Hello everyone! I have lurked around here for a few weeks now, and made my way through most of the posts since January or so. The idea and execution behind WW deeply intrigued me, having played Battlemasters and Heroquest as a kid, WW sets just seem like a natural evolution for greater immersement and atmosphere. My best friend was introduced to Warhammer 40k a few years back, which in turn exposed me to it as well. Over the next year, I acquired a necron army reaching around 2000 points, (depending on the configuration), and purchased a plethora of paints and modelling supplies. After my friend moved, he took the 40k book we were using, and I knew of no one else who played. Granted, there were a few game shops around town that almost always had a game going, but the elitist culture behind these scenes left me little in the way of game satisfaction and the social atmosphere that is inherent to tabletop games and RPGs.

My step-brothers and I played a great deal of Shadowrun, Vampire, (Masqurade and Dark Ages), Werewolf, M:tG, Heroquest, Risk, Axis and Allies, and a great deal of our own creations. The eldest of the two step-siblings married and moved, while my other step-brother is currently finishing his masters on the other side of the state. (Kansas, if anyone is curious).

What this probably boring drivel leads up to is my current situation, wherein I am engaged to a wonderful woman who has recenlty grown a deep interest in role-playing over the past two years, (both PnP and videogames). After showing her the WorldWorks sets, promo shots, and videos, she was as rabidly interested as me! The bond was formed and our fate was sealed. We are in the middle of moving in together, so money is tight, but after a great deal of threads and debating just what set to start with, I placed an order for Chunky Dungeons. The only minis I have are from Heroquest and my necron army, so I'll be acquiring RPG materials in a somewhat reverse order, but that's how things go financially for us as two poor college students. But love is greater than any amount of money!

Denny, you are an artistic geneous! WorldWorks produces the absolute best in cardstock/paper products, (and I have spent a great deal of time scouring the internet in search of anything coming even close, yet nothing does). From my first impressions to in-depth examinations of the site and my own purchase, I feel confident in saying that you are the DaVinci-equivalent in paper-folding production. (And hey, even DaVinci had a bit of a problem keeping up with release dates ). If only I had more money! As it stands, I will indeed acquire every set eventually, but food and rent must come first.

Today I went to both OfficeMax and OfficeDepot to buy supplies. My many hours of forum lurking paid off, as I knew a great deal about the products offered that various other forum members have researched. Thank you all for that! It helped immensely. I know many of you have had to experiment to find the right combinations of things, and there are still individual preferences, but your research greatly aided this newbie model builder. I only hope that one day I may help inspire or inform the community like so many of you all have!

Based on product tests and forum reports, here are the materials I purchased:

-Double pack of #99589 UHU Office Pens
-Helix Metal Safety Ruler (The recessed center is great!)
-Helix Cutting Mat (Self-healing, double sided, 8.5"x12")
-X-Acto Light Duty Snap-Off Blade Utility Knife (With a metal blade holder and 2 bonus blades).
-Wausau Exact Index Heavy Card Stock (Smooth Finish, 110lb, 250 count, 8.5"x11")

This was bought with the last of my saved spending money, so I wanted to buy the right materials the first time. (No felt-tip markers were bought, as I have a few sharpies lying around the apartment in addition to an art set with a wide range of colors available). Here are my questions:

1. What size cutting mat is optimal? I assumed that buying a mat the same size as the cardstock would be sufficient.

2. The cardstock says "Heavy Card Stock" and "Smooth Finish." Is this indeed the correct card stock? It isn't glossy in the least, so I'm guessing the smooth finish bit is just referring to the lack of texture. This was the only 110lb that wasn't colored at the store, so I hope it will work fine.

3. Since money is rather tight, I will not be able to buy enough foamboard to mount my pieces. This will apparently be a problem, but I have no real choice in the matter. The instructions said that I must mount the pieces at a certain step. Why would it not be possible to mount them after being assembled? I plan on printing off B&W versions of the bases as a template to cut the foamboard, so that will not be an issue. I suppose I could always photochop some template bases on cardstock and glue them to the bottom.

4. For those of you that have experimented with felt, are you still happy with the results? Our masterboard will most likely consist of a plywood sheet with felt stretched and stapled on both sides, (for two separate bases depending on the set we will be using). I was thinking that penny weighting and felt on the bottom of the pennies would be sufficient, as CD has no ClipIt capability or other mounting options. Does this sound like a viable alternative, assuming I will not be moving the feltboard around much?

5. The pictures demonstrating penny weighting show a hot glue gun being used to apply the coins. Is there any risk of damaging the cardstock? On the materials sheet, it states that hot glue can destroy a piece. Could someone clarify?

For those of you who have read this far, thanks! And to those that didn't, I understand. Denny, I hope you and the WW team will get the recognition and the consumer base your creations deserve. And to the rest of the forum, I hope I can be as much help to the rest of you as you all have been to me. Thanks for your time and (hopefully) your responses. Good luck constructing!

XainLich,

Welcome to the most wonderful place on the Web for both terrian and for gaming advice.

I run through your numbers with what I think is the correct answer IMO.

1) I'm using a 14"x10" cutting mat - more than enough room to play. I have this mat mounted on a Large white kitchen chopping board - the self healing type. Ths way I can sit on in front of the tv and cut, I can sit up in bed and cut etc.

2) So long as its around 110lbs your cardstock should be fine - I'm assuming that "Smooth Finish" might equal Matt Finish - looks like normal paper in its finish.

3) The really easy way around this is built all the walls and other objects - by the time you have done this (trust me this might take some time at first) you might have the cash to get a couple of formcore sheets. Their are important in the structure of the builds - adding a longer gaming life to it.

4) No idea on this one. Talk to Count Zero.

5) Hot glue on the base with a metal weight should not harm the project. Using the hot glue gun on the construction itself (not using the UHU pens) will have fun results, but not the desired ones.

Hope this helps you, and well done on choosing one of the finest products in the gaming world.

Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

Welcome xainlich,

Lord_Abbadon has already answered most of your questions, so I will just reply to those were I can add something or have a different view.

1) If you use a cutting mat of the same size as the paper you will have to turn the mat with the paper when you make different cuts. Because of this I prefer a larger cutting mat, so I just have to turn the paper.
With the larger mat I can also shift the area I cut on, to give the other areas time to do their "self-healing".

3) If you really want foamcore cheap look if there are any larger fairs/conventions in our area. Here in Frankfurt, Germany we have an international bookfair once a year. Most publishers mount their adds on foamcore, but don't go through the trouble of taking them with them after the fair. If I go through the halls late on the last day I can pick up tons of faomcore for free.
Also one of the local bookstores does a sale of their no longer used props once a year. These props usually contain a larger number of foamcore mounted ads. Because I pick up large amounts of ads (and no-one else seems to want them) I get them very very cheap or even for free.

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I have found paper modelling to serve as a calm and entertaining distraction, and it came at the perfect time. (Found out my father may need his colon removed due to worsening colitis).

Lord_Abbadon, you are indeed correct about the knife. My X-Acto hobby knife has a removable belt-clip/endcap that doubles as a means to break off a blade and keep the mount from slipping out of the knife. Diagrams on the package show the process of breaking a blade, and also installing a new strip of blades. I saw a refill kit like you described, but it was for single-bladed X-Actos. Do you happen to know of a place where I could buy one for my hobby knife? Or do they not make a version for the longer blade strips?

I'm in Kansas, Seal, so San Diego is quite a drive. While doing some research on Hero Quest, after deciding to purchase it awhile back, I read about Advanced Hero Quest as well. How does it compare to the first game, aside from being more advanced?

I will have to look for that feature in my cheapo knife. I did not know that. Single blade Xacto box cutter knifes are meant for cutting boxes or things don't that don't mind a dull blade. The snap off blades are the best and cheapest way to go in paper modelling.