Painted City Canal and Harbour System Available!

Hello everyone!

Enjoy the possibilities of an awesome Urban board!

After long preparations, we are proud to present the final version of the Pedion City Canals, as well as the Harbours, which complement our extensive Urban tile battlefields! Read more on how you can get yours.

The Urban Kickstarter Pledge Manager is Live - and you can Late-Pledge!

The "Pledge Manager" is the tool for our Urban Kickstarter Backers to finalise their pledges, select their Urban battlefields Rewards and arrange their shipping details so they can get them on May 2018. But, on the same time, is a chance for people who were late, to jump on the Kickstarter train and pre-order Urban Battlefields with the same benefits and pricing (what we call "late-pledge"). The Pledge Manager works as an integral part of our Pedion eshop, and you can check the Urban options there!

What's new in the Eshop then?

As part of the Kickstarter "Pledge Manager", people gain access to pre-ordering many exciting new designs to enhance their Urban or Outdoors Pedion Sets. Specifically:

CITY CANALS & HARBOURS

A full 3'x3' Urban setup with "Medieval" Harbours, Canals, roads and bridges!

During the Urban KS Campaign we had shown only the "Medieval" version of the Harbour quays, and have shown schematics of the Canal tiles. In the Pledge Manager City Canals and City Harbours are separate entries with almost all available separate designs and themes shown in the galleries so you can better understand the way they look.

City Canal "T" Junction, "Contemporary" theme

Straight and Stepped Quays Harbour Tiles in a row, "Contemporary" theme

Canal Harbour Exit Tile, "Medieval" Theme

The "City Canals" KS Special Offer set

I must stress that these are not simple prototypes but actual products with parts cast in resin from the moulds we have already made.

CANAL BRIDGES

We had announced the additions of Bridges to cross the City Canals in a KS Update, and we have already shown you the "Medieval" Stone Bridge. You will find both the Stone and Asphalt bridge in the PM

Stone Bridge on "Road Overpass" canal tile, "Medieval" Theme

Asphalt road Bridge on "Road Overpass" canal tile, "Contemporary" Theme

MORE TRANSITION OPTIONS

We expanded the "Transition" tile designs with another featuring a straight road, which was requested by many: the "Transition Straight Road- Along". It allows to fully go over from one Pedion theme to another, be it Urban or Outdoors, or a combination of them. The same can be done (without the road) with the "Open Ground Transition"

TRANSITION Tile "Open Ground" Green Spring to Desert Theme

CUSTOM MOSAIC DESIGNS ON "OPEN SPACE" TILES

That's something completely new, not presented during the KS: we can engrave and paint a customised design on a "Open Space" tile.The idea is that by ordering an Open Space tile with Custom design, we can engrave a special mosaic to adorn your battlefields. It can be a motif which will make the urban set look the role for specific game universes or scenarios. And, you can always remove it and use a standard open space tile in its place when you play a different game or world (something not possible with other urban boards which have fixed designs).

The custom design will be engraved and detailed on the tile, and then hand painted to stand out. It can act as a building floor, a mosaic, a Scenario Objective area, or just an adornment. We have prepared three (3) different designs we can engrave in your tiles, but you can always ask for something else. You can see in the gallery and ordering options how we can implement an "Arcane Pentagram" (for your Fantasy Games), a Helipad/dropship pad (for modern and scifi scenarios) and even an Imperial Eagle (for scifi Cathedrals). You can order one of these 3 designs or you can send us your own.

Arcane Pentagram on Medieval Theme open space tile

Need a floor for that ruined Imperial 40K Cathedral?

Replacing a Set's "open space" tile with a "custom" one opens up all kind of scenario possibilities!

If you want us to implement a custom design of your own making, you can get an idea from the 3 we already have whether it is feasible or not. The design must be drawn in some detail (no oral descriptions qualify) and must fit an area of maximum 20cm in diameter.

MAGNETIC ACCESSORIES 

Another thing we had talked about in the KS but had not shown: a series of accessories and scenics which could make use of "Magnetised" tiles. The idea is that they stand upright realistically, without using any bases, and they do not fall even if you flip the tile. In the "Urban Accessories (Magnetic Base option)" PM sub-section, you will find many of these, including our new walls, fences, urban trees, flower beds, city sculpts, traffic lights and street lamps.

Street lamps, traffic lights and Wirefence combined on a Magnetised tile. They need no bases and they don't fall over.

An "Old-fashioned" Street lamp - works great both on "Medieval" and "Modern" City terrain sets

Earthquake? not a problem! Your Street lamp stays in place

DISCOUNT -10% ON ALL OUTDOORS BASE SETS

Last but not least: in case you were considering getting one of the outdoor sets from our first Kickstarter, here is your chance. While the Urban KS Pledge Manager is active, all the "Outdoors" Base Battlefield Sets (from 2'x3' to 6'x4') are at 10% OFF! Even single extra tiles like crops, craters, coastlines etc are at 5% OFF. We will combine shipping with your urban pledge, although each outdoors set will add a bit to the delivery time (check their descriptions).


I am quite proud of how the Urban line is growing and how great it looks! Just give us the chance to create the urban board you always wanted.

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 #13 - oh, those beautiful new tiles!

Much is happening in Pedion-verse, which I would really like to share! But what I really want to do with this blog post is to show off -without a shred of shame- the newly created beautiful pictures of Tile Types unlocked as Stretch Goals during the Kickstarter. But some business first...

No, this is not a real Greek beach, is Pedion Coastline tile... more below ;)

Pledge Manager (and extra pre-orders) are Live; lock your stuff!

You will pleased to know that the pledge management system is up and running, and all backers have received an invite to lock their pledges. Almost half of them have actually gone and finalized their rewards already, so we are moving on! The Pledge Manager is set-up as part of the Pedion e-shop. This has another advantage: not only can backers add more last minute stuff to their pledges, but people who missed the Kickstarter have their (last) chance to pre-order Pedion Battlefield Sets! The Pledge manager will be open up to the end of the month, so not much time left to take advantage of Kickstarter prices and shipping.

New, Unlocked versions of Tile Types

As many may know, we unlocked an awful large number of new themes, tile types and combinations during the Kickstarter Campaign. Because of the hectic rhythm of those days, we managed to create prototypes for only a few of them -those of the first Stretch Goals reached- like Green Grass Ponds, Craters etc. However, there were a LOT more stuff made available, mostly as extra options to the existing tile types, which we did not manage to show during the campaign but only to describe it.

While we were mass-preparing tiles for the backers' orders, we also made sure that these unlocked options were implemented. We wanted to have a picture of at least some of the new options available for the Pledge Manager, so the backers could have a better idea and base their choice in what they saw and not what they read.

Another cool fact about the tiles/add-ons you will see below is that they are not mock-ups or prototypes - they are backer stuff. So, here are some images to see for yourselves, and we are very proud of how they are turning out!

Frozen option for the "Pond" tile: a special liquid glass option for the Winter themed boards with a pond included. The pond is complete cast in epoxy resin.

The Frozen Pond tile (winter theme, liquid glass)

River with floating ice pieces: Staying in the Winter theme, another option of displaying the river surface was to add floating ice pieces. The idea is not to have a completely frozen river, but to show how cold it is, and perhaps assign some wargame attribute to the ice pieces (perhaps making the river passable?). Notice the darker blue/black of the winter water.

The ice floating pieces are cast in white/blue transparent resin

Two river tiles joined. The upper tile represents a "Ford" tile, with a winter dirt road reaching the riversides. The "square" shapes showing on the river banks are magnetic hardoints for trees, walls, bridges, buildings etc

Now, to our pride and joy, the Coastline tile types. Coastline/Riversides were requested by the backers and unlocked close to the end. The Straight, Concave and Convex tiles will be of two types (2 different molds). The delta and the open water of one type (molds in progress). The tiles you see below are cast in resin or resin and liquid glass for the respective version. Also, the "water" tile sides also connect magnetically (we did not want to have to apply constant pressure on the tile corner by clipping velcro). Also, ALL the sloped beach part is Magnetic, so players can snap walls, bunkers, artillery or anything else on them.

Coast tile, Straight beach, type I, Green theme, Painted Version

Coast tile, Concave beach, type I, Green theme, Painted Version

The straight and concave tiles connected

Coast tile, Convex beach, type II, Green theme, Liquid Glass Version

another view of the beautiful liquid glass version

Urban Road Tiles: about midway during the campaign, a stretch goal unlocked which is a personal favorite. Now you can get a series of tiles to create a board of an urban environment, ready for man-made structures like buildings, ruins, factories, sandbags etc. Skirmish games become more and more popular and with urban tile options you could get the basis for a neighborhood, be it a fantasy village, a modern town or a futuristic off-planet settlement. Backers had already seen our cobblestone/dirt road version, now we present two variations of the many available: a scifi straight road tile, and a 28mm modern crossroads tile.

Urban Straight road tile: 7cm, light blue "plastisteel" surface, Caution line sides, light grey "plastisteel" tile texture, FULLY magnetic

X Crossroads Urban tile, 14cm road, Asphalt, 28mm scale pedestrian stripes, Magnetic sidewalks, Sandstone tile texture

Variant River Flows: Along with the more exotic, scifi themes for our boards, unlocked two new "river" flows, lava and green toxic... stuff! These fillings can also be applied to fill craters, ponds or even "seas"/"lakes". Check them on Grey waste and Red planet tiles. The Red planet tile has a more alien look with special minerals. Again, the square shapes are actual magnetic hardpoints.

Lava flow on regular Grey Wastes theme, painted version

Green toxic river, painted version

Sci-Fi Crystal Formations: even better than minerals, backers can now order MAGNETIC crystals which give a very scifi look on their boards. If they look realistic, it's because they are fully based on real Jade formations. They are cast in transparent coloured resin, at various shapes.

purple crystal

green crystal

"clear" crystal

cobalt blue crystal

I have even more stuff to show you, especially the new Elevation change System we developed; but it will have to wait till my next blog post. If you liked the new stuff and the images, please share the word with people interested and -of course- get yourselves some in the eshop!

Good gaming all,

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

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

Enhance your Battlefield! PEDION Wall System unlocked

Our backers did it again - yes, another Stretch Goal is down, one that really enhances our range: the Pedion Wall System.

The newly unlocked Pedion Bridge - modular, affordable, perfect for your River Tiles!

Raise those Walls Soldier!

The Wall System started as a small side-project, designed to take advantage of the connectivity of the Tiles and add man-made features on them, which can be removed easily and stored away – Pedion style. The Stretch Goal unlocks the basics of the Wall-system, allowing players to get a series of stone fences and hedges to enhance their terrain and their games. The main requirements behind the Wall System are:
a) to avoid the placing of walls on bases for stability,
b) to allow flexibility in wall placement and unit movement,
c) to take advantage of magnetized areas on the tiles, and
d) to be simple and affordable.

Creating wargame walls without bases improves the aesthetics of the battlefield (the walls touch the ground realistically ) and allows unit placement next to them without having to balance the unit on the raised base. But what substitutes bases or unnatural wall thickness? The Pedion Columns of course.

The main principle of the System is this: there are “stone” columns (1x1x3cm) which act as the anchors of the walls/fences. These posts have magnetic bases to clip on the tiles, and magnets on 2 or 3 of their sides for the wall parts to clip onto them. So, you first place the columns, and then easily snap any wall part you want on and off. The Columns act as stabilizers and connectors for a network of fences.

You can better understand see the simple way the System works (and the easy that walls are dismantled and stores away in the following video, especially after 0:34)

The prototypes you see on the photos and video are made from foamboard and plasticard. The Stretch Goal represents the design of molds to create resin parts of walls and columns, to be painted afterwards. For the hedges I have used pan scourer – and I am not sure if I’ll switch to something else, if it is going to keep the cost low for backers.

Speaking of cost, there are new options in the Add-ons section, for backers to enhance their sets. Expect for these to grow, as I will add more wall lengths and options. And perhaps grab that “Crops Tile” Hedge Set, as the price is a Kickstarter special!

The wall parts will be 12cm (4.7”) long, 3mm thick and their height will vary depending on scale and purpose. Specifically, I was planning to make available different heights for players to choose: “15mm low” (H=10mm), “15mm high/20-28mm low” (H=20mm), “20-28mm high” (H=30mm). For Stone fences, there will be grey stone, sand stone and brick variations.

Build those Bridges

Along with the "Wall System", another favorite of mine unlocked: the Pedion Bridge. In the spirit of Pedion, the Bridge is a 3-part flat stone modular construct, designed for the depth and with of the River Tiles. The arches go 1 cm deep to touch water surface and the bridge is 7 cm wide and 14 cm long.
It assembles (magnetically) into one piece or you can dismantle it and store it away without taking any space. If you are getting any River tiles, this is a must have add-on, especially at the £9 price tag.

Desert and Winter Variation photos

Many backers asked for them, so take a look at the first photos from Desert/Winter prototype tiles. The beautiful 15mm and 6mm miniatures of Anne and +David Yeomans  bring the photographs to life.

Desert theme with Asphalt Road - 15mm FoW minis

6mm Ancients on Desert tiles

The elephant is coming!

Special kind of "broken ground" tile type I am thinking for Desert and Snow: raised dunes/drifts. It increases tile weight and vertical size, but looks nice.

German 88mm at the Eastern Front - Winter tiles with Dirt road and 15mm FoW minis

Next Stretch Goal

We still have a little bit over 2 weeks left in the Kickstarter campaign - how about some more Stretch Goals? The next one, upon £28000, will unlock some "Science Fiction" looks for the Tiles. But this is not only it; this SG unlocks the two types of Crater Tiles (asteroid and bombardment crater) as well as different, more exotic "liquids" for your River tiles: Lava flow and Green toxic stream...
Hooked? Spread the word, bring your friends and we will reach it!

Good gaming,

George