The Ship Tile Blues

[ExploderWizard]

A lot of people have seen the ship tiles and are very sad that they won't be getting any.

You can make your own. I have been making my own for a long time. The quality is largely a factor of how much time you want to put into thier creation.

1) Start with a plain sheet of paper or graph/hex paper with your desired gaming grid. Sketch out the type of ship you want. You can make a viking warship, a classic sloop or a galleon. You can make ships of various sizes.

2) Fill in the details such as the mast(s),any stairs, a forecastle or poop deck. Indicate any openings such as a cargo hatch on the main deck.

3) Use markers, pencil, or crayon to color your map. Sharpie or blackline the edges to give them good definition.

4) Glue your map to a piece of decently thick cardstock and allow to dry. Make sure there are no bubbles. Put something on it to keep it flat.

5) Get some clear shelf lining paper. You can get it in rolls at most places.
Put a layer of the clear cover over your ship map.

6) Cut out your ship carefully.

You now have a ship map that is fully mobile to use with other ships on your gaming grid of coice. The shelf paper can be written on with a temp marker to indicate damage, cargo on deck, etc.

Enjoy.

 

[Hussar]

Heck, if you wanted to get fancy, there are all sorts of ship tile maps out there. The WOTC galleries have them, Cartographer's Guild has more than a few. There's oodles out there. Bring the pic into any graphics program like GIMP, resize it so the squares are 1 inch and print it directly onto cardstock.

Poof, instant pretty ship tile.

Note, an easy way to get your grid the right size is to set the rulers in your program to inches, then overlay a one inch grid. Then, just resize the image to fit.

Cover the whole thing with maptack or clear shelf lining paper and Robert is your mother's brother.