New Stone Bridge, full revamp of Walls and Fences!

We are proud to present a new, tabletop-ready stone bridge, and a full series of painted walls and more - check the eshop !

The new stone bridge: made from quality resin, assembled and painted, ready to adorn your tabletop

Hello all, and I hope you have enjoyed your Summer!
I have some exciting news to share: while full at work preparing even more Outdoors boards and getting ready to launch our Urban Battlefields Pledge Manager in September, we decided to re-design and re-launch our bridges and wall system line (there is no such thing as free time, it seems :) ).

The main motivation was the development of the Urban Sets and the Canal System for our KS2 backers. I wanted a series of interesting, beautiful and practical terrain pieces which could be combined with the new tiles, to enhance the new landscapes. So, first came the complete redesign of the old bridge, with something to span the new canals. And then we took it even further, creating a new line of walls and fences.

Everything presented below is intended to enhance mainly the coming series of Urban tiles. However, they are already into production, so you can grab yours sooner.

The new Stone Bridge 

When we unlocked the impressive city canals in the Urban tiles Kickstarter, I promised the backers of making available some bridge designs to span those openings and connect city areas. Since there will be two different themes for Quay designs (Medieval and Contemporary), I went ahead and designed two different bridge styles. The "modern" one is still in the works, and will have an asphalt surface. But the "Medieval" one is finished, moulded and cast in many copies already - so you can get yours now here!

"Medieval" Stone bridge; cast in high quality resin, fully painted, with a cobblestone pattern on the surface

The idea was to design a stone bridge which would not only work with the new canal tiles, but would be able to span the rivers of our original river tiles, especially at the "ford" river tile type (where road tiles can "connect" and cross "river" tiles). Therefore, the new bridge fully replaces the older (flat) design we had made available for river fords. The old design has been removed from the store, and all backers and clients with a bridge in their order will actually be getting an upgrade to the newer bridge, at no additional cost.

It works (and looks) great even on "Dirt" road ford tiles

The Bridge is cast in solid, durable high quality resin, and has a slight arch with a span of 14cm. Its width is 9cm, although the available surface for movement is 7cm wide. As everything we make, it is ready to be used straight on your tabletop!

Revamping the Walls' System

Walls and fences decorate almost every corner of the urban environs, and I wanted our backers to have some extra options for theirs. Our previous wall system, whilst ingenious, seemed to lack the practicality for everyday usage and gaming. Most people tried to use our walls and hedges without columns, or the columns were not working properly - it was time to revamp the design.

The new "Stone Walls" in a row with an Urban based Hedge

I wanted something simpler and more practical, but at the same time more sturdy and good looking! So I went ahead and re-designed a full range of walls and fences, which look great and cover most gaming needs. The new walls were expanded to include "Stone Walls", "Walls with Irregular Stones" and "Large Brick walls". All are cast in high quality resin, are extremely sturdy, they look stunning and they stay upright (although there is still the option to magnetise their bottoms). Their lengths vary from 10 to 12cm, their height is at 2.5 cm and they are 1-1.5 cm thick. They are sold in sets of twos, and you can find them in the eshop

Irregular Stone Walls

Stone Walls

Large Brick Walls

As with the bridges, any backers with walls included in their orders, will get the new designs as a free upgrade.

And we didn't stop there; our previous "hedges" were simple and affordable, but it was time to upgrade them to something closer to the quality of our Battlefields. The old idea was thrown away, and the new Hedges are now available: full irregular 3D creations, shaded in green - or flocked if you want to go the extra step.

Hedge fence, flocked variant

They are made from sturdy plastic sponge and pvc, and they stretch for 14cm with a thickness of ~2cm. Their tops and sides are hand-sculpted to be irregular, with a maximum height of 3cm. They come in sets of twos as well, with the option of getting them simply painted or realistically flocked.

The new Hedge fences - flocked vs. painted comparison

However, in an Urban environment, hedges don't usually grow unchecked. So I also designed an "Urban Based" Hedge fence, which includes a large grey stone planter underneath.

Urban Based Hedge Fence

The flower box is cast in quality resin, the fence is 14cm long, 3cm wide and reaches up to 4cm in height.

Last but not least, I would be remiss if I did not included an option for the modern and futuristic battlefield: here comes the Wirefence, a completely new addition in our line.

Wirefences can be stabilised by snapping on steel disks on their end poles

The fence is basically made from high quality aluminum mesh, and each of the two end posts is attached to a small but strong neodymium magnet. Along with the fence, we include two small slim steel disks to act as bases. You can use the disks to stabilise your fence, or alternatively, bend the fence at any post to create wirefence corners. The aluminum mesh can be bent and restored for as many times as you wish.

Each Set includes 1 wirefence section of 25 cm length, and 4.5cm high, along with two slim steel disks (2cm diameter).


I sincerely hope you like these new scenic designs. They are already under production, so while they were designed to enhance the new Urban sets, you can get them beforehand in their new eshop page.

Good gaming,

George

Introducing the Urban Elevation System

Taking your Urban Tiles to the next level (pun intended!)

The Pedion Urban Battlefields Kickstarter has been the breeding ground of a great many Urban Terrain innovations so far! One of the most recent and original is the ability to have an urban landscape with multiple elevations - and without needing any new tiles for your terrain board!

This is a personal favourite of mine; having grown-up in cities with uneven roads, full of hills and sloped streets, I always considered a "flat" urban environment a bit unnatural. I know this is far from the truth, but there are still many cities out there, especially older ones, that are built on hillsides and spread out on different levels.

This System is Pedion's way of trying and emulate these differences in elevations. You can now create uphill/downhill streets, or different height levels for your city blocks. It certainly is not omnipotent, and we still have to cope with the realities of wargaming. But it truly enhances the cityscape, going above and beyond what a simple cloth mat board could do.

Urban "Medieval" themed tiles in 3D!

The elevation system utilises three (3) special addons to work. The main idea is that you will NOT need extra tiles to emulate slopes and rises; you can use your urban tiles from your Set rewards, and arrange the addons differently each time.

The first addon is the Urban Slope Support. It is a ramp, designed to be placed underneath your tiles and tilt them. One tile edge is raised by 3cm, to a total height of 4cm. This creates a 10% slope, which can be used to emulate uphill streets and it is gentle enough so that miniatures and other terrain will not slide off. The addon's sides display a stone texture, to show that they are artificial structures. The sloped tiles will hold your models and vehicles with ease. They will also hold extra scenics like trees, fences, and even buildings will not slide off. However houses may look a bit tilted, although this can be amended with a reverse wedge underneath them.

The second addon you need are the Urban Rise Supports. These are also designed to go underneath your urban tiles, and raise them uniformly by 3cm, to a total height of 4cm. Thus they emulate different levels in the same city. Their sides have the same stone texture, to give the impression of built up, artificial structures supporting the building over them. The height of 3cm keeps them slim enough to store easily away.

Urban Slope and Rise Supports joined together

The final addition are a set of stairs! When using the Urban Rise Support to raise your whole tiles by 3cm and create different levels, then it is imperative (at least for gaming reasons) to create access points to and from this higher rise. The main transit method to the higher level are sloped, uphill roads which you can form with the Urban Slope support - this is actually the only way for vehicles to climb up to the Rise. However, as it is common in many cities, rises are also connect by stairs.

The addon is a small Stone Stairs, made from resin and handpainted, and it is intended to be used in combination with the Urban Rise Supports in all three Themes. Its height is 3cm, exactly like the height difference between a standard tile and a raised one. The stairs are 7cm wide (so they can be even placed at "end" of a cobblestone road) and each step is 1cm high and 1.5cm deep.

What's Next with Stretch Goals?

As we are coming closer -and hopefully will reach- the final entry of the Stretch Goals table (the "battle damaged" tile upgrade, more on future blog entries), I'd like to present to you what we have in store for the future. This list of concepts is ordered the same way they will most probably be set as Stretch Goals. That said, we are running this Kickstarter so that you can take part in this process and help us create stuff that you really like and need. So, neither this order nor the ideas are set in stone, you are welcome to join the Kickstarter and propose stuff for us to consider. The list of subsequent Stretch Goals includes:

• New Tile Type Design: Open space/Parking lot (only for Modern Theme)
• New Tile Type: City Harbour tiles
• New Tile Type Design: Roundabout (4-street) intersection (all Themes)
• New Tile Type: City Canals 
• New Tile Type Design: Open Market area (4-street intersection, Rustic and Medieval themes only)

Good gaming!
George

Journal #16 - Getting closer to the Urban Tiles Kickstarter!

We are getting closer to the Launch of the second PEDION Kickstarter campaign, the one on Urban Battlefields. We have presented lots of information on the designs and themes of the Urban expansion in our latest post, and we have now brought it all together in a short video presentation:

If you are interested in supporting Pedion in this Kickstarter (we hope you are!) and want to get a timely invite so you can grab some early bird stuff, you can always join with your email our "heads-up" page. There you will find a short description of the intended campaign, as well as more elaborate info on how we think of running this project.

We are adding the final touches to the campaign and crunching some numbers, so the campaign will probably launch on these first days of March. Right now we are preparing prototypes for our many Stretch Goals, since we want to really enhance the Urban Battlefields with exciting ideas that will take your urban terrain to a whole new, not-seen-before level.

Transition tiles in action: joining a Green Spring Pedion board with the new "Medieval" themed Urban Set

Among the concepts we are working on are:

• "Transition" tiles, that is, tiles which will allow you to join our different textured boards together, or your existing tiles with the newer urban sets
• Addons to create "dead-ends" on our roads, in order to increase the modularity and possible combinations of a given set
• "Damaged" urban tiles, by adding impressive weapon effect craters on the tiles
• An Elevation System, so you can create slopes, uphill roads, rises and different levels in your city for a more realistic effect
• Variant Road Width to better suit the 28mm scale
• More urban designs, like car parks, roundabouts or open plazas
• City harbour tiles, to represent seaside/riverside settlements, with the use of our beautiful liquid glass water effects.
• ...and many more...

Do these sound exciting? we certainly think so, and founding the KS will be only the beginning. We hope to see you all there!

Good gaming,
George

Journal #14 - Reviewing and Moving on!

"Really impressive work ! Great packaging !" (P., Hong Kong)
"Top notch product - I'll be ordering more!" (N.A., USA)
"The opening of Awesome" (M.S., USA)
"The tiles are exactly what I had hoped for" (G.Q., UK)
"The pieces are fabulous and better than I could have hoped. Well worth the money and then some!" (A.L., USA)
"I am in absolute rapture with it. [...] It is worth the wait" (B.W., USA)
"Is the Pedion Battlefield system the best thing to ever come out of the Hellenic Republic? Probably yes" (B.W., UK)
"F@@@ing Awesome!" (S.N., NOR)

Wow, it has been a long time since an update in this Blog. I am constantly working, creating more and more Terrain for the Kickstarter backers and the rest of Pedion clients. And what a response! However, I wanted to take a short break and share some thoughts on how Pedion has fared, as well as about the things that are in the works.

Like what you see? read on..

The -very- Good

All in all, I do count the whole venture as a success. After less than a year and a half from running the Kickstarter, Pedion has been established as an terrain and scenics provider in the world of tabletop gaming. The final product meets and even exceeds expectations, as it is evident by the comments of people receiving it - some of which I included above. I think it says a lot when people get their stuff and place orders for more, even if they know they have to wait. But the real success lies in how happy this whole effort has made me, been in contact with so many folks who really enjoy my hard work, many of whom I have ended up to call friends!

I feel that Pedion is earning its place at the niche of the gaming industry, as a high-end terrain product, a modular solution for when you want something looking good without affecting gameplay, robust, modular and easily stored away - and you don't have the time and/or aptitude for making it yourself. In terms of affordability, I strongly believe that while the prices are not very low, they are more than fair. The amount of work involved and the attention to detail and quality we try to pay to each handcrafted set is excessive, and may not be fully reflected in the price.

The -not so- Bad

While things are going well, it does not mean they run smoothly or as we had planned. The greatest issue are the delays in delivering orders, which actually derive from initial optimistic calculations on production times and costs. And yes, there is also the serious issue of extreme cash devaluation due to Brexit, but disasters happen, and I'll not throw the towel for something like this. What matters is make things even better.

Do not get me wrong; we started delivering before the promised deadline, and not many Kickstarters have almost finished with pledges 1.5 year later. But we are still delivering, we work overtime, costs pile up. The main lesson (production-wise) I have had to digest was that our terrain is still a hand-crafted, detail oriented product, and thus it needs extra time. It is not a mass produced book sent to a printer, or a series of miniatures cast overseas; the whole process is run in-house. And I want to keep it this way, for I have yet to find a better way to keep the quality and service at the high standards we have achieved.

The silver lining is that we have improved our techniques, based on our experiences so far. We strive to hit the sweet spot where we apply standardized methods (construction, casting, assembly, base painting) to achieve uniform quality and faster production, while still having to work by hand and treat each tile uniquely, like a small work of art. I believe that now we are finally achieving this, and so can make more solid future plans.

What is Coming!

I feel that we have -at last- reached a spot where Pedion can expand even more. While the production of all previous orders continues full throttle, we plan for a series of new products, complementing our existing line. As I have stated before, it is not the intention of Pedion terrain to try and compete with established terrain companies by offering similar products, if only pre-painted. On the contrary, we will implement designs which will literary bring something new to your table.

The new lines will uphold the main Pedion principles, as stated about two years ago in the very first article here: full modularity, multiple different configurations, assembled /disassembled in seconds, beautifully handpainted, stored in minimum spaces, lightweight and durable. Also, they will "work" with present and future products.

Taking into account the lessons learned by our first Kickstarter, production will now be handled in a more focused way. There will not be a huge Kickstarter like the one before, where lots of themes, styles, designs and options were unlocked and made available (driving us crazy trying to handle all requests). On the contrary, there will be multiple, focused campaigns, each for a specific series of products. This way we will be able to focus production on certain items, deliver and move on.

So, what's to come?

1. First Expansion - the Pedion Urban Range

We will start with expanding and standardizing our existing product line of "Urban" Tiles. While people can already order tiles with road configurations unlocked during the Kickstarter, our next project will take this a step further.
We want to present full 2'x3', 3'x3' and 4'x4 Sets of tiles where you can configure your roads in any way and use them as a beautiful background for Buildings. People can already "create" such sets by combining road and tile textures of our Modular Battlefields. However, these have a more "outdoors" look and feel, so we will introduce four (4) specific Themes for Urban environments:

• Cobblestone Roads with Dirt Open Spaces 
• Cobblestone Roads with Cobbled Open Spaces (a mostly Fantasy/Medieval/European theme)
• Asphalt Roads with Pavements and Cobbled Open Spaces (a Modern theme)
• Hex Roads with Hex Open Spaces (a Sci-Fi theme)

Example of the intended Cobblestone Roads/Dirt Spaces Urban design (3'x3' Set, W.I.P.)

Same 3'x3' Set, with added scenics to give context; a beautiful rural town materializing
(Paper buildings from the Fat Dragon and Dave Graham ranges, Miniatures painted by Anne Yeomans)

During the campaign, we hope to unlock variant urban designs like town squares, road roundabouts and parking places. Another unlock would be different elevation options, with slopes, uphill roads, steps... and there are even some thoughts on town docks... Finally, we want to introduce as part of this campaign, special "transition" tiles, which will allow you to combine two different themes n the same table, or pair your older Sets with the Urban ones.

This will be the first new Kickstarter campaign,and it will be sooner than you think - we aim for early January 2017 so stay tuned!

2. Second Expansion - the Pedion Indoors Range

This will be Pedion's approach to a Dungeon System. Do we need another one? In my mind yes, if it is not copying the excellent Dwarven Forge designs but strives to cover different needs. Keeping this in mind, we designed a system of interconnecting walls and floors in true Pedion spirit.

Our usual tiles will be the floors, textured and hand painted, at 30cm x 30cm squares. And your walls will allow any kind of design you like.
This Range will follow (and enrich the Urban range) and it is past the design phase, as we have created a number of moulds already.

An early prototype for the basic Set

3. Third Expansion - the Beach Landings Range

This is a more "boutique" expansion for our current Battlefields range. It aims to introduce a full trenches and fortification series of tiles, along with full solutions of Sets recreating WWI and WWII landing sites. The range is intended to combine existing designs (our excellent coastlines) with new ones (high rises, earthworks) for people who want to represent Normandy or Pacific Island engagements.
This Range is still in design phase, although I have begun setting up the first D-Day prototypes!


This is all for now. I hope that I have (re)kindled your interest and that you will accompany me and Pedion in the great things to come!

Good gaming,
George

Journal #12 - or, My Foray into Castings

Well, it has been a busy month... (yes, that's an understatement). But the Pedion Terrain adventure continues evolving! While getting ready to launch the Pledge Management interface later this month, I have been creating a number of molds to allow faster and accurate reproduction of tile features. So, in this post, I would like to share some of this procedure with you...

Molding Pedion

Much of the work done and presented so far on these pages is actually prototyping; terrain features and add-ons hand-produced and designed. However, to really enter a streamlined production of multiple boards, I needed to take these a step further. Therefore, I have had to create molds of the main features which are repeatedly found on the tiles, or are magnetically connected as add-ons.

This is not a simple process; that is, to select the best and cost-effective way to reproduce various features. One of the first parameters is that reproduction by casting can actually replace hand made articles, both in quality and in cost. You see, I really can sculpt hills, rocks, tree bases etc in a short time and from low-cost and extremely lightweight mediums. So the castings should be "worth" as much.

Also, the creation of molds is a big investment. The success of the Kickstarter campaign and the number of orders was such that provided the funds needed for such molds - but not on an industrial, tens-of-thousands copies level. So, I selected the more robust and small-industry solution of creating my own professional silicon molds for resin copies. For this I used the exceptional Dow Corning's 3481, for multiple resin copy production.

Then came the selection of casting materials. For the Sci-Fi crystals, I had to choose a clear resin that could be dyed, and have good UV resistances; My choice so far goes to polyester epoxies. As for creating copies of modular add-ons, I went with two-part epoxy resin, mixed with additional powder for lowering the specific weight of the final medium. Also, I started making the molds "hollow", so that the final castings would be lighter. On fixed features, sometimes I use gypsum instead of resin, due to ease of use. However, since the tiles must have high resistances, I use the special Giluform mix that acts like Hydrocal but with significantly increased hardiness.

But enough of talking; let me show you some pictures of the stuff I have been making!

Sci-Fi Crystal Formations in various colourings; you can estimate their size by comparing to the 28mm Space Wolf, the 20mm Sherwood Archer and the 15mm Alien terror

Especially for the Sci-Fi Crystal formations I did not sculpt the originals myself, but selected a more realistic approach: I used real Quartz Formations and Quartz "Needles" which I combined into several futuristic shapes; and boy, are these stones pricey. But I am extremely pleased with the result as now Pedion can sport a great variety of good looking and "realistic" Sci-Fi crystals, which of course have a magnet embedded into the polyester!

The Crystal molds

Check the dark blue and Cobalt blue colourings...

Two other pieces I will be needing great quantities of are tree bases and rocks for the broken terrain and forest tiles. In the pictures you can see the rocks made from Giluform, while the tree bases are made from resin (for durability) with embedded magnets.

Finally, I moved on to larger pieces. The first challenge I tackled was the add-on hill pieces, the ones you get when you order a hill tile. For those of you who do not remember, you can use this add-on piece either on the first hill to create a second level, or as a stand-alone hill someplace else on the battlefield. These pieces needed to be made from resin (to withstand lots of handling), to be hollow in order to be lightweight, and to be sturdy so they won't cave in when you put miniatures on them.

The hollow Hill molds

Resin copy of extra hill piece for Hill Tile #1

Resin copy of extra hill piece for Hill Tile #2

Underneath view of extra hill for Hill tile #2; hollow with 3 embedded magnets

And my molding efforts continue: the larger hill pieces, sidewalks for urban roads, large rocks for badland tiles, even whole tile sections for the coastlines. I hope to have more photos soon.


Good gaming,

George