Ravings of ageing gamer

 The Legend of Drizzt First of all I painted all the minis for this game.  Then I set about making the board(s). The game has 4x4 inch card tiles that make up the dungeon as you adventure within it.  The usual mechanic is to draw from the prepared deck of tiles and lay them out.  To replicate this I numbered each tile and created a deck of tile cards.  The cards are prepared as per the scenario and then each player draws a card and locates the matching 3D tile and places it. I used the Hirst Arts Water Cavern Moulds (81, 82, 281, 282) as this game is set in the Underdark.

 Descent was fairly easy to do, Hirst Arts has a page which details the moulds, number of casts, and how to build the pieces you will need. However the follow up, Descent 2, started to vary the types of tiles and had a lot of detritus on them, and the killer was multiple levels on one tile.  I made a few but eventually gave up. Tiles for Descent Example of the easier tiles for Descent 2 with the original tiles for comparison

 Welcome to Space Crusade! For this I used the Hirst Arts Sci-Fi tiles.  I used their 1" square floortiles.  However this would have been a tight fit for the figures, so I spaced the tile apart by 1/4" and filled the gap with filler. I decided not to create the walls within the each board and just painted the gap between the tiles white, like the card board provided.  I also only created doors and walls for the inter-board walls and docking claws.

 Pimp my board game I have many games that use figures and have special boards.  I like dungeon exploration games and have several of the Dungeons & Dragons board games.  As my background is from Wargaming and Role-Playing I don't like playing with basic card boards and unpainted minis. As a basic pimpimg I try to paint the figures before we play with them.  Then I try and build the board. Some games have boards that are multilevel on one piece of card, like Warhammer Quest and Descent 2.  These can't be made to look good in 3D as having two levels on one piece will not sit right with the pieces around them. I started by creating a 3D board for my Space Crusade game and painting all the figures. I used the moulds from Hirst Arts  to cast up the walls and floors in Herculite casting plaster until I had enough.  Then I used XPS Extruded Polystyrene Foam sheets to build the boards from. Hirst arts has many moulds that will make different styles of Fantasy and Sci-Fi floors and

 Various Figures for Age of Sail Wargaming I have various figures for my Age of Sail Wargames.  Some of them are cheap and cheerful, others are expensive works of art.  I have reviewed them for anyone wanting to know what they are like. Navwar Navwar 110, 74 and 38 mounted on card bases Navwar was started in the 1970's to provide affordable ship models for war gamers and that’s exactly what they do. For the price of one of the more expensive manufacturers models you can have 3 or 4 of these.  The ships are cast in a soft white metal and are supplied as a complete kit. Hull, Masts with sails, Bowsprit sail, Driver and ships boats.  They paint up fairly easily and can be rigged enough to look the part. Website http://www.navwar.co.uk/ Scale 1/1200 Hulls These come as a 1 piece casting with holes drilled for the masts to sit in.  They tend to be on the small side, especially in height. Masts & Sails The sail set provided is Easy Sail with courses furled and each mast and sails are