Urban Battlefields Kickstarter closing with beautiful Unlocks!

Didn't you always wished for a Harbour in your City? We just unlocked them!

Only a few days are left before our Urban Tiles Kickstarter ends - so this is your last chance to join, and claim some of the most extraordinary urban terrain you will ever see!

The Kickstarter Urban Terrain Campaign has unlocked a series of new designs as Stretch Goals,all even more innovative and good-looking. We want to show you some prototype pictures of these new urban tiles, so you can judge for yourself.

City Harbour Tiles

I'll start with the most impressive unlock, the ability to recreate a city harbour. The Stretch Goal actually unlocked two (2) specific Harbour Tile designs. Both represent linear harbour pieces: the first is a regular Pier and the other a "Stepped" Pier. They are raised pieces, the "urban" side of the tile at a full height of 4cm. The dock side occupies half the tile, and midway (at 15cm) it drops to water level (1mm). Since our regular urban tile's height is at 1cm, there is a 3cm height difference meant to emphasise the vertical docks. You can "join" the harbour tiles with your regular tiles just by adding some of our resin stairs. However, more raised tiles and/or sloped roads (by making use of the Urban Elevation System) will produce more interesting layouts. Harbour tiles can be joined in a row to form a full harbour.

Pier harbour design, Medieval theme

Stepped Pier harbour design, Medieval theme

Going round-round-round...

The second Stretch Goal is a new Tile Design, and a beautiful one at that. You can now choose the Roundabout design for your extra tiles, instead of a more conventional "X"-intersection.

Roundabout junction, "Medieval" Theme

Explosion Damage & Craters

This unlock does not offer you a new tile design per se, but lets you alter the appearance of any (or all) of the tiles you have selected. After the campaign Backers will specify for each tile (or number of tiles in the reward set) whether they want them to "suffer" from battle damage and explosions! The tile will "acquire" 2 different sized artillery craters and debris.

Battle damaged look on a Straight road, "Modern" themed, 7cm street

And there are even more Stretch Goals unlocked, too many to detail here: parking lot tiles, open ground tiles, and -most complex of them all- a full City Canal system!

What are you waiting for? you have only hours left! Join us!

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 #2 - or, It seems that, in modular terrain tiles, Size (and Shape) Does Matter

Welcome to my second installment in this blog about the design process of Pedion (tm). Seems that people (you) liked what they have read so far, and I sincerely thank you for the warming response. In my previous entry I tried to lay down a series of requirements which will factor into development, like modularity, efficient storage, weight, durability, connectivity etc. So, in this and the next entries I will present how I try to address those needs -and others that arise and I did not foresee- while designing my modular terrain system, Pedion.

Again, I must point out that this is a work (or rather, a design) in process. Therefore, please do not take all you read or see in photos and videos for granted. They are prototypes, and may have already been discarded for a better idea. The purpose of all this, is for me to "throw" ideas at you and await for your input and counter-ideas..

In this post I will ramble on,describing efforts and decision regarding the actual tiles that comprise the wargame terrain: their size and shape. Let's get started, shall we?

Shape

Since the main purpose of a modular board is to try and interconnect many individual tiles into a greater battlefield, tile shape is critical. Tiles should all conform to a uniform shape to make it possible to connect to each other. So far, efforts in modular terrain have resulted in use of classic 2D geometric shapes, mostly hexagons (hexes) and squares. Circles are not considered a good choice since the cannot connect seamlessly, at least not without overlapping. I really tried coming up with a solution different from the more widespread one, but to no avail. I did entertain the thought of Octagonal shapes for a while, since they surpass some of the disadvantages of hexes and squares, but I found them even a greater nightmare to construct and (mass) produce than hexes. So I was left to decide between the traditional hex and the square (or rectangles in general).

Hexes are the first choice of many (mine included), especially for boards with small tile sizes. The tiles either keep the single hex shape, or they rest on a combination of hexes, like the Hexon system. Hex terrain derives from even the earliest boardgame wargames, although it cannot be easily used with them (the tiles should then be really, really small). They can be combined with wargames like Battletech, or those of the BattleLore/Command and Colors lines.

Their main advantages, apart from the wargaming look-and-feel, is the connectivity and the versatility their shape allows. They fulfill much of the Modularity Requirement, and they succeed in Connectivity. You see, their multiple angles allow the various tiles to stay together, one holding the other when resting on a table. Much like puzzle pieces, you can expect from hexes to keep each other in place, although serious pressure will move them. Also the six sides allow for more variations of interconnecting tiles along their edges, and also for six different orientations of the tile itself.

However, they present a number of disadvantages for me:

1. Their six sided shape makes the design of multiple tiles representing "linear" terrain features, like roads and rivers, quite difficult. You cannot easily design crossroads, or 90 degree corners, just 30-60 degree turns or branches. Unfortunately, most roads run perpendicular to one another, and I wouldn't be able to represent that (a disadvantage I tried to overcome with octagons). 
2. Even more disheartening was the difficulty to cut and produce them, especially in a mass scale. Tiles must be cut with precision, to fit snugly together. So it takes special care to cut hexagons of the exact same dimensions and angles by hand, and it also difficult (thus more expensive) to cut/produce them in a mass, industrialized way.
3. Their connectivity can be misleading - in my experience, thick hex tiles do not stick easily together and they sometimes slide, so they still require a connectivity solution.
4. Boards consisting of fair sized hex tiles (eg over 10 inches in size) have "jagged" edges. Since most wargames' rules operate under the assumption of a straight "table edge", involving it in many rulings, those blanks need to be filled with "half hexes" to present a straight edge. 
5. Last but not least, I wanted to have the options to create different (2x, 1/2, 1/4) sizes of my tiles for specific reasons (mainly scale, read below), and it is quite difficult to create smaller hexes that will fit together with larger ones.

Not that the Hexagonal shape is out of the question for Pedion; it is just that I found out it imposed too many limitations when I started using it, and I abandoned it in favor of a rectangular solution. Yet, I consider it a great solution, especially for paper/cardboard flat tiles (which are more easily cut). So I find them great for solutions like GameMap, although they are too 2D for what I have in mind. If you still fill inclined to create hex tiles for your home board, do take a look at the excellent instructions by Maciej Marciniak at TerraGenesis

Squares (or more generally rectangles) are used in wargame boards of larger tile size, sometimes consisting only of 4-6 pieces. Not to overanalyze-it, square tiles have the reverse pros and cons of hex tiles: they do not stay connected as easily (thus the larger, heavier sizes), they offer a bit less variation and only four different orientations instead of six. On the other hand, they allow for 90 degree turns, though it is a design nightmare to implement 30-60 degree branches. But their many advantage is the easier process of cutting them with the necessary accuracy, making it simpler (and cheaper) to produce them. Also, they can be customized into variant shapes (like a rectangle or half-size squares) and still fit with larger squares.

Taking all the above into account, I finally decided to go with square tiles for Pedion: they cover the Modularity Requirement quite efficiently, and they produce a board with less Seams than hexagons. Also, they would be much more easily designed and mass produced. My only variance from the norm regards their size, ans it will be presented below (feel free to comment on my decision below!). 

Size (and Scale)

And so we come into the great question of tile size, which is just as crucial. And size on a modeling/wargaming table is often dependent on the scale of the phenomena depicted, ie the scale of the terrain features and the models.  A terrain board is not strictly tied to a scale -or even a range of scales, therefore I did not included "intended scales" as one of the basic Requirements of Pedion. However, scale does play a part, especially in a modular system like Pedion where the various natural and man-made features are intended to be an actual part of the tiles.

Therefore, I believe I have to define a target scale range for the terrain depicted, to better facilitate the design process.  So, Pedion will -for the time being- be better suited for a range of scales, starting from the so called 15mm, up to the "heroic" 28mm. This range also includes the 20mm (or 1/72) scale as well as the 25mm scale used in many role playing sessions. Also, this range is still suitable for smaller scale 6mm games like Battletech, where the actual models are quite large. Why those scales? Well, I decided to go with the scales which I mostly play with, and I suspect are the most popular among wargamers. Since I am an engineer, I prefer the numerical expression of scales as a ratio, as it is better for design purposes. Therefore the official scale range starts from aprox. 1/100 (15mm) up to 1/56 (28mm).

So, where does representation Scale affects Size? Pedion will include many terrain features as a seamless part of each tile, not as extra pieces. So scale does not really affect grass or broken/difficult ground tiles so much, but it starts to play a part in feature tiles like roads, rivers, hills,forest areas, plantations etc. Still, it is possible to select feature sizes which will be logical and playable in the whole scale range. You see, the Pedion tiles will not include man-made features like buildings or walls - these are objects that are really scale depended. More natural terrain features can be represented in a variety of sizes. A 2.5 cm (1 inch) rock can pass as a 2.5 m (7.5 ft.) tall rock in 1/100 scale or 1.4 m (4.2 ft) tall rock in 1/56. Both sizes are logical, although the first would provide full cover, while the later could be designed also as half-cover between players. The one man-made feature that will make it into the tiles is the roadway. There it is crucial to select a roadway width which will make sense in all scales involved; more on this on a latter blog post about roads!

Taking into account the features represented in Pedion tiles, I wanted to pick a tile size that will allow features to be crowed (for smaller scales) but still be large enough for a large scale (20-28mm) battlefield.

A Battletech Lance (6 mm) on Pedion tiles

Battle is joined...

...and it's resolved! :)

One of the good things of going with a rectacular, square tile shape is that I can always design smaller, "filler" tiles in future, with smaller, more crowded features on them - and give those smaller scales (6-10mm) a go...

Most modular solutions out there go either for small (10-20 cm long) or large tiles (50-60 cm long).
I decided to reach for the golden mean. So, the Pedion Tiles will be Squares, with 30 cm (~1 ft) sides, and 10 mm depth. Why the chosen 30x30mm size? Here are my thoughts:

• It is close to 1 foot in the imperial system. These will make the tiles more accessible to people using the imperial system, and translates more easily into the "fixed" game table sizes most of us use; eg, a 4x4 tiled Pedion board roughly corresponds to a 4x4' gaming area.
• 30-35 cm are the most common cabinet self depths. I wanted Pedion to be stored (and carried around) easily, into a cupboard - something not possible with 50-60cm tiles.
• Smaller tiles allow for more details on the board and more flexibility in terrain layout. However, I find that 30x30 cm is still "small" enough to include a lot of detail on the table, and on the tile itself. For instance, a 6x4 board would include 24 tiles. I think that 24 is a number that allows for lots of variations, multiple alignments and many different features, so each layout will produce a completely different battlefield. But smaller tiles take longer to arrange on the table. I believe that laying down 24 tiles will take 10-15 minutes tops, and it is worth it if it will produce good looking and interesting terrain.
• Larger tiles (which are the norm and many people prefer them) allow for a more seamless look (more like a diorama) and less preparation time in joining them together. However, even if you overlook the facts that they are a bit unwieldy due to size (and sometimes weight), and that you need dedicated space to store them... you are still left with only a few -or a single- board configurations. I have heard many people claiming "Oh, we had a beautiful terrain board, which we used for a couple of times. But then we gave it up, since it was only 4 or 6 pieces and produced no variations". There are exceptions of course, like the works of Clarence and John; but these are not easy to make. So I decided that the extra effort of laying down more tiles and the appearance of more seams are worth the extra games my terrain would ensure!

Here is a picture of the Pedion tiles in their first implementations (the tile is made from foamboard, which I rejected as a base material in a later stage).

The basic Pedion tile - 30x30x1 cm (1 ft x 1ft x 0.4 inch)

So this concludes my decision making on tile size and shape. I believe they cover at a satisfactory degree my Requirements of Modularity and Efficient Storage, while they also succeed in Appearance and Level landscape. However I would greatly value your input and experience!

My next post will be about materials and connectivity between the tiles - but you can have a sneak peak at a prototype tile in its most developed form in the photo below! Please do comment and share with people who would be interested in Pedion. Also, to avoid  overly spamming you with updates, you can join the Pedion facebook page to keep in touch.

Good gaming all!