[KS] Dungeons & Lasers 3 : Modular Game Tiles : Woodhaven Village : Last 48 hour

[Elk101]

How do people generally find the dungeon sets in terms 9f coverage, ease of set up, modularity, etc?

[Grumpy Gnome]

Playing around with the unpainted pieces, my wife and I find them a bit fiddly. Perhaps they would stay together better once painted as it might give a tighter fit on the clips.

There are almost always little gaps at the wall joins.

It is very light compared to Dwarven Forge, which is what we currently use for dungeon builds. And setting up a D&L build with the clips takes a lot more time than just setting down DF pieces. DF is more expensive but with a lot more versatility. D&L is very angular and is always only a 2“ grid. No 1“ pieces are planned according to Archon.

D&L seems to us to be a decent entry level dungeon system. We are not sure yet about the buildings but we remain optimistic.

Others with more experience may have different opinions.

[ced1106]

I'll just add with the separate walls and floors, you don't get stuck with nothing but walls when you need corners!

I only have (and could afford) the DF KS1 tiles, so didn't have the specialized corridor tiles. With D&L you don't need them.

I'll primarily use DF and Rampage tiles for rooms, then D&L for corridors.

[robh]

D&L is very angular and is always only a 2“ grid. No 1“ pieces are planned according to Archon.

The D&L grids are 30mm squares on a 2x2 grid basis so 60mm. There was a very vocal difference of opinion during KS1 when they announced the switch from the prototype 25mm/1" square to the 30mm, for some people not matching DF to the finest detail amounts to a hate crime. But it was actually vital as the clip down walls overlap 1mm on each edge so the squares were actually only 24mm usable so two 25mm based figures could not actually fit side by side in the corridor.

I only have sci-fi tiles from KS 1 & 2 but the set design is the same. Area coverage with the core sets is good and very cheap (roughly a dense 18" or more open 24" layout per core and about half that per room).
I have just spent a full week clipping, sanding and gluing my sets into room and corridor modules. 3 core and 7 room sets gave me 7 modules each with multiple defined areas. Gives me a very dense coverage on a 4ft square table.

The wall joint gaps are a result of not totally cleaning the mould seam and the slight bowing the edges get as the plastic cools, the floor clips put tension on the underside of the tiles which causes the wall tiles to part fractionally. It can be minimised by avoiding lots of small walls and small floor sections together.

The design is fiddly to use and will require a major time commitment if a new layout is going to be built from scratch for each game and IMHO working on a D&D style "build as revealed" approach is a non starter. There was some discussion a while back on the D&L Discord about optimal sub assemblies and what could be permanently fixed together without sacrificing too much of the incredible flexibilty the system has.

My sets will work as starship interiors (my main purpose in buying them) but also as underground bunker complex or hi-tech corporate facilities. With a suitable scratchbuilt roof set they will also work as sci-fi style buildings for exterior set games too.
Amongst the various sci-fi offerings the "Vault 7" set is the standout. Absolutely brilliant design and usable as any underground complexes for Pulp right through to hard sci-fi.

[Elk101]

Very useful responses, thank you.

[Grumpy Gnome]

The Vault 7 pieces are great looking, my favorite really, but all the sci-fi sets look good to me. If I had more time and space (and Mrs. GG would play post-Apoc) I would definitely be getting some sci-fi D&L and do the optimal sub-assembly build idea.

[robh]

My sci-fi modules look something like this:

https://postimg.cc/gallery/xkz3gtb

Size was determined by the box I will be storing them in (1" too small to go 6 tiles long). Nothing here is glued as it was the first physical iteration of the designs. I have since re-organised the floors to better distinguish the individual rooms and to incorporate the variation from the Engine Room and Vault sets. I have one each of the Temple and the Xeno room but they will be built in isolation as they do not mix well with the others.

[ced1106]

Last 24 hours!

Quick paintjob on the Torture Room. Other miniatures are from RBJ's "Yippers and Squealers" line.
RBJ: https://store-rbjgc-com.3dcartstores.com/YIPPER-AND-SQUEALER-KICKSTARTER_c_65.html

I've also noticed that D&L "thin" inside walls are easier to make than game tiles that have the floor and "thick" wall as one piece. Right tile for the right job, and all that.

Giant unlocked, dragon now unlocked! 150 SG mini's and bits, plus the 60 townsfolk miniatures "free" in the KS.
Sculpted bases (included with the miniatures) will also be an add-on in the PM.
Oh, and there's terrain, too. 

Thanks to DaveC on Dakka for the summary!

1 Townsfolk starter set - 63 minis
5 Rooms or 1 Core (Sewer or Fantasy) and 3 Rooms
1 Stretch Goals pack - 85 minis, 84 pieces of Terrain
including
1 x 4.7" Giant
1 x 3.3" Troll
1 x 6" Ghost Dragon
Fire, Air, Water Elementals
Iron and Flesh Golem
A Market place with 1 fixed stall, 1 cart stall, 1 cart and various scatter
Town scatter, benches, signposts, chimneys, outdoor privy and a fountain
A Tavern with sideboards, bed, bearskin rug, bath and a fireplace
A Blacksmith set with a forge, weapons, weapon chest and tools
A Bank set with a vault door, safe, coin bags and coin pile
Barracks set with Mortar, Ballista, flags, target and training dummy.
6 Gnolls
6 Kobolds
6 Skeletons
6 Goblins

[Grumpy Gnome]

So the final big update… swing… and a miss! In my opinion anyway. I was hoping for something a bit more…. “town building” focused. The market stall is now one per backer? And the add on market stall is the same as the stretchgoal one? They did not add the magic stall as the add on? Disappointing. The stretchgoals in D&L2 convinced us to do two pledges but this time just one for us.

Derek the volunteer in the comments has been incredibly motivating but his activity highlights the lack of involvement from others. Maybe they are busy on other platforms like discord and Facebook? Considering all the enthusiasm shown before the campaign from my perspective it is feeling a bit anti-climatic to me.

The big jump from the barbarian to the Phoenix feels out of step with their other stretchgoal intervals.

I also would like the “furious” Phoenix to win but to be honest I think my feeling of anticlimactic disappointment has spoiled any real enthusiasm I have for whatever design wins.

There are some brilliant minis on offer in this KS but I can not help but feel like a great opportunity for something more has been missed.

At the very least they should have made a two piece wide doorway with portcullis given the portcullis jokes on the Facebook live video Q&A sessions in the run up to the campaign.

And there should have been a castle pledge with enough pieces to make a D&L version of the old Citadel GW Castle.

[robh]

I think the popularity of this campaign has surprised them, so latter stretch goals have been a bit reactive rather than scheduled as part of a developing plan, but I agree for a "Town" based campaign, big monsters does not seem the best option for the last stretch goals.
The Archon team are very active on Discord. Thankfully not many whining gits on there, it is pretty positive. I am sure some of the backers total fail to grasp just how many plastic bits they are going to get in their stated massive pledges and how long that is going to take to clip and clean, let alone paint.
My sci fi sets from campaigns 1 and 2 were only at the lowest inclusive tier, but I am sick to death of seeing the damn things after nearly 2 weeks constant cutting, scraping and sanding bloody plastic walls.

That said, the figure set is now outstanding value. Taking just the Character pack and stretch goal pack for €54 gets you 153 figures plus a load of useful extra bits. Including them in a scenery pledge also gets you the Dragon, the Giant and the Troll for free.

[Grumpy Gnome]

Fair points.

It took me much longer than I expected to clip and clean just the first of the two Fantasy Core sets we have, let alone all the D&L 1 and D&L 2 stretch goals and themed room sets.

So yes, it is a massive amount of plastic with excellent value for money but it just seems so… scattered… if you know what I mean. It feels to Mrs. GG and me that it lacks a coherent theme or strategy, like the roofs did not work out like they hoped and just moved on, much the same way it felt with the Rampart 2 campaign. So instead of buildings for D&L 3 it feels to us like they focused on more dungeon rooms and minis.

What surprises us also is that we love some of the minis and really do not like others, the ones we like seem to have had a more consistent artistic vision that was expressed by the sketches of the original townsfolk rather than the later World of Warcraft sculpts.

We were hoping that the foreign dignitary that lost the vote against the foreign merchant would end up as a stretch goal or add on.