Building Frostgrave Archipelago for Historicon, Part 3

I've been so busy building that I have not had time to post. But I have things drying so I have some time.

Sorry I don't have time for commentary, but I still have much to do.

Flocked and drying while I get some sleep.... ZZZzzzzzzz.....

Building Frostgrave Archipelago for Historicon, Part 2

With the 4th of July holiday yesterday, it's a very slow day today.  I got some time to post some more pics. Here is work on the Lizardman Temple, Vaal. It is mostly done, just some fine details on it and then I can paint. The overall build is still very rough at this point. I need to get a little further along before it will start to come together.

 Planning out Vaal

 I built the head piece months ago for a different piece of terrain, but I shelved that project.

 I had to keep the head removable, to access the LED controls.

 Carving out the walls.

 Adding a rear entrance.

 Portcullis from Mantic Games

 View from the inside

 Getting some paint on the undersides of the islands, thanks to my daughter.

 Test fit with the jungle huts

Adding some elevation terrain

 Getting a sense of the overall look.

Interior work

 Carving steps up to the hut

 Carving steps up to the hut

 Carving steps up to the hut

 Front view all the way thru out the back.

 I love the LED's. Very easy to use.

More to come, Xin

Building Frostgrave Archipelago for Historicon, Part 1

I've been working on this table for a while, but as with most of my projects, life gets in the way and I get help up.

So this is a table for Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago. I'm running the game at Historicon in about 2 weeks. My original plans was just to build a 6x12 board covered in ruins, jungle and a volcano. My build and vacation was interrupted by a work emergency. So I had to scrap that table, and just ran FGA on my winter Frostgrave table. No one cared we weren't in the Jungle and they all had fun.

Anyway, I decided to scrap that design and make Islands. I have blue patterned cloth that will be on the table and islands will sit on top of that. They are made out of house insulation.

Here are some in progress pics.

 I have 2 large pieces of foam that will be cut to make the 2 main islands. With smaller islands between them.

 I use glass beads to layout the shape of the island. Easy to change if I don't like it.

 Once I get the shape I'm happy with, I use a sharpie to draw an on outline on the foam.

 For the real big pieces I used a jigsaw to cut out the islands

For the small pieces I use a scroll saw. Easier to use than a jigsaw, but it is limited by the size of the piece.

 $75 at a garage sale, 20 years ago, and the scroll saw is still going.

 Next I use a utility knife with a slide out blade, to cut a slope into the edge of the board. This will be the shore line.

 Rough cut shoreline.

 I then use a random orbital sander to grind the slope smooth. You have to use lots of ventilation as the foam is incredibly bad to breath in. I use lots of safeguards when sanding the foam.

The main base of the islands are done, Now I need to start building up. Elevation changes, foliage, ruins, etc, etc. That's it for now. More to come.


Jeff/ Xin

5-Minute Dungeon, a fun hectic card game.

Back in 2016 I backed a Kickstarter campaign, 5-Minute Dungeon. The KS actually delivered ahead of schedule which is very rare these days. I meant to blog about this last year, but kept getting distracted.

This is a fun game.  It is a cooperative game, and all players work towards defeating the dungeon. Each player is a hero, and has his own unique deck of cards. The "Dungeon" is a deck of cards that you defeat one "door" at a time. You flip over a card(open a door) and you need to defeat that card using your players Hero Deck, before you can move to the next door. Once you defeat the last door, you fight the boss which is a lot harder. You only have 5 minutes to do it, using a custom timer app on your phone. That's it, very simple, but crazy hectic fun.

Here is a How to play video:

If you didn't get in the Kickstarter, it is available with a retail edition. There's only a couple of KS exclusives missing. But for a limited time you can get the Original Kickstarter edition.

They just launched an expansion Kickstarter for 5MD. It is a short 14 day campaign. You can just get the expansion, or get the whole thing. The original KS edition and the expansion.

Get in on the KS here: 5-Minute Dungeon, Curses Foiled Again, Expansion.

Adding 2 new Heroes, new action cards, artifacts, and 2 new types of cards, Curses and Boss Cards

I will be jumping on this Kickstarter.

Xin