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Hello all I have recently picked up SDE and think I want to make a little 3d dungeon for it!

the tiles the game with just don't match quality of the minis, and once I get mine painted up I want a proper place to play em!


The boards on kickstarter etc from tyson and secret weapons are out of my price range which has me building one myself! No moolah for hirst arts molds either so what to do? I see a lot of good results achieved using insulation foam sheets and cutting a grid of 25mm or 30mm across them for the floor, then building walls up on them... which seems to be a very good way of doing things!

something like this



link http://oldscratch.smackwell.com/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?num=1200894000/0

seend a lot of people doing this method, but I'm worried the 1/2" thick foam as a floor won't be strong enough? Maybe I'm just overly worried?

If anyone has any input, would be appreciated!


At this point I was considering using a MDF/hardboard "floor" to attach foam floor to, and then build walls & stuff up.. but worried that may warp...

blah.

I would think as long as your not transporting the sections to a new location every week they should hold up fine. Naturally, with a decent game room (or even an empty garage) with this type of terrain available, you will quickly become the favorite in any gaming group.

It should mostly be fine though foam is still susceptible to warping.

an "EDIT:MDF" bottem should help alot.

Another option are hirst molds and plaster.

Drat.

Well, if you don't mind me asking, MED is what?

I'm assuming its something akin to hardboard, or MDF.. but my googlefu failing me here.

I'd love to go route of hirst/plaster but cost is issue. I could knock out a full SDE board of blue insulation foam for less than $20.. probably more than 1 board even, lol... but willing to spend extra to maintain its integrity.

"da plan" was to coat the whole mah-f in modge podge, let it dry, and then paint/varnish heavily... read somewhere GW did a lot of their terrain that way, and it held up considerably well?

Yeah sorry MDF.

Some kinda coat/varnish/lacquer on foam should hold up pretty well. and as long as you arnt dropping metal figures or rolling dice on it.

You should totally glue any foam-based terrain like that to an MDF board on the bottom.

Foam works great, it is just not super durable depending how you use it. It is ok for Foam to get banged up, as you can just fix it with paint touch ups, but it can be a pain.

Have you seen the ones they made at Scenery Planet?
http://www.scenery-planet.com/3_galeria/projects/8_bit_adventures.html

They don't give too much detail into how it was made but they do explain the materials they used even if it is a little weird due to the translation.

A constructive level, the entire set has the strength and durability of Scenery own Planet; board modules are manufactured in board 10mm thick plywood over a wooden frame samba, and all sides have been trimmed in DM. The surface grid game is made also in DM for maximum strength and all reliefs and textures have been modeled in epoxy putty and acrylic resins, to give the whole ultra-resistant finish.

Ha. Haven't got a chance to look at the translated version yet. Pics are amazon though

I was gonna get 12x12 mdf tiles if I could find them again, but was thinking maybe those would be a bit small and I might need something larger?

Next decision to mke would be 25mm or 30mm Tiles? I hear 30 leaves wiggle room during play while 25mm can get crowded?

Made a start on it, grid is 25mm so hope it doesn't get jammed up.

Played first game of Sde on manufacturers tiles last night, was a blast!

Any input/helpful hints would be appreciated!

Still need to get mdf to attach base to as well.


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That looks pretty good. I use MDF for almost all terrain pieces. Have you looked into getting a mold from Hirst Arts and making it out of plaster? I have several of their molds and they work great for stuff like this.

Thanks depraved. I have, but molds are expensive. They are lovely, and I want a more resilient set to play with but, po' boys have po' ways. I haven't spent any monies making this yet. this was just stuff I had left around from 40k projects

even have an update!


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This is tile #2!

went for a mountain civilization type theme? have a mario tube in there if ya cant see it!

figure with empty areas I could make some chibi buildings and move around as i wanted to? (or not use them and use it as a baddy castle)



Tile #1 now has 4 brick walls, and interior walls built, still trying to figure out what to do with it. It seems lacking compared to this guy!

so a few notes

the cliff on left side of first picture is extremely wobbly. I need to support it more... thinking of coating a wooden BBQ skewer in hot glue and poking through the bottom up into the cliff in a couple places and cutting flush on bottom?

right now it has hot glue and 2-3 tooth picks holding it in.

I have also though of adding a column out on the furtherst part of the overhang?


As far as playability/house rules for 3d movement goes... Any of yall experienced with sde I would love to hear your house rules for that sort of thing as I'm not having a lot of luck finding much. I haved posted on soda pops forums as well in hopes of receiving responses there.

I don't want the tile to favor missile characters too much, or flyers.

play tested a bit last night and ranger got a helm that gave her ability to fly, so she just strolled right up on top level where spawn point is in photo. could see issues where she could kite rex, or anyone without fly up the stairs while shooting, then fly downstairs and wait for them to come back down and repeat.

got me thinking, maybe anyone should be able to "jump" maybe by expending an action point?

could also make "push" and pull more fun, as well as compel... make kobolds walk off cliffs or what not... would need to determine a height at which you take damage if you "jump" from maybe? I had considered a static value for a particular height... say 1 star per "floor" you fall? you could take a DEX check and if you failed you lose an activation point for jumping, and a heart if height was too great?

It will hold up, even in the long run....however, after painting you will have to deal with dings and dents in the foam.

Also structurally, unless you used a lot of internal bracing (tooth picks, etc.) be very careful about where you pick up pieces...the material can easily fail at the joints (the material, not the glue) so pick them up with care if they are heavy.

The BBQ skewers are an excellent idea (I used them for larger areas) as well.

Several coats of watered down glue will help toughen it up a bit, both before and after painting.

(I make a lot of foam terrain...can you tell).

Your stuff looks great, hope you enjoy playing with it!

I've never even heard of Super Dungeon Explore before but your stuff looks amazing! It would've been some great terrain to build back in the day when I played LOTR. Hell even now with my new chaos realm 40K board i'm making. I may steal some design ideas

Thank you very much guys.

Hopefully I will have more done this weekend and get some more pix up.

Hey guys,
I'm sure no one remembers this but I finally finished it


Have a look!


Thanks!



http://imgur.com/a/7mLi7/all

WOW! That is awesome. Nicest HeroQuest-type set I've ever seen. Makes me want to pull out my Advanced HQ and play it

Thanks Tayls


here are embedded photos for easier viewing I hope cheers!

Tile #1




















Tile #2


















Tile #3 (actually pretty much first tile complete)











Tile #4












Tile #5

Awesome.

On an aside, I made a treasure chest objective marker and bought some blinged up dollar store decals with the small 1-2mm rhinestones on them to use as gems. I think these would look sweet added to the gold in your treasure room.

Thanks! That's a great idea! I may have to steal it. I want to make little objective markets to count as skull tokens, so when a hero dies a little pile of gold/gems, a chest, maybe a glowy weapon all strewn about so other players could go scavenge their stuff. Figure I could use those there as well