Posted by
MortiS-the-Lost on
Jun 22, 2010; 5:25pm
URL: http://the-lost-and-the-damned.71.s1.nabble.com/Bendy-Dungeon-Walls-Review-tp5201044p5209935.html
Most of these pictures were taken shortly after I had first opened the box and was messing about with the pieces to work out what could and couldn't be done with them. I didn't have a Battle-matt to hand at the time, so I improvised using tiles from various dungeon sets I have and some maps/floor plans that came with Dragon/Dungeon magazine.
I found that (depending on the grid) the Bendy Walls work quite well with most floor plans, your 45 degree sections were a good test of the set.
Experiments not pictured included: Lining the Heroquest board (failed, squares too small), Lining Zanzer's Dungeon (failed, passages too narrow in places),using 2 of the doors with my MK3DD sets to make a double door (worked quite well, but needs a bit to go over the top to form a frame) and using the 1” squared plastic from the new Citadel movement trays as a floor (worked very well). I guess what I should also download one of the printable Battle-mats from the Dark Platypus website and try using the wall with what they where intended for.
Billiam Babble wrote
Are the ones in your photos re-painted by you? Because they look great.
No, like I said these are pretty much strait out of the box (I hadn't even cleaned the flash off), admittedly the pre-painting on some of the walls where better than others, but for the most part they don't look especially good and I think the camera has been very generous. When I've got around to cleaning up repainting the pieces I'll post more pictures.
Billiam Babble wrote
It's interesting what you say about the height of the walls. I remember having some dilemmas with my dungeon blocks, because there seems to be an optimal height for access to figures (walls getting bashed and shifting). 50cm / 2 inches seemed a bit high. 1 inch is definitely a bit low. I settled for about 1.5 in I think, but it still lacked something and the doors weren't to scale.
The Bendy Dungeon walls are about 1.3” tall (yes I corrected that in the initial post too) which I think is a little too small, especially if your going to use large monsters in your dungeon or your playing with slightly larger scale figures like the 40mm ranges that seem to pop up from time to time (eg Rackham miniatures or the current line of Discworld figures) and if your playing with something like Inquisitor scale figures these walls are going to hip-high at best. Of course most people will be playing with 28/30mm figures, but please note Bendy Dungeon Walls (but probably not the doors) would be perfect hight for older 25mm miniatures.
MK3DD walls are about 2.2” high which I think is reasonably the hight the ceiling would be in the dungeon, I have pillars which are about 1” taller again thus it's assumed rooms with pillars have higher (possibly vaulted) ceilings. While realistic, the 2.2” wall do cause problems, miniatures can be quite hard to manoeuvre in corridors and players will some times forget about a monster or item because they can't see it behind a wall from where they are sitting, because of this I always make sure to set the dungeon up on a low table so players can see down into the dungeon, but it still happens from time to time. Of course the MK3DD walls are much less vulnerable to being knocked than other sets because they peg-into the floor tiles
An older dungeon set I made using plaster castings from a mould-set made by Prince August (called Dungeon Builder – more on this another time) has walls just under 2” tall which I think is a good optimal hight, but the floor works on a 1.5” grid meaning the corridors I made were fairly difficult to move miniatures along. The weight of the plaster plus the fact I made solid rooms meant these walls didn't get knocked either, but the dungeon is very difficult to transport.

^
One of my earlier 3D dungeon setsI believe Dwarven Forge walls are also around 2” tall or slightly smaller, but I can't find measurements for them anywhere. I've also seen many dungeons made using Hirst Arts blocks with walls as low as 1” and up to 3” or more in some cases
Billiam Babble wrote
A couple of weeks ago I picked up some multi-fold rulers from Wilkinson. 50p each - mine were multicoloured,
the ones online appear to be pink (shudder). Perhaps they could act as a cheap alternative? - After being painted thoroughly in grey first, of course! The sections are inch long, and folded around one inch grid very well. The bad news is that the hinges break easily (just like the bendy ones!). They won't look anywhere near as good as the Bendys' but perhaps they can be used as spares or for a massive smooth wall dungeon.
We have a Wilkinson store in town so I might go and have a look at these some time. The thought occurs that with a little flat-panel detail added the folding rulers might make for good Sci-fi walls in a similar vein. Also (thinking of your floor-plans specifically) you could print out and stick on some of that 'Stone wall' pattern you posted on DA a few years back

^
Image stolen by a elite squad of Goblins from http://billiambabble.deviantart.com/ at great loss to the Goblins after running into Billiam's Monsters on the way out
Billiam Babble wrote
Are magnetic battlemats very common? I fantasized about printing my own plans on magnetic paper. It would certainly solve the weighting issues.
- Or do you reckon the growing presence of laptops and phone apps on the gaming table will make people scared of magnetic sheets?
The Dark Platypus ones are the only ones I'm aware of at the moment, but it think it's likely there are others out there.
Magnetic things seem to be quite popular in the world of miniature gaming, Hasslefree sell a range of “Neodymium Disc” magnets and it seems to be popular among 40k players (especially with Tau armies) to make magnetic joins on dreadnoughts and the like allowing different weapon combinations to be swapped round, I've been considering doing this with my Space Crusade miniatures and Mark RG has a Terminator-armoured character he's done it to. Also I once remember reading in Harbinger Magazine about a game called 'Nin-Gonost' which has a modular 3D dungeon held together using magnets!
Personally having grown up around 80's and 90's technology which was very vulnerable to magnetic fields I'm rather weary of magnets, nearly all the flat surfaces in my house - some of which are the tops of computers - have miniatures on them and I don't like the idea of them having magnets in them for that reason. But maybe I'm being paranoid, after all the speaker in my phone has magnet in it and that doesn't effect the phone, same with the speakers in my Laptop and the TV too.
-----------------------------------
~The ravings of a single mad Goblin is bad enough, but such a power-hungry, malice-filled creature as Mortis can never hope to be understood~