Pulp at Trumpeter Salute Convention

[Wirelizard]

Several pulp-era games at the recent Trumpeter Salute con over the sea in Vancouver (well, Burnaby, really, but close enough).

Didn't play it, but someone did a big urban table for a 1920s gangster game. Let down somewhat, in my opinion, by so many of the buildings being obvious refugees from a 40K City Fight game, but stil impressive.



Bob Murch of Pulp Figures was there, with his impressive China Station scenery. The most amazing buildings I've ever seen, I think. They ooze character. The other half of his board is jungle, very impressive but not as great as the town.



Finally, my own offering - Terror in the Lost Temple with the 45A rules. 5 players, four of whom hadn't played before. We  had gunplay, pterodactyls, a dog that almost lived to the end of the game (the dogs in our pulp games always die. Always.), pratfalls and hijinks, a bit of character development and roleplaying, some nice tricks with a whip from an adventuring archeologist, and everyone claimed to have a good time. I even managed to GM without loosing my voice. I did have a good case of GM's Throat by the end of the weekend, though...

[commissarmoody]

Looks like tons of fun

[Major Payne]

Great representation for the pulp genre there!  I like your terrain too, especially the interlocking terrain boards. Did you cut the edges yourself or is that something comercially available?  Very inspiring.

[Operator5]

Lots of great pulp stuff there. Excellent!

And your terrain is great.

[Wirelizard]

Great representation for the pulp genre there!  I like your terrain too, especially the interlocking terrain boards. Did you cut the edges yourself or is that something comercially available?  Very inspiring.

They're foam floor tiles from Canadian Tire, a Canada-wide hardware/housewares/auto-parts chain. Four two foot by two foot tiles + edging pieces for about $10 Canadian, then my brother (Burgundavia on this forum) used brown flexibile caulking to fill the texture of the tiles in and glue the flock down.

The green flock is standard Woodland Scenics stuff, the brown is used coffee from his neighbourhood coffee shop.

After the caulk dried we hit the flocked areas with a 1:2 white glue:water mix to really nail the ground cover down.

We should have basecoated the tiles with brown before doing the caulk and groundcover, though, as the caulk tends to lift a bit along the edges and show the original tile colour. We'll get those fixed up eventually; production was a bit rushed to get them basically ready for Trumpeter on time!

Total cost of tiles, caulking tubes, flock, etc was probably somewhere around $30 Cdn for 16 square feet of very solid terrain.

The reverse side of the tiles is usable as well; it's currently painted blue but we're planning on repainting it grey with a street grid for urban gaming.

There's at least one company out there offering similar terrain systems commercially - The Terrain Guyś Easy Terrain Interlocking Tiles seem to be nearly identical to what we did for ourselves. Pricier, naturally.

We were originally looking for 1'x1' tiles, which would have been slightly easier to transport and a bit more flexible in setup (being able to do 3'x3' areas, for example) but couldn't find any locally, and S&H on stuff like the tiles is prohibitive.

What I did for my pulp game, because one side of our table was up against a wall, was set up the river banks so the bank was roughly 1' in from that edge, so our actual playing area was roughly 4'x3'. I have more than enough terrain now to do a good dense jungle & ruin setup on 4x3, or even 4x4 if needed.

[Burgundavia]

Yes, you can blame me for the terrain tiles. I keep meaning to do a workbench thread about them, but the basics that Wirelizard states are correct. As a perfectionist, there are a bunch of problems with the tiles, but once they are covered with terrain, you just don't notice it that much. I need to clean up the puzzle edges, because the caulking has a tendency to run over them. I also need to do some dyeing of the flock to smooth over the differences between the 15+ year old (no, that is not a typo) flock and the recently purchased stuff.

If you want a few outdated WIP pictures, there are some in my flickr set on the construction of the files. I promise to update it some week.

[Major Payne]

I like the concept of the tiles very much as it keeps the layout together even if the table gets bumped - as it always does.  I suppose one could flock the puzzle edges in the same material as opposed to different colors to minimize the contrast, but that might result in a strange cross hatch look, and as you say once foliage is added it would be less noticeable. 

Some other characteristics I like about it are:
They are thin for compact storage.
Its durable for transport.
It will take flocking. 
I especially like the fact that it comes in 2 x 2 foot squares. I have 12 - 1 x 1 foot squares and they are just too small and I can't find any more.  Not nearly enough for any descent table set up.

[Whiskyrat]

It's great to see what others get up to - thanks for sharing.

..... a dog that almost lived to the end of the game (the dogs in our pulp games always die. Always.)

When they don't they usually prove pivotal to the game. 

I looked at some inter-locking floor tiles last year but found them way too expensive for cheap-ass gaming. I must look at this again.

[moif]

Agreed. Those China station buildings are fantastic!

[Burgundavia]

I looked at some inter-locking floor tiles last year but found them way too expensive for cheap-ass gaming. I must look at this again.

I paid $11 CAD for them, on sale from $15. I have also seen them on sale at Home Despot for about the same, for our Yankee friends. Links: Canadian Tire catalog, thread about where to find them on a random forum.