Plastic HQ Dungeon Tiles at 30mm (Research)

[Thantos]

So we all love our cardboard HQ boards, they fold out easily, store easily and they are what we are used to playing on a toast to the humble cardboard board!

But there are a few things that could be improved with the standard cardboard HQ board:

Space. There is not enough space on these small squares! Since the 1980s, models have increased in size hugely. Some new range minis are coming out at 35mm to the top of their head. Hq was made in an era where models were 26-28mm to top of head. Even monsters from the expansion sets struggle to fit (damn you frozen horror!) A lot of Inn-ers have made cool larger format boards, which is the way to go for sure! It's time that the boards and tiles caught up with this scale creep.

Flat. It is flat, its glossy cardboard, it's slippery for when you nudge the table. Nice 3d textured tiles are always going to look better and offer more options (like walls, traps *secret stuff* etc)

The question is, if you would be interested in the prospect of 3d interlocking 30mm tiles which can be strongly glued with poly cement, so you can make room and corridor sections of your own design. (or a whole board) What sort of price would you consider fair for a 30mm tile?

I have a price point set with a manufacturer (not casting these ourselves, no no no, too many for resin!) but it would be good to know if people will consider them fair value and if it's worth going forward with these and sorting more designs, walls, spacers etc. Or if nobody in their right mind would pay for them

[cynthialee]

My only issue with this good idea is table space.
With the HQ board, or D&D's Dungeon Tiles, the rules, the mini's, the dice, the character sheets, soda pop, chips, and other sorted and sundry items at the game table...Space is at a premium.
Even if I pull out the folding table (and I always do) to set up the EWP/DM stuff there is still a scarcity of proper game space.

A return to 15mm-25mm in the mini industry would fix some of the troubles, but trends are already set. Larger miniatures are all en vogue.

I really like the idea of interlocking 3D tiles. I just wish I had a proper game space, larger than my living-room, to take advantage of such a thing.

Now price is a big deal for many gamers. I remember being a broke teenager, longingly fondling the latest game supplement and not being able to afford the item. Then I became an adult and for years there were no games or they were sporadically interspersed over the years. Only when I hit my 30's (late 40's now) did life start affording me time to play on a regular basis. It is only now that I am able to afford the extras I want and in my age group there are not a lot of gamers signing up to adventure. Most have serious adult responsibilities and obligations that keep them from playing. When I do play with people in my own age group, the focus is more on story and character, with a sprinkling of combat scenes. We already have more game stuff than we will ever use by the time we do game, and the stuff might be too packed away 'somewhere' to go find it. We whip out the Chessex battle mat, wet erase markers, some miniatures and just rock on.


Do not price yourself out of a market. If I could have had tiles like this back when I was a poor kid and they were affordable, I would leap on it.
As an adult, life gets in the way...who has time to game?
Youth gamers can not afford much game stuff.
Adult gamers in general may have the money, but not the time to game. So if it is too expensive they will pass.
Mature adults may have the cash to afford them, but with a closet full of game stuff already on hand you need to wow us and make it hard to refuse.
Now I am not in the senior gamer category, and have not met enough of them (yet) to make an educated guess to the market.
And are there even any geriatric gamers?

[knightkrawler]

Of course, one would play modular given the possibilities...
That means, you'd need less than 26x19 squares, say 250 pieces. That's not so expensive, after all.
And space is less of an issue. Modularization is the whole point of this.

[cornixt]

Would these tiles all be identical? Not interested at all if they are. Would it be cheaper to produce them as larger groups of tiles, say 2x2?

[Sparkymark]

I do like idea of the size of a 30mm tile. With hirst arts tiles its either 25mm or 37mm. One is a tad small and the other is quite large, so the 30mm is a happy medium and your dungeon terrain should still 'fit'.
250 tiles at 20p each is £50 pounds for a modular dungeon. Seems a fair price.
Also give some thought to the 'special' rooms and passages in the Heroquest expansions, they might require some unique tiles.

[whitebeard]

Great idea Thanos.

I figure i would max out at $100 when considering a tiled HQ board. So my vote was option $0.23

I'm conflicted as to wether or not I would actually do it though. I would definetely buy a 30mm laser etched replica of the original. But to have only tiles omits the walls. Having trouble seeing how to do walls with my Twisting Catacombs doors, etc.

[cynthialee]

Modular works great, until the party gets split up, then you have a much larger section of the map to keep on the table.

The tiles are a good idea. My only issue is space requirements. My table gets cluttered and full fast.

[Anderas]

Without thinking, i clicked 15 pence.

however, for real modularity i would give between 50 € and 70 €; just to have a supply of parts to klick together my own tiles, glue them, paint them. I will have another Board soon with 30mm squares, so your squares are perfectly fitting in size.

Very helpful would be parts of 1x2, 2x2, 2x3, 2x4, 3x4, 4x4 so that the average hobby guy like me has less work to do when removing the plastic entry points and mold lines and such. The single 1x1 parts, i would use them only to add a line or a niche to the others. (turning a 2x3 into a 3x3 for example)

I would do two things with them:
* Making overlays for an entire quarter of the board
* Adding rooms in irregular forms as overlay or add-on for the existing board

I would not at all build a 3d Board with it, even if it was easy - I don't have enough place on the shelf for 3d boards and not enough time for painting/modeling.

[Thantos]

Thanks all for the feedback so far! Looks as if we are starting to converge on a price point and some valuable insights.

Cynthialee: Good points about target market. I think some adult gamers get time to game, and it will vary between people. Looking at a sample of backers on the scenery, its overwhelmingly adult gamers. Seems to be different breeds of gamers, some like yourself, go for a sensible low fuss option, where on the other end of the spectrum some devote a 6 foot table in their spare to to a 3d gaming table and a shrine to Zargon in the corner.

KK: Yea modular rooms is the way id play this too. In a sort of AHQ layout

Cornixt: So far there would be 6 styles of tile, and you would be able to rotate each tile in any direction, so should offer some good variety.

SparkyMark: Yea sure will! With special rooms, although the main core tiles will be plastic, we can do some unique tiles in resin which you may only need a few of.

Whitebeard: Yea walls are still WIP a few options with them but really only including them on the edge of a tile would make sense when doing a hq board.

Anderas: I think unless they prove popular, we wont be able to stretch to 1x2 2x2 etc sections. Its a great idea. The cleanup per tile should only be a few seconds as mouldlines would be on the underside and just a quick snip and a scalpel swipe should do it. So hopefully not take too long

[slev]

My HQ set is built with 40mm squares.
And we just spent a long time rebuilding Advanced HeroQuest with 25mm squares.

I guess this could be useful for my Warhammer Quest rebuild, and/or my own personal dungeon-bash I've been working on (which I already intend to combine the Zealot sceanery into).