"Dungeon building in 15/18mm" Topic

What it says, as my fantasy, historical, and science fiction armies build in 15/18mm I know eventually I will want some dungeon crawling and I will want terrain (Cartographers are visual people,) so let me start my research the easy way – asking other knowledgeable people for advice:

1) Who makes suitable dungeon terrain? USA sources preferred with similar priced pieces.

2) Do you suggest walls, half walls, no walls? Doors that open/close?

3) I have rules but open to thoughts on those…

4) Dungeon monsters beyond the basic humanoids that I am currently building forces with?

I've been doing dungeon models for 25/28mm RPG and started with Dwarven Forge tiles that have full walls. We quickly found the walls got in the way and that having continuous walls added little value. I switched to flat tiles with standing doors and stone blocks for when we needed to represent walls.

If you don't mind casting your own, Hirst Arts makes great tiles and walls. If you don't want to cast them, you can try castlekits.com.

Javelin98,

How well will they work with 15mm figures? Any anachronistic or scale issues?

I am not a dungeon gamer but read thru this thread. A thought came to my mind. Several RR modeling companies sell sets of sidewalk. If you are looking to represent just the flooring as suggested above, you could look into that option. I know you can get them in various RR scales. They come as smooth and some have cracked/rough surfaces.

Splinterlight Miniatures carries a line of dungeon monsters and other creatures.

Plenty of paper terrain goes with 'partial/angled' walls. You get the visual of large spaced walls with ease of play if you angle the short (half figure height, three quarter?) walls outward. \_/

Doug

Here's my take on things:

1. No walls. Figures are too short for walls.
2. I use hand painted cork tiles, cut in appropriate sizes. I would highly recommend searching YouTube for DM Scotty and the DMG. Their methods work just fine for 15mm stuff.
3. Song of Blades and Heroes and Song of Gold and Darkness works great for me,
4. Use everything and don't get caught up on scale. 54mm Vikings make great frost giants. 28mm ogres are great hill giants. 10mm giant rats work as rat swarms. Use any and all dragons or demons.
5. You might need to build a lot of your dungeon dressing. Tables, chairs, etc. Craft and pound stores are your friends.

That's all I can think off..

Battle Valor Miniatures has a set of furniture for many of your would be needs, bar, beds, tables,chairs, book cases and the likes the whole set is $35.00 USD it a big set I feel is well worth it.

Good terrain source War Monkey!

Thanks.

There's also 15mm.co.uk who have a whole range of 15mm dungeon scenics.

link

Well worth a look.

Also
Egyptian tombs/dungeons 30mm walls
TMP link

This one is really good and well worth a look also
TMP link

Well, I have been through the iterations. Lots and lots of iterations. I have three options:

1. The massive collection of Dwarven Forge tiles I have from their Kickstarters. They actually work great.

2. I am a Hirst Arts guy so they also look awesome. But take work. Here is a page to show scale from my blog
link

3. Make your own. I made a full set out of mdf, super cheap tiles from Home depot, and pink foam. More on my blog here. link

I like all three. #1 and #2 actually are compatible so that works great. and since I went to some great effort and made them myself, I really like #3. Great thing is, I use Demonworld figs mostly for 15mm so they are beefy and super detailed. so I put them on washers and away we go.

Very cool Keno. WarrenABox has a great series on 15mm dungeons on his blog "War In a Box".

War in a box : link

Spliterlight miniature has some dungeon fluff stuff too, weapons, treasure, weapons rack, suit of armor on a rack, and a few other stuff as well..

15mm co uk has just released skulls and skeletons that would make for nice dungeon stuff too, nothing like coming across a pile of skull that makes you wonder what's next.

Thanks for the recommendation, Logain. I built mine out of foamcore and balsa sticks for a fast and cheap tileset that still looks pretty good. Most of the stuff I did is just scaled down 2.5D dungeons with inspiration taken from these guys:

YouTube link

YouTube link

link

They work in the big 28mm scales, but there stuff is all hand crafted and easily scaled to suit 15mm.

Hi

After years of lurking, finally something to post about! :>

I've been working on some laser cut dungeon tiles. I was inspired by Two Hour Dungeon Crawl and Song of Blades and Heroes. The tiles are made of wood with walls that are about 1/3 height so that dramatic figures like the little guys from splintered light aren't too confined in the rooms and passages. I've played a bunch of games with them at home but haven't gotten a chance to take pictures yet.

Should I take some of my Thanksgiving time to figure out how to get pictures up here? Is there any interest in such things?

DD

DungeonDelver,

Pictures, please.

4. Use everything and don't get caught up on scale. 54mm Vikings make great frost giants. 28mm ogres are great hill giants. 10mm giant rats work as rat swarms. Use any and all dragons or demons.

This. I bought some of the Privateer Press warbeasts to use as giant magitech armors in 15mm, other PP infantry to use as scifi mecha, and even that big Confrontation Titan Dragon for a Record-of-Lodoss-Wars sized dragon.

Belatedly here are a few pics of the dungeon tile system. Feedback is very welcome

link

With more at 15mmdungeon.wordpress.com

They look very good :)

I got a Pathfinder mat for the floor and am making walls from 1x3 with varied little cardboard rectangles that paint up well as bricks.

Mr Abox, another home run.

DD: Excellent! Well done on the 'shorty' walls; plenty easy to maneuver, but real uprights to view. Only complaint: if you'll mention Draft #2 you should unpack that "With much regret, [you] packed … away for good" and take some piccies.

Something tells me you've been lurking too long.

GG: Won't 1x3's take up a lot of space? And 3" (2 5/8"?) seems pretty tall.

Doug

I added some pictures of the sci fi version too

link

I hope this helps some of you here:

link

Dan
PS. Yes. Been gone a little over year, but I'm back now … I think. :)

Dan the Man!!!! Glad to see you back!!

In a limited capacity for now I'm afraid. Getting a little better each day. I've lost a lot of muscle mass.

Take your time and focus your health my friend, but I'm sure glad to hear your are doing better, can't wait to get some of your thoughts and ideas back in the game so to speak.

DungeonDelver,

Hard to see with all the drool…

Seriously, wonderful work!

Thanks for the kind words.

I'm still trying to figure out how to take decent pictures of them. Top down gives the layout but masks the side wall detail. 3/4 view shows the walls and doors but introduces some distortion and limited depth of focus.

I think my next foray may be a Song of Blades and Heroes dungeon crawl step by step photo blog. Maybe that will be by Christmas break project.

My wife thinks I should set up an Etsy shop and sell the tiles since they can be duplicated on the laser fairly easily. It seems from reading TMP that the 15mm crawl community is disproportionately smaller that the 25/28/32mm crawlers, so I am less sure people would be interested.

And besides I have a lead mountain to paint…

Just sell them to me works fine.