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Dwarven Forge has started their 3rd kickstater, this time for a medieval city

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/dwarvenforge/dwarven-forges-city-builder-system

Too pricey for me.

I'll stick with my Pegasus and GF9 stuff thanks.

Spicy, but I'm in for 2 sets painted and probably an add on or two.

While it's not cheap, Dwarven Forge have delivered on time for two years running now, and deliver (what I consider to be) an impressive product that also happens to be nearly indestructible.

Certainly not for everyone, but I'm glad to see they're doing so well for their first day, and hope they can afford to flesh out the tiers a bit more in the coming weeks.

Having 3 sets of their Dungeon tiles and 2 sets of their Caverns from the first two KS's is already giving me some ideas for how to use these in a variety of games.

Hell, I'm even glad to see them backing the delivery target up a bit compared to the others. After being so frustrated with companies like Wyrd and Palladium missing their marks by massive margins, it's nice to see a company say "Hey, this stuff takes a while" and state they're padding their usual time frame.

In it since shortly after they sent the email.

I think they made the design overly complicated, and it jacked up the price unnecessarily so. They were able to offer much more in the previous campaigns by keeping the pieces basic. It looks like the peg system is likely to blame, and seems worse than their existing design. I wish they'd simply done their medieval building sets to dwarvenite. The lack of 2" walls also hurts building options. Corners worked great for adding interior segments. Honestly, Armorcast buildings cost less. Actually, with how weak the Euro is, I could pick up Tabletop world buildings about as cheap.

Also, they're really going to have to add a lot of pieces to the upper tiers to make them worthwhile. You really seem better off just getting multiple cottages, since you only get 2 doors/roofs in the Hamlet pledge.

Too pricy. You're thinking "town- villiage- hamlet" but what you'll afford is "house".

Maybe in the US Bossk_Hogg, but apparently everywhere else in the world has to pay an additional block of shipping charges for each and every single add-on, so taking multiple individual Cottages would be atrocious. When you factor in the customs charges on top since they evidently weren't arsed to sort out multiple shipping hubs, frankly I don't even get why they're offering this to anywhere outside the USA.

I love Dwarven Forges stuff. Just can't spend the $$ right now, though.

I am going to need to do the math to see if this is cost effective for Arcadia Quest or not.

Looks pretty cool.

In the past, did their 'hand painted' pledges satisfy most customers' expectations?

I got 2 sets of Caverns hand painted. As an amateur painter, I wouldn't say that they were an A+ showcase level job or anything, but on the table top they look fantastic, and I'm thinking of adding a little to them myself (flecks of gold/silver in a few walls for example).

But for less than $30 per set to save on buying paint (a minor savings) and spending dozens of hours (a major savings, in my eyes), I consider it a solid deal.

Bought 3 sets of dungeon tiles and painted them up while watching the Spartacus series, and I still need to go over them with the final dry brushing.

Here is what I got from the Caverns (hastily built as I tore open boxes and assembled things on the fly with no real plan).:

 Yodhrin wrote:
Maybe in the US Bossk_Hogg, but apparently everywhere else in the world has to pay an additional block of shipping charges for each and every single add-on, so taking multiple individual Cottages would be atrocious. When you factor in the customs charges on top since they evidently weren't arsed to sort out multiple shipping hubs, frankly I don't even get why they're offering this to anywhere outside the USA.

Ugh, yeah. In that case I'd definitely just get tabletop world stuff. Other than the roofs, it looks like you might even be better off just buying a couple of their resin sets from Dwarven Forge EU. 2 doors for $165 unpainted?!


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Alpharius wrote:
In the past, did their 'hand painted' pledges satisfy most customers' expectations?

I got the caverns painted, as they looked more difficult to paint than the dungeon dwarvenite sets. I had 4 of their older resin cavern sets, and the painted dwarvenite ones match pretty well, sans the lack of resin water. Speaking of which, does anyone know if they're ever restocking the cavernous lakes/rivers sets (with the clear resin water) in the US? The EU site has them, but shipping is rough.

are there any scale shots of the buildings next to different sized models?

Some absolutely gorgeous looking stuff, but looks like it's going to be limited to people who did better than me in school (or landed themselves a sizeable dowry! )

 Alpharius wrote:
In the past, did their 'hand painted' pledges satisfy most customers' expectations?

I've gotten a mix of painted and unpainted from them because some things, like the water effects in the caverns, are not time effective for me to do (and I would probably do a crap job at it). If I remember right, there were some minor quality control issues with the painting in the first kickstarter that he fixed before the second one. For terrain/scenery, I'd say the hand painted stuff was good. I've done a bunch of tiles myself, and they look just as good. If you have any doubts, their customer service has always been stellar.

This stuff looks great, and I'm glad that he didn't do a kickstarter with only the sewers, as had been predicted last year. And then there was the rumor about the castle set six months ago. This one looks like it will have a bit of everything, once all the add-on packs are announced. I wish the add-ons would be announced at the beginning, at least to get an idea of what you want versus what you really need.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Here are their add-on packs so far:

So, If I undertand it properly, the Hmlet pledge let you build 2 houses for the modest sum of 165$ US ?????

While I loved the 2 previous kickstarter by them, I fail to see where is the value in this one.

 streetsamurai wrote:
So, If I undertand it properly, the Hmlet pledge let you build 2 houses for the modest sum of 165$ US ?????

While I loved the 2 previous kickstarter by them, I fail to see where is the value in this one.

I don't think this is aimed at shlubs like me somehow. There is NO value in this whatsoever. This is an expensive "high-end" product. $165 of product, or £110 in real money , would get you 6 or 7 similar sized (or bigger) pre-painted buildings from the likes of 4ground and you'd get free shipping. I'm not going to rag on anyone that can afford to back this KS, more power to you, I just could not justify it. 1600 odd people can however

Is it wrong that I enjoy watching the dwarven forge videos because I like Stefan's way of speaking? Always need a few more buildings for gaming, maybe I'll finally contribute to one of their kickstarters.

I was looking at this as a backdrop for some Discworld minis.
But, the shipping puts it way out of my range.
Thanks to those posting alternatives, as I'll have to pass on this one.

 streetsamurai wrote:
So, If I undertand it properly, the Hmlet pledge let you build 2 houses for the modest sum of 165$ US ?????

While I loved the 2 previous kickstarter by them, I fail to see where is the value in this one.

On its own, yes. I'm thinking I may just use my Dungeon Tiles to round out both the streets and fill in for some of the missing doors. Not necessarily a perfect solution, but I think it'll do in a pinch. That should add some versatility up to at least 4 houses of varying levels from a Hamlet, possibly even 6, though that bypasses the lack of doors only to hit the lack of roofs.

Or one-two larger multi-story/broader structures.

As it stands, they have my attention, and I do hope that, like other projects, the stretch goals begin to round things out nicely, as they have in the past, but I can't fault anyone for skipping this one due to costs either.

To fulfill my own curiosity;

KS1 had 345 ten set backers, and 188 painted ten set backers (including Patrons), out of just under 5,400 backers total.
KS2 had 133 ten set backers, and 185 painted ten set backers (including Patrons), out of 3,950 backers total
KS3 (so far) has 76 ten set backers, and 336 painted ten set backers (no Patron tiers this time), out of 1,629 backers total.

Now obviously different sets will hold more or less appeal to people, but it's interesting how there has been an explosion of interest in the top end so far in the campaign. In KS1 the 'top tier' backers made up roughly 10% of the participants, ~8% for KS2, but around 25% this time.

I went in for 10 sets of caverns plus way too many add-ons (it didn't help that there were dungeon passages added, as I bought a bunch of those for use with my 3 sets from KS1) during the last Kickstarter. I also bought several sets of the resin Medieval Building System 1 and 2 when they were restocked, so I have the basics for a town already.

I'm currently in for a Capital pledge, with probably an equivalent (or more, probably...) amount of money set aside for add-ons. The streets and roofs are more of what I'd like, as I can do ground floors using my current medieval and dungeon sets, then use this KS's system for the upper floors. The variety will also be nice. The stone buildings can be used in dungeons in a pinch as well.

The one thing I'd say about this product is that, yes, it is expensive, but this is as cheap as it will ever be for retail unless you get lucky in the secondhand market. It will also withstand gaming much better than resin will, as it's practically break-proof outside of cutting it with a blade. So it really is quite an investment should you want to pass it down to other gamers eventually.

If you are looking for a medieval building system that looks to be fairly modular and well-integrated with the rest of Dwarven Forge's tile system or other 2"x2" tile systems, then I'd recommend pledging. It's also only the third day, and I'm sure the stretch goals will add a bit more value to the base sets as the campaign progresses.

~iPaint

 Pete Melvin wrote:

 streetsamurai wrote:
So, If I undertand it properly, the Hmlet pledge let you build 2 houses for the modest sum of 165$ US ?????

While I loved the 2 previous kickstarter by them, I fail to see where is the value in this one.

I don't think this is aimed at shlubs like me somehow. There is NO value in this whatsoever. This is an expensive "high-end" product. $165 of product, or £110 in real money , would get you 6 or 7 similar sized (or bigger) pre-painted buildings from the likes of 4ground and you'd get free shipping. I'm not going to rag on anyone that can afford to back this KS, more power to you, I just could not justify it. 1600 odd people can however

Well aye, but at that point as Bossk_Hogg says, you'd be as well ordering from TTW and getting something with a level of detail and quality that DF's offering just can't compare to:

32 Euros ex-VAT:



28.5 Euros ex-VAT:



58 Euros ex-VAT:



63 Euros ex-VAT(42 without the grocery accessories):



118 Euros ex-VAT:



Literally the only thing DF has going for it in this KS is the modularity, but that's pretty heavily limited by the number of door-containing walls they give you in each pledge level. I don't buy the "durability" argument; unless you're gaming with badly-behaved five year olds who like to throw your terrain at the wall when they lose, big hefty chunks of resin are not in any way "fragile".

 Yodhrin wrote:
quality, modularity etc.

I think it depends what you want it for. If you need a handful of pieces for wargaming terrain, then, yeah, go with TTW or MBA. DF has always been developed with the RPGer first in mind, all other uses second. The resin pieces they've done in the past have been awesome, but these dwarvenite kickstarters have been focused on modularity based on a 4x4 footprint. So I think mostly DF goes after the folks who want a step up from the D&D paper terrain grid floorplan sets WotC did (still does?) a few years ago. I still think this is cool for tabletop wargames in terms of being able to mess around with building shapes to create chokepoints and such (and I also don't underestimate the sheer beauty of TTW).

For EU, yeah, the shipping price takes any value away in terms of price per piece. For the US, wait until the end of the campaign. The first two had questionable value in the beginning, but the stretch goals added up so by the end each set was pretty loaded. There were also a few people on the DF forums who organized some shipping thing to Canada for much, much cheaper. I don't know what the solution for the EU is. As you said, TTW is a more viable option after you factor in shipping costs.

 Yodhrin wrote:
Literally the only thing DF has going for it in this KS is the modularity, but that's pretty heavily limited by the number of door-containing walls they give you in each pledge level. I don't buy the "durability" argument; unless you're gaming with badly-behaved five year olds who like to throw your terrain at the wall when they lose, big hefty chunks of resin are not in any way "fragile".

I love DF terrain unfortunately I am not going to be able to back this because I don't feel the value is there based on what you get for the price, compared to other projects they've done. At this point I'll be waiting for Manorhouse Workshop Modular Underground Project since it will be in hard plastic and seems more durable given how they did their modular designs compared to the DF ones.

I haven't kept a close eye on the comments, but one thing that some people might be interested in knowing is that they are planning to do a Castles campaign in the future. While this one will have castle/stone building elements, the full out Castles will have to wait for another (the next?) campaign.

Stefan mentioned wanting to save said Castles for an epic campaign of their own.

I'm with those that say DF delivers a great product. My buddy went in on the first two KS's (unpainted) and they both delivered a great result that we're all very pleased with.

However, I'm also with those that say this is not a great value. You can quite simply get more for less $165 for two unpainted buildings is just silly. And if you want to make some nice big city streets, you've got to buy ALOT more pieces. It will give a good looking result, but taking a system designed for small dungeon passageways and using for entire cities is destined to be a very expensive endeavor.

Lastly, is it just me or are they deliberately using some small 25mm'ish figs with tiny bases in their layout pictures? I have a feeling that 28mm heroics on 3mm slottas are going to make your setups look much smaller.

In my experience using Wyrd 28/32/whatever mm figures on 30-50mm bases, they (at least, the Dungeon and Cavern terrain) holds up pretty well.

Now granted, a city setting which is going to hit perspective/scaling issues more easily might be an issue the previous ones didn't have, but hopefully it'll still work out.

This product seems to have thinner walls, which would help a bit. If the floor plates are 4 x 4, the old walls take up a good half an inch or so, so with two thick walls you'd be looking at 3 x 3 worth of usable space. 9 square inches or so isn't a very big room. But from the images they do look smaller, and obviously there'll be options to connect 2+ tiles together for larger spaces.

 Forar wrote:
In my experience using Wyrd 28/32/whatever mm figures on 30-50mm bases, they (at least, the Dungeon and Cavern terrain) holds up pretty well.

Now granted, a city setting which is going to hit perspective/scaling issues more easily might be an issue the previous ones didn't have, but hopefully it'll still work out.

This product seems to have thinner walls, which would help a bit. If the floor plates are 4 x 4, the old walls take up a good half an inch or so, so with two thick walls you'd be looking at 3 x 3 worth of usable space. 9 square inches or so isn't a very big room. But from the images they do look smaller, and obviously there'll be options to connect 2+ tiles together for larger spaces.

The dungeon holds up well because folks expect claustrophobic spaces and no one minds that most figs end up taller than the dungeon walls. I do think that 4 inch buildings and 2 inch high (if that's what it is, I can't find a height measurement anywhere) walls will probably look fine with 28mm figs, but I have a feeling the promotional pics make them look much bigger than they will in "real life".

As for the interiors. 3x3 is useable to put figures inside, but extremely tight if they're going to have any kind of interaction, That's just 3 25mm bases across.

 Fugazi wrote:

 Yodhrin wrote:
quality, modularity etc.

I think it depends what you want it for. If you need a handful of pieces for wargaming terrain, then, yeah, go with TTW or MBA. DF has always been developed with the RPGer first in mind, all other uses second. The resin pieces they've done in the past have been awesome, but these dwarvenite kickstarters have been focused on modularity based on a 4x4 footprint.

The first two were based on a 2x2 footprint, which had good modularity. This is based on a 4x4 footprint, which detracts. All they had to to do was convert their building line to dwarvenite. 2x2 floor, 2x2 one wall, 2x2 corner, doors. Then mix it up a bit with larger floors, a wall piece with a window and some roofs.

Instead we got some overly fiddly post system and not enough doors to make a decent building, limited to 4 inch internal walls, etc.

Building a 2x2 upper floor without a 'tray' approach (which might as well just be the floor at that point) wouldn't be easy. Hell, the lower floor(s) would be obnoxiously covered in pillars.

Not that building and removing a multiple 4x4 upper floor will be terribly easy with the system as we see it, but 2x2 would only exasperate that.

Not sure how the 4x4 'detracts' from the modularity really. Like, I get that literally it reduces the manner in which the designs can be built, but utility/pragmatism has to come into play as well.

That other Castle terrain campaign from last year had said 'tray' approach with smaller tiles that seemed to work reasonably well, but not wanting to even glance at something that could be a target for legal action is probably the safest bet as well.

Kind of a shame that whole thing went down as it did. That was another expensive campaign, but the trays thing seemed like an elegant approach to multiple-tier buildings.