Last 48hrs - and SciFi PEDION Modular Terrain available!

It is quite a thing to see your Campaign's counter reaching the "hour" format. You know that a journey is almost over, and you start planing what really matters: the implementation of your dream.
"Almost" being the keyword here; a bit less than 2 whole days can be a long enough time for good, innovative things to happen!

The clock is ticking. Pedion will be around, but this is your chance to get terrain in great prices and help us design even better stuff: support Pedion on Kickstarter, get the last terrain you will ever need!

Why now? Because Pedion has gotten better than ever: SciFi themed ground variations have been unlocked, Urban tiles and free stuff are just a breath away, and a new, "get'em all" pledge reward level is available!

How about some Science Fiction Battlefields?

By surpassing the £25000 Stretch Goal, backers may order their Set and Add-on tiles in two new variations, suitable to a more futuristic/apocalyptic setting: the "Red Planet" and the "Grey Wastes". The new paint/texture variations can be applied to all existing tile types, and they Unlock two new tiles: the Impact Crater and the Artillery Craters types.
The impact Crater tile includes one big crater, with the smooth style of craters cause by large asteroid impacts. The artillery craters are smaller, with the jagged edges of exploding ground. The Craters are an add-on, or you can Upgrade your Plain/Broken Ground tiles into them!
You can even "fill" them with some liquid, like water or lava... !

The Grey Wastes, Artillery craters tile

The Red Planet, Impact crater tile

Finally, another "upgrade" option unlocked for SciFi battlegrounds is the exchange of "normal" water on River and Pond Tiles, to Lava or Green toxic flows!

The New EPIC, Kickstarter only, Pledge!

Since we have unlocked a lot of new features (and probably will unlock more), we introduced a brand new pledge level, a great "get-them-all" reward for the 15 first among you! So, as a Kickstarter only Set, you may now get a huge 8'x4' Battlefield Set at £500, and it includes 32 Pedion tiles:

• 5 Plain Grass tiles, 
• 4 Broken Ground tiles, 
• 2 Forest tiles + 12 magnetic trees, 
• 1 Badlands tile + 4 magnetic Rock Formations, 
• 4 Road tiles (2 straight, 2 turns), 
• 8 Painted River tiles (1 turn, 1 Widening turn, 6 straight),
• 1 River Ford tile, 
• 3+2 Hill tiles, 
• 2 Crops/Orchard Tiles + 8 magnetic Fruit trees, 
• 1 Pond tile, 
• 1 Swamp upgrade + 1 magnetic Willow, 1 River marshland upgrade, 
• 1 Artillery craters tile, 
• 2x sets of Crop tile Fences. 

To this you may add 3 extra free trees and 1 free rock formation, as well any other SG freebies. So. do you have the space? For this is the wargaming board that includes EVERYTHING up to the £28K Stretch Goals! Full of features, either for 8'x4' epic battles or for multiple smaller configurations. Do not expect a photo of this monster, I do not have such a big table :)

Those SciFi/Urban tiles

The next Stretch Goal is tantalizingly close! At £30000 backer will be able to add a number of tile types more suited to an Urban environment: either SciFi, Modern or Gothic, perfect for wargaming in in such an enviroment.

The Urban tiles are mostly re-designs of the main Road tiles, with added texture and road options. Specifically:

1. To the existing 7cm Road width there will be another width added, 14cm; Such a wide road can easily be considered a double-lane road at 28-32mm or a highway in 15mm. 
2. To the existing Road surfaces (cobbled, dirt, asphalt) two new, futuristic surfaces will be added: Aluminum Hoverway (a bright, aluminum textured surface, that can denote hovercraft or spacecraft lanes and landing strips) and Plastisteel (Square or Hex grid in light grey or blue coloring)
3. Roadsides are expanded; apart from dirt (magnetic), now three more types will be available: raised 1" sidewalks (magnetic), sloped 1/2" black/yellow caution hatch (magnetic) and the impressive 1/3" LED illuminated roadsides (non-magnetic) - read more below*.
4. Tile textures are expanded with an urban range. So far, road tiles included the texture of their greater set (eg Green grass for Spring Green theme). Now, many more more Urban-appropriate textures can be selected for your urban tiles: Grey cement (all magnetic), Irregular cobblestone (all magnetic), Stone pattern (Granite or Sandstone, plasticard, magnetic hardpoints), Brick Pattern (plasticard, magnetic hardpoints), Futuristic Plastisteel Grid (Square or Hex, all magnetic)

WIP: Urban tile, with Aluminum Hoverway road, Illuminated roadsides* and Plastisteel grid texture (fully magnetic)

Backers can choose whatever combination of surface, roadside and tile texture for their Urban Sets. They can even choose some tile to be "transition" tiles from the rest of their Set; that means that tile on one side of the road can have an Urban texture and on the other the regular tile texture, like Grass.

The Urban tiles will be available as add-ons in sets, of 2, 4, 6 and 9 pieces.

Prototype of Illuminated Roadsides - LED strips clip to one another and transfer power*

*The Illuminated option roadside add-on is based on high quality, extremely low-voltage LED strips. One of the tiles is connected to a 12V power source (battery) and then the tiles snap one into another, so all LEDs can switch on and off. LED Strips will be silicon protected on final product. Manufacture and installation of lighting elements will be contacted by MP Illumination, the leader in technical lighting solutions in Greece.(www.mpillumination.com)

Who wants some Coastline?

And there is a new Stretch Goal as well! Many people love the idea of playing Sea battles or making D-Day scenarios come through. Pedion will deliver, if we reach £32000: we will unlock Tile designs for:

1. Sea/Water Tiles
2. Straight Coastline/Lakeside 
3. Curved Coastline/Lakeside
4. River Delta

What are you waiting for? Come and help us make everything true!

Good gaming,

George

Journal #7 - or, Over the Hills and Far Away

For many people their terrain is defined by roads and/or rivers; for me, it is Hills. Differences in elevation have been the deciding factor in most open battles, therefore I think they should be the most important terrain feature (ok, they also make the otherwise flat terrain look more interesting :) ).

In Pedion™ elevations will be representing by "hills", that is, distinct rises in fixed intervals, following the logic of contours in maps. I have some ideas for more elevation change options, but for the time being, I will present to you the Pedion Hill tiles.

The Empire descending a hill on Kashyyk - miniatures from WotC, included for scale only

As with all other Pedion™ tiles, the hills will actually be part of the tile, rising seamlessly from the surrounding ground. However, keeping up with my modularity requirements, the hills consist of two pieces: the main hill tile, where the first elevation level rises, and a second, smaller "hill", which represents a second elevation level, that can be placed over the first one. So the players can either place a 2-level hill or two 1-level hills on their battlefield. The second level snaps magnetically over the main hill, staying in place. Each hill elevation rise is about 3cm (1.18").

A two-part Hill tile

The smaller, second level snaps over the main hill tile, creating a 2-level hill if so the player wishes

...or the players keep the larger, main tile with a 1-level elevation hill...

...and they can use the smaller, 2nd level hill as stand-alone on a Plain tile.

Hill Tile Properties and Variations

• For the time being there are three (3) discreet Hill tile designs: A full tile hill with an extra level piece, a 4/5 tile hill with an extra hill piece, and a 3/4 tile hill without extra levels.
• The three main hills are designed so that they can be fitted side-by-side, creating longer hill pieces, or they can be placed alone in different places across the battlefield.
• The hilltops include metal hardpoints. These can be used for the second-level pieces to snap onto, or for other magnetic terrain pieces from Pedion tiles, like trees, walls etc.
• The hills include both steep and gentle sides. Thus the players can declare sides which are unapproachable, pose a penalty to climb or have no effect on movement.

 See what I mean about these hill tile properties in the photos below:

The three different hill tile kinds can be placed next to each other to form a long hill piece. You can see the 3:1 ramps on all hill types, as well as the steep rock faces.

The "central", Full-tile Hill, with its extra, 2nd level hill piece

The "left-side", 4/5 of the tile Hill, with its own 2nd level hill piece

The "right-side", 3/4 of a tile Hill, without a second level.

In true Pedion™ spirit, the hilltops are ready for magnetized walls, creating a fortified position...

...or some tree stands, to provided aesthetic variety and cover.

 In case you are wondering how are those Hill tiles made (come 'on, I know you are!), check my progress in the following photos:

Yep, they were fun to make, but it does take a lot of effort. I also discovered I can always find a job frosting cakes, after all this practice. If anything, I am considering making the Hill tiles simpler and less realistic. They look awesome but will take too much time to mass produce...

Hope you liked my Hill tiles. Please do comment on your opinions and ideas, I am anxious to hear them. Also, rest assured that I am implementing the Pedion Kickstarter Campaign as you are reading this - so you will be able to preorder your Pedion very soon.

Good gaming all!

Journal #3 - or, Choosing materials for Pedion Modular Terrain Tiles

Here I am, back to my blog, to ramble on about the materials I will use on Pedion tiles. I know, I know; the last blog post was not too impressive, lots of talk, and no "real" terrain progress showing. But it was an important part of developing Pedion, and I feel I should share it with anyone interested. However, I WILL try to by "less text wall, more to the point" in this third blog post, to make it an easier read.

So, as finalized in my previous (#2) post, I decided to go with Square tiles, each measuring 30x30x1(thickness) cm. The next step was to decide a) which materials to use and b) how to keep the modules connected to each other - both points I will be tackling here.

Choice of Materials

Before describing my process, let me remind  -once more- my Requirements which apply to the Tiles, as presented in post #1: Modularity, Efficient Storage, Lightweight, Economical, Durable, Appearance, Level surfaced, Seamless and Connectivity - all these under the perspective of mass producing Pedion, not just making a home-brewed terrain table.

Most of these Requirement play a major part in selecting construction materials. Efficient Storage is quite covered by the selected tile size and depth. Seamless and Connectivity we will cover further below. All the others are crucial, especially the difficult combination of Lightweight/Durability/Economy! Also, regarding Appearance: I wanted the Pedion tiles to be made from something to allow me to work with and create depressions on the terrain. That meant that a simple, hard basing material was not enough, but a more malleable material (like foam) was needed.

My first effort, as shown in the pictures, was the use of Foam Board, also known as Foam Core, the material most Architects use for modeling (told you I'm an engineer, didn't I?). For those of you who have not heard of it, it's a combination of solid foam sandwiched between two layers of strong cardboard (we call it "maquette paper" in Greece). I used 1 cm thick foamboard (about 0.4 of an inch) and cut it into my 30x30cm (~1x1ft) squares. Foamboard has a variety of great advantages: it is strong, yet extremely lightweight. It can be cut by normal craft tools, like a hobby knife, although it requires a proper method to do so (watch Mel's great video tutorial). And it combines the rigid cardboard with the foam in its core, so I could just "dig" into the stuff and create anything I wanted (up to 1 cm deep), and still have a base underneath. It also allowed me to keep a small (2-3 mm) cardboard "edge" on each tile, so they could overlap and cover the seams a bit. Finally, while not as cheap as pure foam sheets, it is not to expensive either (even at the 1 cm thickness) so I could keep the project cost low.

That's aprox. 1' x 1' x 0.4" for those of you challenged by metric figures :) 

You can see the small edge left when cutting, to allow overlap between tiles

So, why I keep using the past tense? What went wrong with foamboard? Well... it wraps, as many people using it will tell you! To be more precise: it does not always wrap, and you can minimize/avoid warping with proper preparation. You see, what happens is this: when you apply to much liquid on one side, say watered-down PVA glue (as it is bound to happen in terrain making), the water shrinks the cardboard on this side. The shrinked cardboard then pulls the foam core and the other side, and the sides and corners of the tile are raised. How to avoid this effect? you can put duct tape on the under-side, even "paint" it with watered-down PVA as well, to refute the warping effect when the upper-side will start shrinking. However, this is something you can try for a homemade terrain, not as standing method in consistent-quality mass production. Oh, and there were also Durability issues: much use would start to fray the edges of the cardboard. All in all, I had to abandon foamboard for my tiles, although I will be using it for smaller terrain pieces - and I still find it a good solution for something a home user could make.

I moved on to my final (so far) solution: the combination of solid foam sheets with a basing material underneath.

I wanted the foam part, since it will allow me to sculpt it into depressions, rivers etc. So I will be using polystyrene foam sheets, 1 cm thick, cut into 30x30 cm pieces. I tried both kinds of polystyrene foam available in the mass market, the expanded foam (called felizol in Greece) and the extruded foam (XPS, also known as DOW or styrofoam). Both have pros and cons, with the extruded sheets obviously more durable and rigid, but more expensive. Cutting them in shape is a wife's nightmare, but for mass production I would have to use a professional solution, involving heated blades or wire cutters. I will probably use both in Pedion, with expanded foam the most likely candidate due to cost (and it will be protected from its basing material anyway). Both solutions are extremely lightweight and quite economical.

My XPS (extruded polystyrene) foam tiles

As mentioned above, the foam tiles will be attached on some sort of base. Why the base?
First, from experts on the field, I have heard than even XPS, can wrap a little, or fray, however rigid and durable it may seem. A 2 mm rise on the corners could well spell disaster for my modular tiles - so better safe than sorry. Secondly, as I mentioned, I want to dig into the 1 cm thick foam, and still have a solid surface underneath, to act as, eg, the river bed. Thirdly, the base can be shaped to help with connectivity options.

Many materials could be used for a hard base under the foam sheet. Of those, I did not choose the most obvious and popular solution: wood, in the form of MDF. MDF sheets are a) too heavy b) too pricey, and c) still difficult too cut, compared with my other solutions. Do not get me wrong - MDF would have been my choice if I made Pedion just for myself . But in terms of mass production other materials are available: die-cut metal and plastic PVC sheets.

So far my tiles are produced with a basing of a thin sheet of aluminum (I tried steel - durable but heavy, you have no idea how heavy...). I chose aluminum 'cause it is a) Durable, b) Rigid, c) Light, d) Thin - I have used 1 mm (0.04") thick sheets, but will probably go for even thinner, at 0.5 mm (0.02"), d) Cheap, at these lightweight thicknesses. Obviously you do not cut it at home, but I have secured access to industrial die-cutters.

Expanded polystyrene Pedion tiles, with an aluminum base

Right now I'm experimenting on plastic (PVC foam) sheets - they seem equally lightweight and durable, not to mention low-cost.  Both solutions seem valid, and my final selection will come after some extensive cost-analysis.

Here is the form of the tiles so far - XPS foam sheet mounted on thin aluminum basing:

Notice those small, round thingies on the tile corners? these are small magnets, and if you like, I'll tell you below why I mounted them there...

Connectivity issues

Still reading? great - let me talk a bit about another requirement I have had. This is something that many manufacturers of modular terrain do not necessary tackle: keeping the tiles connected to each other. It is an issue for me and my Pedion tiles; you see, in many modular solutions the tiles are just too heavy to easily move around, or the manufacturer simply does not think this is an issue. However, Pedion tiles are lightweight to better carry them. And I wanted my tiles to keep together, even if somebody accidentally pushes one of them. On the same time I did not want a connectivity solution that would sacrifice Modularity and the ability to easily interchange and rotate terrain pieces on the table.

The first solution I came up with was to drill small wholes on specific distances from each tile corner. Each hole would be by the middle (thick wise) of the foam sheet, and there would be 8 holes total. Then each tile would slide to connect to the surrounding ones be using small, round pins - in my prototype I used common round toothpicks and they worked remarkably well. They maintain a strong grip among the tiles - so strong in fact, that you could lift 6 (2x3) interconnected tiles and they would keep together. One did not even have to join all the tiles, as you could just connect the framing tiles of your gaming area and they would keep the rest in place.

See the toothpick pins between the tiles?

It was (and is) a good, solid solution, and I would recommend it to anyone thinking about connecting foam tiles he/she has at home (post a comment below or join me in google+ if you need to know the details). However, the toothpick pins pose some minor disadvantages. It is not an easy solution to implement in mass production quantities of tiles. Also, it requires some extra effort when placing the tiles, in order to slide them carefully together, in a particular order, so that the pins enter correctly (not to mention some pricked fingertips). Then, the foam hole starts to get wider after a while, as the pins enter and exit repeatedly, enlarging it in the process. And finally, I had a small gameplay issue: when the tiles are fixed together, it is not easy to un-pin them and reconnect them, something that some games (like the Field of Glory Napoleonic ruleset) require for their terrain pieces (eg in FoG one player places and the other can rotate or move). All minor points, but I wanted something better for Pedion.

So I designed my current solution: magnet connectivity. Instead of small holes, strong magnets are mounted on each tile corner, eight magnets total. Their polarity is aligned so that they can easily snap together.  This solution works like a charm: the tiles snap and unsnap to each other without effort, and the tiles are truly interchangeable but still keep solidly connected.

In case you want to see how they connect for yourself, here is a short video:

By the way, this is not exactly an economical solution - magnets are cheap, but this is a LOT of magnets. If thing go well for Pedion, and we enter actual mass production, I have even better connectivity solutions in mind. But these require die-cutting of the base in a specific and complex way, that requires expensive matrices. Therefore, I will stick with my magnets for now.

If I managed to interest you so far, thank you. Trust me; the boring posts are over, and the next ones will more about the terrain itself. I NEED your comments and ideas, to improve Pedion even more, so do not be shy. And stay tuned!

Good gaming all