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Post by jennifer on Jan 13, 2016 20:44:33 GMT
Well I ran all over town today checking multiple gaming stores and nobody had Frostgrave. I ended up ordering it on Amazon and it will be here Friday. I downloaded the PDF so I can check that out until my book arrives. I need to find pink foam here. I checked lowest and they only have 2" thick, 4'x8' sheets of green foam and its $33/sheet. There has to be a cheaper alternative. I need to check Home Depot. Very cool. I didn't know there was a PDF, wish I could get that so I can read it on my iPad in bed. I found the pink foam at Home Depot -- brand name is Owens Corning. I found it using their search tool at HomeDepot.com . It shows you a list of stores that it is available in. It cost me around $17 for a 4 x 8 sheet 1 inch thick. You definitely want the 1 inch thick not 2, because there are a lot of things where 1 inch works well and if you need two or more just stack them and glue together.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 14, 2016 2:41:56 GMT
Finished the hill/cliff base for the tower. Here is the back side: Just need to frost it up. I might end up replacing the paper texture on the castle with something darker. Not really happy with the color. Needs to be a black or dark grey castle I guess to match the rest of the ruins? Also the castle has a slight pink tint to it (my laser likes to print things pinker than normal.. and I try to adjust every time I print things out on it by turning up the green tint).
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Post by jennifer on Jan 14, 2016 3:24:26 GMT
Modular Well Well of Dreams & Sorrows: Laminated (Avery peel & stick) for gloss and protection -- also glued (avery permanent glue stick) onto 110 lb index card stock for strength: e.g. hypothetical "Well of Blood & Tears" : Thinking about printing out a disc with a portal on it. Ready to jump in? heh.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 14, 2016 23:22:14 GMT
Dice Tower Making a dice tower. Used 1 cedar fence picket, hand planed then cut into 4 eight inch long pieces. Internally I used 1 tongue & groove pine wall panel slat which I trimmed to the same width as the fence picket (beveled the bottom edge with pocket knife at about 45 degrees). Hot glued it all together. Applied peeled dollar tree foam to each side with 3M spray adhesive glue. Penciled in the stones and textured with foil. I still need to finish up the cracks (maybe fill in a couple too). Going to have the tower sitting up against the side of a hill with steps or just build stone steps around. The steps will go from the side , to the back , to the other side then to the top. Top will have a gapped crown (for archers and casters) wide enough for parties to battle on top of it and retrieve treasure chests. The tower will be fenced in the front with a gate on the side near the first steps up to the top. House rule will be if a miniature opens the gate, runs in and doesn't quite make it to the first steps, then gets hit by a d20 coming out of the tower, that miniature dies -- lol. There will be a giant flag (or shield) hanging from the front middle portion of the tower. Took a couple hours to etch in all those bricks on all 4 sides lol.
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Post by sgtslag on Jan 15, 2016 4:37:19 GMT
That is one of the finest dice towers I've seen yet... And I've seen a few! Exalt, and, Cheers!
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sotf
Advice Guru
Posts: 1,084
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Post by sotf on Jan 15, 2016 6:46:24 GMT
Looks good, you may want to add a tiny bit of watered down filler over the joins, they're visible now and likely to be quite obvious after painting.
While you're already done with this one, one thing that works well for completely hiding the lines from an earlier step is to have all sides the same as the full width (side width plus the thickness of the foamcore on each end), and interlock the panels with the stone work.
For your shield/flag, one thing that you could do is get one of the small brass hooks for it, put that in the center near the top, and make the hangings interchangeable for different forces.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 15, 2016 7:02:17 GMT
Looks good, you may want to add a tiny bit of watered down filler over the joins, they're visible now and likely to be quite obvious after painting. While you're already done with this one, one thing that works well for completely hiding the lines from an earlier step is to have all sides the same as the full width (side width plus the thickness of the foamcore on each end), and interlock the panels with the stone work. For your shield/flag, one thing that you could do is get one of the small brass hooks for it, put that in the center near the top, and make the hangings interchangeable for different forces. Thanks. Yeah I plan on filling in those cracks so they aren't noticeable.
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Post by tauster on Jan 15, 2016 7:05:09 GMT
Looks cool! When you initially asked for tips on a dice tower that can double as a terrain piece, my first thought was to object that, while you need the dice tower always on the table, whatever terrain piece you'd build, would be usable in game only once in a while (unless each and every encounter would be in the same terrain, which is highly unlikely). ...so I said nothing, to avoid demotivating you to find a solution. Now when I saw that tower... What a bout handing* out an artifact to the party, similar to Daern's Instant Fortress? It could be an Instant Tower version, adapted by it's creator for his or her special needs... and can hold an endless amount of secrets: - is the silent, invisible butler that is made of a force spell really unintelligent? - why do we feel watched from time to time while we're in the tower? - secret doors lead to hidden add-ons to the tower, opening up new extradimensional rooms (magical guardians, treasure, intrigue...) - or even magic gates to other places (abandoned(?) lab or library of it's creator, or random locations because of portal malfunction) Now the party would have a tower at their beck and call, and could use it not only in battle** but as save haven to rest***. * Of course handing out doesn't mean giving the thing away ** Forcing you as the DM to come up with some believable spontaneous counterstrategy for their enemies *** Make the Instant Tower work only once every few days, or else you'll never be able to have their rest interrupted! And because it's on the table every game night, the players won't ever forget its there. heck, you can even make it the centerpiece of a campaign, where the party - goes to find out layered mysteries about the tower - searches for the creator of the artifact - has to go through pains to keep their possession of the artifact secret - and fails periodically - is troubled by thieves who foud about about them having such a goody (potential interested parties: other adventurers, trading companies, secret cults, the state (it has huge strategical potential for warfare and special ops!), less good-aligned churches, etc...) - have to conquer it back Just my two copper...
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Post by jennifer on Jan 15, 2016 7:42:45 GMT
Here it is painted.. this part of it at least (got a lot more to do): I photoshopped out the crack on the left side .. it isn't that bad but noticeable. I will fill it and retouchup those areas at a much later date.. it is good enough for now. (Also after I apply a heavy application of modeling paste over it -- for frost -- I might not have too many cracks to fill and retouch.) I have too many things to make and can fine tune stuff later.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 16, 2016 22:53:49 GMT
MINIATURES DISPLAY SHELF So, I am starting to acquire a lot of miniatures -- with many times more to come. And I have a lot of spare wall space throughout the house. So it seems natural to store them on the wall. Rather than spend lots of money for a thimble (or the like) display case, I decided I'd just make it out of cardboard, hot glue, paper mache, paint and 1/8" fiber board (2 x 4) for the backing (to hang on the hall and support the weight). I took my tallest and widest miniatures (below) and measured them, then allowed for the thickness of the surrounding cardboard layer with a little extra room and came up with dimensions of 3 1/4 x 2 3/8 x 2 3/8. These measurements accommodate larger miniatures below that are on 1 1/2" bases. The succeeding row that will be glued to the row below, can have different measurements just so long as the ends of each row are flush with each other. In this case since I'll be using a 2 x 4 foot fiber board, so each row must be a bit under 2 feet wide. The tops and sides will be capped with another layer of cardboard, making all sides of the unit double layered. Making sure to criss-cross the cardboard every time you glue one to the next, to allow for extra strength. Each row is glued to the fiber board. Btw, I will make sure to paint prime/paint the fiber board to make it water proof since I'll be applying paper mache to the whole thing after completed. EDIT: I"ll probably add medium weight chip board banding on the front edges before paper mache'ing. Here is a photo of the fiber board I'm talkign about. It's a 2x4 piece hanging on the wall for a DIY organizer using pringles cans (cut at 45 degree angle with miter saw) -- 2 compartments per pringles container. By the time I'm done, I'll have a boatload of cubbies, for ultimate organization!
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Post by stroezie on Jan 17, 2016 8:31:06 GMT
I actually prefer terrain to display my minis on although if you have a lot of minis it can be a little dificult to find the mini you are looking for sometimes ;-)
Love the organiser, may have to do something similar but on a slightly smaller scale.I mainly do 6mm these days most of my stuff would get lost if I made it as big as yours.
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Post by DnDPaladin on Jan 17, 2016 19:07:21 GMT
Displays for minis are great, but when you got over 500+ minis you just can't show them all on one big display. unless you are spielmasterkev and have a full 100 feet wall display that is.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 17, 2016 19:25:43 GMT
Displays for minis are great, but when you got over 500+ minis you just can't show them all on one big display. unless you are spielmasterkev and have a full 100 feet wall display that is. Do you have that many minis?
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Post by Erasmas on Jan 18, 2016 3:09:18 GMT
I easily have that many, if not closer to 1,000 to 1,500 of them.
I have been collecting them for over fifteen years, however.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 18, 2016 6:10:53 GMT
I easily have that many, if not closer to 1,000 to 1,500 of them. I have been collecting them for over fifteen years, however. How do you store them all? I don't have to build this display thingy.. was just an idea -- an affordable solution.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 18, 2016 6:34:18 GMT
Finished my Frostgrave play mat (made of acrylic painted heavy canvas), for now at least. The game calls for 36x36 inch mat. My table isn't that wide.. so this one is 33 x 38 inches. I can adjust the rules by an inch or two to make it work.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 18, 2016 7:04:01 GMT
So here is a photo of just about every prop and miniature I own on my new mat; I have many more props to make and to finish/paint. There are 16 mouslings in the photo at the front left, but you can't see them because they are white & silver and camo with the snow mat -- lots of painting to do. (right click the image and click 'view image" to see it larger)
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Post by Meph on Jan 18, 2016 12:42:49 GMT
Nice start. I have those pieces from the True Legends buckets also. I haven't read through the scenarios yet to know what monsters I will need. I see you have a few dragons there, are they used in some of the scenarios?
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Post by Erasmas on Jan 18, 2016 15:42:59 GMT
I easily have that many, if not closer to 1,000 to 1,500 of them. I have been collecting them for over fifteen years, however. How do you store them all? I don't have to build this display thingy.. was just an idea -- an affordable solution. I'm lucky enough to have an extra bedroom in my house that has been affectionately relegated as the "D&D Room". I have my gaming table, a couple of bookshelves, and a large curio/entertainment center piece that takes up one whole wall. Aside from that, the unpainted Reapers' Bones stay in the boxes that they have come in until they get painted.
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Post by jennifer on Jan 18, 2016 18:42:28 GMT
Nice start. I have those pieces from the True Legends buckets also. I haven't read through the scenarios yet to know what monsters I will need. I see you have a few dragons there, are they used in some of the scenarios? I don't even recall dragons mentioned in the book. But I can make my own scenario easy enough I guess. I just couldn't pass up the deal on those two dragons, after looking how much reaper wants for theirs. I have tons of monsters to acquire and another warband. I might get that soldier pack they sell for the game.
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