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Hey guys!
I just wanted to let you know what we've started a pre-release for our first portable terrain set. Its a novel way to decorate your board, or to get a quick pick up game in! We've got enough terrain to fill a standard size board, and it packs down to a 9x2x6 box, however, I've found that my set will also fit into the pockets of an army transport bag too.

Here's the full text of our release:
Southpaw Art and Design is proud to present Realms of the Flatlands Terrain Set One: Temperate Fantasy Land.

Introducing an innovative take on terrain, this set is simple, affordable, and best of all doesn’t take up much space. We’re gamers just like you, and we can’t always make it down to the FLGS to play on full boards. Also, like many of you, we live in a small apartment, we’ve got room for a portable board, but we certainly don’t have the space for a box of terrain.

And thus was born the Realms of the Flatlands. This terrain set is made of durable acrylic, there is enough pieces to fill a basic battle board and yet stores away in a 6x2x9 box. It’s perfect for on-the-go games, playing on portable boards, or just supplying you with terrain that isn’t soda can forests, and textbook hills.

Terrain Set One comes with the following pieces:

1 Tower (grey acrylic, four walls, roof, rubber band)
1 Pond (transparent blue acrylic)
1 Large hill (green acrylic, two pieces)
1 Small hill (green acrylic, two pieces)
2 Fences (brown and green acrylic)
1 Large Forest (green acrylic base and two transparent green trees)
1 Small Forest (green acrylic base and two transparent green trees)

Hills can be stacked to create a more “hill-like” effect, or used individually, giving you the option of four hills, they can also be used to represent difficult terrain. The possibilities are limited only by your imagination.

Shipping in the US is Priority mail, so we can get your set to you ASAP.

We are currently taking pre-orders for this limited release, and are offering our set at a reduced introductory price. These sets will ship in July, and their introductory price will raise at that time.

Never play on an empty board again.

We just wanted to get the word out there, and you guys have been so supportive!

EDIT: THanks for pointing out, I totally forgot the link:
http://store.advanceddeployment.com/product/realms-of-the-flatlandstm-terrain-set-one-temperate-fantasy-land

-Ravyn

Pictures would be very helpful!

Pricing too!

Any pictures?

Pics please!

I'm assuming that is:
http://southpawart.bigcartel.com/product/realms-of-the-flatlandstm-terrain-set-one-temperate-fantasy-land

I really like the portability factor of the terrain, how every piece comes apart and lays flat, very space saving and convenient. However, I'm not to fond of the "kids toy" look of the shiny plastic finish, I guess that one could repaint the terrain to their liking, but for $45, you would think that it would have a more "grim dark" look and feel to it. I don't know, YMMV.

oh dear.

$45 for that, it looks horrible and not worth the money.I'd think it would be better detailed than that for that amount of money.

blood reaper wrote:$45 for that, it looks horrible and not worth the money.I'd think it would be better detailed than that for that amount of money.

What sort of detail would you like to see?
Our thoughts on this wasn't something super detailed and beautiful, we wanted to make a quick, portable set for folks that might be playing on the go, or don't have a lot of room, we were asking them what they wanted, and pretty much all agreed that they wanted a simple undetailed set.

However, we want to make everyone happy, and would love to hear ideas. If you guys think its no detailed enough, what sort of details would you like to see? If its too expensive, what price range would you consider for a portable terrain set. Sadly, there isn't anything I can do about the shiney plastic, that's acrylic, and it comes that way. :/

-Ravyn

I think it looks good for portable terrain, also grimdark has no place in fantasy.
This kit could be great for multitudes of games, and could be sold as a starter terrain set...
Hmmm

More details in the texture for the pieces of scenery, the trees should have some other colors like brown . About the price maybe $25 but I do think you have designed a good idea for a portable set, if some more small details like grass and moss could be added it would be great. Adding some ground around the water would also be good but if the paint is like that I'm sorry for the comment. You've done a good job but the price could be lowered.

blood reaper wrote:More details in the texture for the pieces of scenery, the trees should have some other colors like brown . About the price maybe $25 but I do think you have designed a good idea for a portable set, if some more small details like grass and moss could be added it would be great. Adding some ground around the water would also be good but if the paint is like that I'm sorry for the comment. You've done a good job but the price could be lowered.

No man, we want to know what people want! We're jut two gamers here, and certainly can't figure out what everyone wants!

We can't really do two colors of acrylic for the trees, they are laser cut, and to try and say cut brown for the bases and green for the trees would mean that we'd have to hand glue all of them, and that would add a lot of time to production and also severely weaken the tree itself. Now, we can add a grass-like texture to the hills, and the base of the fences, sure. On the water, its no paint, we engrave everything on the acrylic. So we could make an area around the water, but it would just be blue.

We are working on a "Space" set, but it won't be out for a bit, it will be a bit "darker" and "gritter" but this first set was our fantasy land terrain set.

Cool, thanks for explaining it properly and I hope the Space Set is able to expand to most Sci-fi games.

Its with the "popular" games in mind.

Ooh! Will there be industrial towers to go along with these 'space corridors'?

It's a little too pricey for an 'impulse buy.'

The fences remind me a little too much of the plastic 'cowboy and indian' sets you used to be able to get at the grocery store.

Maybe replace them with stonelooking walls?

I am living in a smallish flat with limited storage, so anything like this is always interesting to me. But I gotta say, the bright, cartoony look of this stuff does not appeal to me at all. I wouldn't purchase this product, sorry.
Appreciate the innovation and the thought, but not sold on the execution.
Best of luck though.

I like the idea but this version comes out as just too toy like. And not even the good kind of toys, this looks like a preschool toy with its simple shapes and bright colors.

So just to be sure the restrictions are 2 colors (different shades of the same color) and can be build out of flat acrylic yes?

I would stay away from organic shapes like trees and hills, there's just no winning there. The tower looks OK, it's certainly the best of the lot.

Seems that system could be used for dungeon/space ship corridors which are basically grey/black. A solid set of those similar to Dwarven Forge or Litko's stuff but both cheaper and non warpy (I found Litko's plywood doors warped when glued) would sell.

Could a modular castle work?

Modern/scifi trenches and barricades would work as well. Maybe a bunker?

The pond also looks OK, maybe a longer river system or swamp would be good.

Hope that helps.

For $45 you can go to any hobby store and get stuff for toy trains and make the terrain. Also would be able to get a lot more terrain out of the supplies.

blood angel wrote:Maybe replace them with stonelooking walls?

Stone walls might also fit much better to the castle tower, aye.

Also, what Kid Kyoto said!

The price doesn't bother me hugely, although I would expect to see at least one more building for a $50 ballpark.

I have an 18 month old daughter, and the shiny, 'happy' color scheme without any hard edges and faintly fluorescent quality of this terrain really reminds me of toys that I've bought her to play with.

I think that's my biggest problem with your current product; everything about it reminds me of a beginner LEGO blocks set for toddlers. I would suggest roughing the finish so that it had a more matte look, as opposed to the current gloss.

Y'know I hate to tell anyone to steal ideas but check out what Litko, S6 Enginnering and Warmill have been up to. They're using the same tech but have really pushed it to the next level.

The more terrain builders out there the better.

We can do any color of acrylic we can get our hands on. The only real limit is that any single piece can only be cut out of one color. So, no brown tree trunks and green leaves for instance.

We've got a stone fence in the works, and I'll get you guys some pictures of that. We're also going to look into our supplier and see if we can't cut the cost down a bit.

Again this is aimed at people who don't want to build terrain, or are maybe overseas (we've got some guys in the military who are really liking this.)

It is simple, that was our mentality behind it. We've just played too many game using books for hills, and peices of paper for forests, so we wanted to make a step up from that. Not "real" terrain" but get-you-buy" terrain. I realize that with that mentality, our prices aren't quite doable, which is why I'm going to crunch some numbers and see what I can do. While I don't think I can get it all the way down to $25, I think we might be able to swing it at $30. I gotta pay rent still.

I'm also going to get some in action shots today with the terrain. When we did these photos it was on a bright sunny day with lots of lights and I think it might be looking a little too bright and washed out for what reality is.

Thanks for being civil guys, it's really refreshing.

-Ravyn

The trees could be made seperate from the leaves for two color trees. just have the leaves lock in like the tree halves do. Also i would prefer pine trees made in this material, it seems the angles would help.

I also lived (and after a brief intermission expect to live) in a small apartment with limited storage.

I'm sorry to say, I don't think I would buy this at the price posted. It looks like cheap terrain. I was hoping to pay ~$20USD for it.

The problem for me is because you've designed it to be easily storable (and you've done very well at that) it is going to look cheap no matter what you do. So for me there isn't a lot of value in making it out of high-quality materials. Odds are good if I bought your set I would just paint over all of the pieces anyway to make the pieces fit the aesthetic for my army. And even then it's still going to look cheap. So for something that's going to require a bit of work for me to make look fitting and is still going to look cheap, I can't see spending a lot of money on it.

That said, I might be convinced to buy more expensive terrain that was more unique-looking.

Yeah, let's look at what this can do well.
Hills: The flat packing hills are a good idea, the more the shapes there are the better.
Water Features: The pond is okay. I think it could be pretty decent. 3" ones might sell to the Hordes Minion players, and I would be interested in easy, cheap, flat packing river sections.
Buildings/low walls- this is fine, looks okay. Not great but okay. I would go for a less cartoony texture if possible. Maybe flat colours would be better?
Trees and fence: These are the worst pieces, to me.

Kid_Kyoto wrote:Y'know I hate to tell anyone to steal ideas but check out what Litko, S6 Enginnering and Warmill have been up to. They're using the same tech but have really pushed it to the next level.

The more terrain builders out there the better.

QFT

It seems the market is full of terrain at lower prices. Even if a gamer doesn't want to make his terrain, with $25 you can do alot, with $45 you can do even more.

I was in the military and I was able to play games on the billiards table in my barracks ready room. My GW figure case fit snug in my Seabag and I used extra vehicles for terrain. TBH, the terrain you're selling isn't very impressive; especially with the current price tag. My recommendation would be to include more buildings like the tower, cut out all the tree's and land features, and market it as a "Cities of Death on-the-go" kit.

I'm looking into what Litko has and what s6 has, but all I'm seeing is unpainted stuff, of course, I might not be looking in the right place. We weren't looking to do unpainted, just because our thought was for people to be able to pull this set out of the box and start playing, no mess no hassle.

I saw this earlier on Beasts of War.

My first impression, like others, was that I could go and dig out something similar from my son's Duplo box.

Giving it a deeper and more mature look, I could see the value of the concept and even the cleverness of the execution, but I think what really pushed it off my shopping list was two things: first, the shininess, which makes it look too much like the aforementioned toys; a matt finish would make it more appealing; second, the appearance of lightness. Terrain that moves during normal gameplay is no use to me.

Of course, it may not be light, but it looks light.

Here are some constructive suggestions, though:

1. Add a second building, but designed in such a way that it can be attached to the existing building so that one can have either two buildings or one, larger building.

2. Make shallow crater (basically just a ring) and include a pond that will fit inside the crater, so the crater can either be just an empty crater and the pond kept separate, or the two can be put together so that the pond has a "shore".

3. Ditch the bases for the trees and cut slots in the hill parts so the trees can sit snugly in those as bases, allowing the hill parts to be used either as hills or simply as the bases for woods.

4. Generally, think " multipurpose".

R.