15mm Diablo Project update: Updated hero 8/17

[CookAndrewB]

Long time stalker here, and looking to share some of my work and hopefully have a resource to ask some questions.

What I'm up to: In a nutshell, I'm creating a fantasy miniature world loosely based on the Diablo video games. I suppose that is semi-apocalyptic demonic fantasy? At the heart of it, I want a dungeon crawl that I can hopefully talk my wife and son into playing with me. Because my wife has limited experience, I want it to be pretty light on the rules and low on the actual "risk" for the heroes. At least at first.

How I'm doing it: Well, because this project will have a limited shelf life, I don't really want to go hog wild with it. I would rather keep things minimalistic in terms of creation. I also want to keep cost low, so I decided to go with 15mm as my scale. I went in on this Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/606457671/rampage-dungeon-seamless-interlocking-dungeon-tile  so I will probably use that for the dungeon crawl portion of the game. For anything above ground, I'll scratch build the terrain. For those of you have played Diablo, you know that trips back to the village are frequent enough to be a necessary part of the experience (at least in my mind).

Game play: Diablo has Acts, and within each act there are some missions, bosses, etc. This will make some of the game planning relatively easy. If it isn't broken I will resist the temptation to fix it until it is! I haven't settled on a rule system yet, so I guess my first question to the community is... What works? Fast pace, low figure count. I don't want/need to field armies. Most engagements would look like a series of skirmish level events. Waves and waves of skirmishes. And keep in mind the heroes need to be able to weather that! Hence, trips into town, I figure.

So, keeping it pretty basic, I am starting with four enemy types:
Fallen In game they will be played by

Skeletons in game

Goat Men in game

Overlords In game

For the heroes I'm still sorting that bit.

Tomorrow I'll post some WIP pictures for the Tristram town build.

[DivisMal]

Welcome!

I always liked Diablo 1 most. In fact when it was released it was the reason for me to upgrade to a Pentium (second hand) to run Win95 just to b able to play it.

Looking forward to seeing your version.

[Elk101]

I like this idea and it will be very interesting to see it in 15mm. Good luck.

[Daeothar]

Great idea; it's an IP specifically suited for a dungeon crawl miniatures game, so it's almost strange this has not been done many times before!

Your approach seems solid. How will you be doing the actual dungeons? I'd say a 2.5D system would work particularly  well and will take only minimal effort to construct.

I always liked Diablo 1 most.

Same here; I've lost several months of my life playing Diablo online, both solo and with a clan, and I know the game inside and out. I sometimes still hear the Tristam theme in the back of my head...

Oh and CAB: you absolutely have to do the Butcher as a boss! 'Aah... Fresh meat!'

[Oldben1]

Looks fun.  You might want to go wall-less.  I saved a ton of money with Hirst arts tiled floors.

Wolves by oldben1, on Flickr

[Daeothar]

Not if you go the cardboard way... 

2.5D dungeon tiles

[CookAndrewB]

Answers first, then WIP:

First of all, I loved Diablo 1 (and II, but somehow lost interest by III) and it is such a wonderfully self contained story with little more than a dungeon and a small surface village. Perfect for my desired level of building. For the record, I had considered doing something like a scale replica of Tristram, but decided against it in the end. I want it to look the part, but it will be scaled back a bit to be functional rather than identical. I guess I hadn't even considered, up until now, that you can't see half of the building because of the fixed point of reference graphics. So even if I did a replica at least half of it would be artistic license anyway 

I considered 2D, and still may, but I purchased the Rampage Dungeon Kickstarter
 
So I have a ready-made and buildable solution coming my way in *fingers crossed* August.

So, onto the Tristram build. The first two buildings are generic village huts. Filler, mostly, though they may have some sort of function down the road.

Single Residence #1:


The game plan is to mostly hit the spaces between the timbers with acrylic paste to create a mud effect with some texture.


In some places I may leave the mud off to highlight the stone (cork) foundation underneath.



These were my first builds (the two residential homes) in 15mm, so some of this was a test run for scale/technique. I mostly build in 28m.


Home #1 is ready for mud. Home #2 is still a WIP that I hope to finish up this weekend.

After learning some things about the first build I made some adjustments. The door was  3/4" which makes it 1-2mm taller than building #1, which was 18mm. That was really done because it is awful trying to count mm on a ruler when it is "close enough" to match it up to larger 1/4" marks. Lazy eyes.


I figure that ancient/fantasy dwellings rarely have the grand scale that a modern home has. So with a roof peak that is 45mm, I decided that the interior could house a sleeping loft over a first floor kitchen/all purpose room. That is all insignificant from a game perspective, but something that I considered when building. Thus, the second floor window on the second building. I also tried to do windows with wood strip panes vice wire. I don't think it looks as nice, but it is less fidgety to mess with wood.


EDIT: Images linked to LA gallery now.

[CookAndrewB]

The next two buildings are the blacksmith's shop and the Mystical emporium. Functionally speaking, I'm considering the mechanic by which a player might exit (teleport) out of the dungeon, sell/trade/buy gear, and then jump back into the slaughter. I don't want this to get too clunky, but I want players to have an opportunity to sell, re-equip, etc.

So, the blacksmith's shop build WIP:


I have started work on a forge add on for the shop, as well as some other dressings. I will paint the roof up to look like slate tile (assuming all goes well):


The mystical emporium is a bit of a divergence from Diablo lore in that it doesn't look like any building in the game, and I wanted something that looked funky and gave a sense of being arcane:


The tower will get gooped, but should still show some of the block shapes.

Since Diablo relies on mana/health potions a great deal, I thought it might be funny to have red/blue barrels on the roof with lines running down to the building like mana and health potions are on tap. I also wanted some kind of orrery on the roof, because it fits with my mental image of a fantasy magic shop.


Stone walls are made out of chopped up egg carton. There is a finished, and a "raw" side of the carton, and the unfinished side has a nice texture to it that picks up dry brushing well. At least in 28mm... I'll see how it works here.

[WuZhuiQiu]

What are you going to do for the Secret Cow Level...? 

[blacksmith]

Can't see any pictures 

[Knight-Captain Tyr]

Following with interest, it's entirely bizarre that there aren't more Diablo-inspired projects out there.

And seconded on the pic front, can't see the recent ones

[CookAndrewB]

Sorry for the technical difficulties. I'm still trying to figure out how to do the simple things around here. 

Some updates to the Mystical Emporium:

First up, the Orrery build. I sat down with my box of cogs and started eyeballing the goods. After a while I determined that I wanted a single strong arch over the top to protect the orrery from getting smashed (that is a simple longevity of playing pieces issue), and then it suddenly clicked as to what the rest should look like. The result (so far) is this...

The weird orange foam bead thing was a fortuitous find. I have no idea where I picked it up, but it seemed to work perfectly for my needs. That is a good start to my plan.

On the building:

I decided this needs more height to it. I' started work on building a plinth last night. The good news is that pinning it should be a piece of cake since the base is wood. I may also run a wire through the foam bead and create some mounting points for additional spheres (green stuff) so that it doesn't look quite so balanced. If I get it up on a plinth I bet I can mesh some gear teeth with the bottom horizontal gear and give it the impression that it might all be linked somehow? More fun to come. I'm thinking this needs to be all verdigris brass for a paint job.

Lastly, and I'm quite pleased with this idea, I made a stained glass window:

In my mind I have a plan to paint up the window look like a healing potion bottle.

[tjub]

Cool, this is more than a little nostalgic. And it looks great as well! 

[Ethelred the Almost Ready]

I think I had Diablo II.  I remember there were lots of Succubi.  A still remember a dying villager at the start takling about "the Butcher".  A literal-minded friend decided he was going to find the village butcher and deal to him

[Daeothar]

The Butcher was in part 1.

On level 2 of the dungeon if I recall correctly. Beating him got you your first unique weapon; his cleaver...