Paper Terrain: Fat Dragon vs. Dave Graffam

[WWHSD]

Malifaux is the first game that I've played that uses 3D terrain. My FLGS has a great selection of terrain but I'd like to be able to play at home. Since I'm starting with a terrain inventory of 0 and Malifaux uses a ton of it, I figured I'd give the 3D paper stuff a shot and give my bank account a bit of a breather. 

I picked up a couple of the Dave Graffam PDFs and made a couple of the smaller models as a test. I printed on standard paper and then used 3M spray adhesive to mount the printed pages to some card board cut from Malifaux boxes that I hadn't thrown out yet. I'm happy with the results though I think that the scale is a little off for Malifaux models (Malifaux models seem a bit bigger than 30mm). The buildings seem durable and look pleasant. Once I've got enough terrain built, I might even go back and attach the buildings to better bases. Between the free stuff that Dave Graffam has and a few of his PDFs that I purchased, I should have enough variety of buildings without purchasing anything else. 

I'm about to start printing and assembling a table's worth of buildings when I noticed a bundle of western themed buildings by Fat Dragon that might also fit the bill. The Fat Dragon bundle is $11 so I can't really put together one of their buildings to compare to the Dave Graffam buildings. They've got some "pay what you want" stuff right now but it is all Fantasy and Dungeon themed. I'll probably see if there are any buildings that wouldn't look too out of place with Malifaux and give them a shot.

I figured I should ask here to see if anyone has used the Fat Dragon "Rio Draco" stuff and what they thought of it. If you've also used the Dave Graffam stuff as well, I'd love to hear how you thought that they compared.  

 

[WWHSD]

I just went through all the "pay what you want" Fat Dragon PDFs and there are no buildings, it's all modular dungeon stuff. I did find a free Baba Yaga's hut PDF by Fat Dragon. If I don't add the chicken legs it would probably be a decent building to use as a comparison.

 

[WWHSD]

It looks like World Works Games also has some Western/Victorian/Horror themed stuff. 

They've got some packs of buildings that look like they meant to be be build quickly and then collapse for storage if you decide not to mount them more permanently. $7 for the kit seems like a great price as well. I'm hesitant because it looks like you buy directly from the site instead of being able to keep everything in my DriveThruRPG library.  Most of the rest of what they have seems like it's serious business with larger buildings and that have interiors. Tossing a huge Victorian mansion on the table and having a lot of the match take place inside of it seems cool but is a bit ambitious for me right now. 

[WWHSD]

I got the Fat Dragon hut put together and the scale of that seems to be the same as the Dave Graffam stuff (I'm using the door as the point of reference). I'm going to assume that the Rio Draco stuff is similar. Shrinking the models is easy but unless I use a printer that can take larger paper it printing at 110% doesn't seem like it will be feasible since most of the larger buildings have sections that fill most of a page. I don't think the scale compared to Malifaux models is off by so much that matters.  

Here's a shack, a shed, and a shitter:

 

 

The buildings from left to right are: Baba Yaga's Hut (sans legs),  Shed, and Outhouse.

Baba Yaga's Hut is by Fat Dragon, and the Shed and Outhouse are both from Dave Graffam's "Outbuildings Set". 

[Bazlord_Prime]

@WWHSD I'm just starting down this exact same path (Dave Graffam & Fat Dragon paper terrain), for the exact same reasons (I don't have any terrain currently, and I'm cheap ), so it'd be good to hear your ongoing thoughts on this.

I've just bought the Fat Dragon "Ravenfell Ruins" pack, and the Dave Graffam Models "Cobblestone Tile Kit #1", but I'll need to go down to the local print shop at some point to hard-copy them - my printer is on the fritz.

I'm impressed so far though with the selection of layers available to customise the look of the buildings and tiles, and I plan to make a modular gaming board from the Cobblestone Tiles by spray-gluing them onto 1.5' * 1.5' MDF base boards.

Will let you know how I go!

[WWHSD]

3 minutes ago, Bazlord_Prime said:

@WWHSD I'm just starting down this exact same path (Dave Graffam & Fat Dragon paper terrain), for the exact same reasons (I don't have any terrain currently, and I'm cheap ), so it'd be good to hear your ongoing thoughts on this.

I've just bought the Fat Dragon "Ravenfell Ruins" pack, and the Dave Graffam Models "Cobblestone Tile Kit #1", but I'll need to go down to the local print shop at some point to hard-copy them - my printer is on the fritz.

I'm impressed so far though with the selection of layers available to customise the look of the buildings and tiles, and I plan to make a modular gaming board from the Cobblestone Tiles by spray-gluing them onto 1.5' * 1.5' MDF base boards.

Will let you know how I go!

DriveThruRPG has most of the Dave Graffam PDFs on sale for $1 each until 9/22.

 

[Bazlord_Prime]

3 hours ago, WWHSD said:

DriveThruRPG has most of the Dave Graffam PDFs on sale for $1 each until 9/22.

 

That's insane. I'm definitely going to be grabbing a few more pieces - especially some of the big, elaborate ones, like the Inventor's House.

Thanks for the heads up!

[WWHSD]

4 hours ago, Bazlord_Prime said:

That's insane. I'm definitely going to be grabbing a few more pieces - especially some of the big, elaborate ones, like the Inventor's House.

Thanks for the heads up!

The various cross piece style ruins PDFs are great to get. They aren't as visually cool as some of the buildings but I think that they are more useful and interesting when it comes to playing the game.

The buildings make a relatively large obstacle to LoS and movement but they create space that you can play in. The ruins block LoS and movement while not having as large of a footprint.

One thing to keep in mind is to make sure that you've got some walls, bushes, ruins, etc. that are at least height 3 or otherwise Ht 3 models won't have anything to hide behind (or anything blocking their shots).

[Bazlord_Prime]

On 16/09/2017 at 1:55 AM, WWHSD said:

The various cross piece style ruins PDFs are great to get. They aren't as visually cool as some of the buildings but I think that they are more useful and interesting when it comes to playing the game.

The buildings make a relatively large obstacle to LoS and movement but they create space that you can play in. The ruins block LoS and movement while not having as large of a footprint.

So I bought about 10 pieces of the Dave Graffam paper terrain in that sale, add have so far put together two of them. Have also done two of the Fat Dragon buildings from their Ravenfell Ruins set.

The Fat Dragon ruins were easy as to put together, and look good. They have the option to be left semi-constructed, so as to be able to be stored flat, or to be fully glued, and I like the way they look. Easy to cut out & glue together, with incredibly clear instructions.

The Dave Graffam ones, on the other hand, have been a mixed bag. The Clock Tower model was fine - fairly straight forward, and it looks good.

But the Ruined Cottage has been a nightmare. And it's still not finished. It's been a real PITA to cut out - really fiddly, and there's about 6 pieces that need to be glued back-to-back with another piece and inevitably don't match perfectly, so I ended up having to go round the glued pieces on both sides, trimming away the white overspill.

A lot of the pieces don't have clear attachment points, and the instructions say to just look at the illustrations of the finished model to figure out where everything is meant to go. (And there are pieces included in the kit that don't feature on the illustrations, sooo...).

Anyway - hopefully it's just the interior detailing of the ruins that's made this one difficult to build. On the other hand, i mostly bought DG ruins so as to make a Quarantine Zone board, so I've got my work "cut out" for me 

[Bazlord_Prime]

P.S. after cutting out this one model (6 sheets), I would have to heartily recommend using an automated cutting machine, if the graphics file sports it and if you can find that service. Those 6 sheets took me about 4 hours to cut out and trim (due to inaccuracies), so I think it would absolutely be worth it.