This zone is for people who have bought and built ArenaWorks, and will be a standard feature on all upcoming WorldWorks releases. I am interested to hear your comments as this is my first set. Ever.

*What did you like most about the set? Least?
*Was it easy to build, were the instructions clear?
*Did it build accurately?
*How did you use it in your campaign? Did your players like it?
*Favourite piece? Least favourite?
*Did you use the "Fixings" sheet to customise your arena? Would you like to see more of this feature? Less?
*Which set of stairs did you use and why?
*Were there enough items? Too many? What would you add?
*How do the Masterboard tiles look? They are "messier" than previous WWG releases...good or bad?

As always we would love to see pictures of your sets! Post them or email us.

My only complaint is that I won't be able to get it til after I finish Christmas shopping... And one of my players has already bought it and is rubbing it in! He is working on a Bloodbowl arena and wants to come up with rules for fans fighting in the bleachers...

Unfortunately I really don't like Bloodbowl, and can't help but feel that he is wasting perfectly good terrain. On the other hand the terrain itself looks awesome! (Another friend wants to use it for a Final Fantasy Tactics roleplaying game using the d20 rules... To each his own I guess...) For me the terrain will be used with Mordheim as a fighting arena.

Favorite Pieces: The Bridge. The stands are really nifty, as are the stairs and ramps, all items I will use a great deal.

Least Favorite.... Oh, I would guess the cart, the flat poles just look wrong, but a few pieces of wood, or a folded tube of wood patterned paper, will fix this right up.

Loved the fixings, the banners are nifty, though I will likely make my own as well.

When I (finally) purchase my own set I will go over it in more detail, but it looks very nice to me so far.

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Ain't bought it yet, but am helping put the Bloodbowl Stadium together for practice and to get a feel for the set... I just won't be playing Bloodbowl with it.

Thanks Grump!

OK, you asked for feedback...so here it comes.  Alas, I have this problem with brutal honesty, so I hope you're ready for some (hopefully constructive) criticism.


I continue to be pleased by the ever-improving "Bringing it all together" pdf.  This one was extremely thorough and really showcases how a full Arenaworks set looks in-use.  


The Grand Gate, with it's "holes in the walkway" construction, is a bit unwieldy and disappointing.  An additional page, with just a full stone walkway I could drop in over the cut-into one and paste over it, would solve this problem admirably.


In *many* areas, there are cutouts...cutouts that are marked in black!  This is a no-no that Denny corrected right after original Castleworks.  You're wasting our black ink cartridges to print out the black cutout areas.  White, ideally...or a very pale grey or dirty yellow (which is the least-used of the three color cartridges, for those of us with tri-color cartridges instead of separate ones).  


Banners are an excellent touch...I would have loved to have seen 2-3 pages of them for more variety.  As well, there should have been small banners that "match" the large banners, thematically.  


Bridge is VERY cool, but as mentioned beforehand, I would have loved to have seen a stone version as well.  One possible tip...if you cut out "oversized" tabs on the sides, you can create a double, even a triple layer of reinforcement along the bottom that will make the bridge ridiculously sturdy.


Cages are very cool...but I would have also liked to see something actually barred, not just a crate with air-holes.  It's a dang tough bit to do, but carefully folded, one could place two rows of bars back to back and oh-so-carefully cut out the white spaces between to produce a set of iron bars.  This would be VERY cool (hopefully for Castleworks Ultimate for the "dungeons").


Minor detail, but the red chariot horses should have red tack, not the same blue tack the blue chariot horses have.  The inclusion of horses in general, though...exceedingly cool!  Also, Denny has, in the past, mentioned an optional tip for cutting away the black areas around the wheels (see the VillageWorks cart)...if it would not be harmful, structurally, to the model then you might want to include a similar tip.


Always cool to have more fences (but see the above note on black cutouts).


The ever-so-simple "Fixings" sheet is excellent.  sometimes, a building has a door where I want a wall, or a wall where I want a door.  This makes it ever-so-simple to change 'em round to fit my needs.


The flags are a very cool touch (with black cutouts though).  I'd like to have seen designs on them, ideally ones that match up with the banners.  Flags is something you could easily have devoted pages to, just in color variations if nothing else.


Kiosk/Guardhouse/Outhouse...wonderful flexibility.


The pits are gorgeous, and very dungeon-worthy!


I'm quite glad you included the variety of stairs that you did, and that you included step-type stairs as well as the ramp-type.  However, I'm sorry to see that the step-type stairs, although included, received a much shorter treatment and don't have nearly the variety the ramp-type stairs have.  Some of your ramp-type stairs are gorgeous (arches, in particular, caught my eye) and I wish I had step-type stairs of that image.


Ok, that's about it for a first trip through the files.  I might have more to say when I've built a few, but that's probalbly more than enough.

Thanks for chiming in Andorax. All great crits and really helpful to both me and Paul. I especially like your thoughts on how we might tackle future "barred" sections. The one thing I'll say is that the black holes in the window sections work as an "optional" cutout, therefore they needed to be majority black. A black felt over the scissors and you’re done. Some people don’t have the patience that we have to cut away window sections. Overall though I agree that we have to be careful about not overusing black in general.

Thanks again.

Excellent comments and very, very helpful.

"Putting it" PDF: This was one of the last things I made, I was almost reduced to gibbering from overwork at that point but I'm glad it turned out.

Grand Gate: You are correct about the walkway over the gate, I am planning to use more cut-outs so this will be a handy technique.

The black issue was answered suberbly by Denny.

Banners: Arrgh, I had a bunch more banners planned, another page at least, but time was against me. Damn.

Stone Bridge: Another casualty of Chronos.

Cages, I really wanted to make a caged cart and a barred cage with interior...see above reason why not.

Chariot Tack: Oohh..you are right about the colours. I had to educate myself in a hurry about horse tack, and I had hoped to do better. Medieval architecture: got it down. Horsies: Huh!? BTW, dont cut out the black area in front of the wheels, just makes it flop over. Frel!

Flags: I wanted more...so much more!  but had to settle for these.

Kiosk: Thanks! That one kind of grew on me...

Pits: Thanks! You will be seeing more of this kind of thing in the future.

Stairs: I would have loved to do more variants of the step-stair,  if I had done all I wanted too I would have ditched the ramp-style entirely. In the future I will probably do only step-style, they are versatile, fun and easy to build.

Once again, thank you.

For Cages I will most likely be using the old 'Balsa Wood and Round Toothpicks Trick' Flat bars just bother me for some reason, and toothpick cages are fast and easy.

On the arches and outer walls I may end up gluing them to foamcore board for added thickness and strength - the problem will be in creating the angled pieces, but I think that a mat cutter with an angled blade ought to handle it.

Putting together the Stadium is helping me get a feel for the set, oddly the stadium is all that my friend John intends to create with it, bit of a waste that....

A suggestion for a future expansion - a track for chariot racing, I am thinking about creating a board for Cheapass Games Ben Hurt...

And a box for the emperor (or other highly placed character) would be good too.

The downside of working on someone else's set is that I am only seeing the sheets he has chosen to print out, and as he is being methodical he just prints out the sheets that he will be using at that time... frustrating!

The Auld Grump, throw him to the kittens!

The Royal Box is part of the set...should have showed it off more in the pictures I shot.

Now for my own crit:

This set took me about 4 months but I learned many valuable painful lessons. I got schooled!  I will not think of the number of hours it took, lest I cross the bridge into stark madness.

Once I got a bunch of it built I started to foll around with different arrangements and configurations. From this the last pieces were added; the 3D wall and the "Low" back option for the stands. From the forums I got the ideas  for the step style stairs, and the second story stairs. These bits all fit together and add quite a bit of versatility.

I am pleased that the pieces can take quite a beating, they are durable.

Oh, the altars... I thought they looked pretty good until Denny released the teaser for Gothic Realms! I have to make another altar..let the arms race begin!

The horses! Aieeeee!!! The Hooorses!!!!

The most problematic piece was the 45 degree corner. I built at least 60 versions of this.

Well, for a first crack at the art, you did extremely well.  Everything has been very easy to build, and the final product is an excellent representation of what it's supposed to be.  I really enjoyed this model for it's accuracy and ease of building.  I've built a ton of models in everything you can think of.  Foamcore, cardboard, balsa, basswood, plaster.  Though I still intend to build a halfway decent representation of a nice roman arena in plaster blocks, I really, really enjoyed this model.  Andorax really hit on the subjects that I would critique on, so anything I would say would be largely redundant.

Regardless of anything I might comment on, I know you have limits to what you can do, and those have been listed.  All in all, it was very much worth the money I paid for it.  I very much look forward to what you can add to the already wonderful variety that is offered here.

And as a side note, I'm absolutely giddy with anticipation of Castleworks Ultimate.  I had no luck printing the original without reducing it for my dumb printer and it's wonder margins, and I can hardly wait for a second crack at it.  If it's even a quarter as good as the first one, you've all earned a customer for life.  Of course, I already am, but hey...  A little encouragement never hurt, right?  Lol....

We finished the Blood Bowl stadium - now calle The Bloodwieser Stadium. I reallly feel that he missed out on the potential for this set - essentially making little more than the seating and walls for the two short sides and one of the long faces - so you can reach in easily - and calling it done. A Press box may be added, but isn't there currently. He is waiting to see what GW does with Blood Bowl for 2004.

Even in it's (in my eyes) untapped state it is drawing attention, when he starts his league up there should be no shortage of teams. A few have expressed interest in the sets - we have directed them to RPGNow.com, so you may get a few sales in this area. (One kid was rather put out that we didn't just hand him a CD with the files for free... people... I told the kid that I was purchasing my own copy and that he should do the same...)

I am making my purchase next week, and am planning out a fighting pit for Mordheim, just wish that I had gotten to see more of it.

The Auld Grump, who watched them playing Blood Bowl and just doesn't get the game - then again I don't much like football either.