/4" wall section per cast (so 22 total) plus some extra bits to make windows and sconces out of, but my favorite bit is the skull you get from the same mold. You only get one per cast (which sucks), but it's neat.
Honestly, the time seems bad, until you realize that you're busy for about 10 minutes out of every cast. The rest is just waiting. You can paint, do laundry, make dinner, etc. between casts, so the time really isn't that bad. Once cast, they take about 12 hours to completely dry out (but that's just laying flat and unstacked on a table somewhere), but once dry, they can be glued or pieced into just about any formation you can imagine. And they're easy to sand and shape if something just doesn't quite suit what you need it to do. Dental plaster is also strong enough to withstand a heafty fall if it needs to (but I wouldn't recommend repeated abuse).
Hope that helps a bit. Sorry for the ramble.
Tom Cashel
First Post
Just to offer a contrasting view, I say go for the Dwarven Forge. You don't need enough to build a whole dungeon, just an area where combat's taking place. And if you order enough sets, Stefan will send you some free stuff, most likely!
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