Hey all, Sam and David here.
Somehow we’re on a 21 day streak with the blog. It feels incredible to be able to put out so much content once again, especially after such a long slump with posts and just that drive to write and to create. And it has also been so lovely for us to get to build this site back up together, because it is all our wonderful geeky hobbies that formed a very solid foundation for our relationship over the past handful of years.
And that is why we made the content schedule the way we did, so we can both get together and write up posts about tabletop gaming and to talk about the various interests we’re indulging each and every week, and then of course I still have plenty of time to talk about books.
Another Tabletop Tuesday is upon us, and we’re back to talk TTRPGs once again. A lot of what we’re going to talk about will be generic, so usable with a number of different gaming systems, but if something is specific to one system or only a couple systems, we will definitely be sure to make that known in our post.
With all of that being said, I guess we can just jump into today’s post.
Last year at Gen Con, while Sam was busy with the Writer’s Symposium, I walked the vendor’s hall and looked for tabletop accessories that we could try. Most of the time I try out different games and just wander around. Sometimes I might go to a crafting panel or some game playtest panel.
So one of the days I came across this cool terrain setup, with a lot of different options for changing around setups. And they had a big box bundle deal that had pretty much everything they had, and it seemed like a good deal, so I decided it would be worth checking out.
Of course, with how busy we were with all the conventions/work the second half of last year, we didn’t get a chance to open the boxes or anything until earlier this month.
Based on the pictures you might recognize this from a couple weeks ago when we talked about the Date Night Dungeon – Wight Wedding adventure. It seemed like a good chance to try out building a couple simple terrain map setups.
There are a lot of pieces. And it can take a little while to set things up. And taking it all back apart, well that was even more time consuming. It got easier as soon as Sam grabbed a nail file so we could gently pry the pieces up.
Aside from the tear down, the biggest comment/complaint I can give is that the painting on the tiles is a bit one dimensional and flat. I’m probably going to take some of my shades and highlight paints and make the tiles look a little more dynamic. Of course you can buy the sets in either unpainted or painted, but there wasn’t too much of a difference in the price, so I figured I’d just go ahead and get the painted ones to start.
While David was at work, I decided to build up a little terrain map setup, just to take some photos for today’s post. This setup probably took me like 15-20 minutes to put together, but I was only trying to do something simple to show off the tiles and building blocks. For an actual campaign or session encounter, I’d probably take a little more time putting things together and making everything perfect.
David mentioned that the tiles are a bit one dimensional, and that is definitely true, but I like that there are cobblestones, grass, water, lava, snow, and like a forest-y undergrowth. And this is just from the first set release they did. Last summer Monster Adventure Terrain did a Kickstarter for another set, which includes forests and wilderness options, more civilization and kingdom options, and even a tile removing tool.
Which, honestly I’m very excited about getting my hands on this second set release. Because I want more options for wilderness, and being able to have mulch and foliage tiles for the base, as well as having the ability to build up trees and have more options for rock piles and obstacles and such, is really great. But the fact that they listened to their fan base and created a tile removing tool makes me even happier about getting more products from this company.
Because…yeah, this terrain I built up for this post…it’ll probably stay built for minimum several days, possibly a couple weeks, before we eventually get around to taking the time to take it all apart.
I would like to see more options for buildings now, though. Right now we just have the plain flat gray blocks for castles. If they could have options for other types of buildings, like log cabins or Tudor style homes or stone exterior homes.
I’m sure that is something that could happen with more future sets.
And I think the price isn’t too bad for these building sets. You get a whole lot of options for variety, which is great. But personally I think I like the WizKids Warlock tiles just a little better. It’s fairly similar in price point but there’s a depth in the design that makes it all feel more real and less cheap. But the flexibility in your ability to design with the Monster Adventure Terrain, so that is certainly something to consider.
If you’d like to check out Monster Adventure Terrain for yourself, you can find their products on their Amazon store here.
All right, well that is all from us for today. Thank you so much for stopping by, and we’ll be back soon with more geeky content.
Free State of Geek 