Hey gang,

As many of you know we've been working for the last several months to simplify TLX builds and bring you tangible TerrainLinx mounts. These are high quality, pre-cut, heavy duty signage board mounts, that you simply snap out of the frame and cover with your builds. The potential time savings not to mention alleviating hand cramping cuts is pretty enormous.

While we are still tweaking packaging (how many of each element are in the starter set), the majority of technical issues have been overcome on the manufacturing end.

Please answer the above poll question to give us a sense of demand for this type of product. Thanks in advance!

I was torn between options two and three. I love TLX and see myself investing heavily in the products (both in purchasing and time to build). At the same time, I don't find it a deal breaker to cut out my own templates and actually currently have quite a bit pre-cut for whatever my set may turn out to be.

At the same time, I would most likely pick up a starter pack to see how I like the quality and time saving ability (maybe even do a quick review).

I think this is an awesome product and wish you the best in regards to sales. If I can do anything to help let me know (that includes pestering my FLGS to carry said product if that is an option).

If they're 1/4" thick and the price is right, I'd definitely want some of that.

-Mel

I didn't even think about that before my previous post. I have been using 3/16" foamcore for all of my builds with no real problems, but think that 1/4" material would make the build process just that much easier. Between this and using a RoboCutter, one would almost never need to cut anything. That would be amazing.

Yep! That's my thing. 3/16 works...but not as cleanly as I would like.

I bodged together a 1/4" cardstock mount as a test, and I was VERY happy with how cleanly the tiles built up with proper 1/4" thickness mounts. So I went hunting for 1/4" foamcore, and it was a real downer to find out that a 32x40 sheet of 1/4" MightyCore costs $19.99 plus shipping from Dick Blick.

The 3/16" stuff can be had in 20x30 sheets from Malwart for like 3 bucks each, but the saggy bowing depression on the underside of the tiles really offends my sense of order.

So, if those precut mounts are indeed 1/4" thick and at least competitive with or a little cheaper than the cost of an equivalent amount of overpriced 1/4" foamcore, I'd be over the moon.

-Mel

Yay! I'd like to see a video or two to see what they look like from first getting them then being turned into actual game boards but it's definitely on my list if the price is right.

Heh - another who falls around 2.5 on the polls.

I probably will buy a starter set, but further purchases would depend on quality/quantity that is impossible to determine without product in hand.

It is also likely that I might buy a second starter as a gift for others - I really want some of my players to start helping with the terrain....

The Auld Grump

I voted "Depends on quantity vs pricepoint," but unless a set is $40 or such for a very small number of sheets, I'd buy at least one set.

If they're cheap enough, I'll buy lots.

It depends on the price point, I would not buy tabs for any reason though, they are too easy to cut.

However, I would certainly like to buy these.

The biggest issue with TLX for me is the assembly time. I really want to build up a huge selection of pieces that I can have ready to build environments at a moment's notice, but I just never have the time to get anything put together. Unless these are ridiculously expensive, I'm sure I'd buy a fair number of them.

Thanks for the feedback thus far gang!

The above shots are from the first active run of templates but they don't represent the final format. We had to ensure that things would cut cleanly and that we could reliably automate the process. Good news on all counts!

Todd Ripper (the CNC machine guru) has done a ton of prototyping and tweaking to the system to make it work properly. Todd did a brilliant thing with the break-tabs which hold the mounts to the frame. They are machined so that the tabs are extremely thin. You can literally snap them off the frame by hand if you want (though by blade is a little cleaner). And the linX tabs fit like a glove! Its a thing of beauty

We are working towards a single frame that blends a certain number of all elements in a consolidated format. That reduces shipping costs and the end pricetag. It may not be the bargain basement sweets spot some of you might be looking for (CNC machine time is pretty brutal) but it's still down around the hand saving, wrist cramping, time saving sweetspot. The more we sell, the cheaper we can get these things and we can produce them on-demand. We'll move to massive runs of diecuts if and when we can get this first phase off the ground.

Oh and we'll definitely do a video showing the process!

Alright, I'm changing my above vote!

I picked 3, just because, hey if the price is 100 bucks a sheet, or something, there's just no way. You know what I mean. However, I have to change my vote to 1..

I love TLX, I love the concept, and I started working on it when it came out, but I'm a very, very busy person, and never can find the time to work on the construction. Perhaps I'm slow, but when I spend hours printing, cutting, mounting, etc..and find I've made one tile's worth of sewers, I'm willing to look for any shortcuts

With this announcement, I'm willing to say, I'm done with Foam, and I'm very excited about this. I'm willing to pay more to free up my time.

Anychance this will be ready by GenCon? I'd love to buy up a luggage bag full while I'm there.

what is the width of the stuff?
I'd hate to redo evertyhing i have done so far.

Width, or thickness?

Looking at the large tiles it is easy to figure width - six inches by six inches for the large one. (Compare to the thumb in the first picture, it will work as, well, a good rule of thumb. )

The Auld Grump

Yes, please! Any chance of seeing a pre-sale to get costs on the first run down?

Whatever thickness they are (I'm guessing they'll be 1/4") I'll certainly buy a set to see what they're like and if they're what I want to replace my foamcore consumption with.

I'm already thinking of ways to get my 'bashed to 1/4" thickness tiles to play nice with legitimately 1/4" tiles..

*carves out some of her GenCon budget for this*

I do have to be considerate of the people I'm carpooling with on my purchase though. :3

Yeah sorry, neglected to mention that 3/16" thick is the primary format for the initial run BUT 1/4" is doable. We hope to offer both in time or to meet demand as required. I should also mention that this material is substantially stronger than foamcore, with a finish that prevents warping. Still just as light though.

Will it be ready for GenCon? I'll try to have samples for GenCon if you want to stop by for a look. We're just working on some preorder details and hopefully we can get this running in August or by no later than September.

Seeing that I don't mind cutting at all, and that I'd have to consider shipping & customs, I'd rather stick to my local foamcore supplier.

Unless, of course, you manage to make this both a physical product and a downloadable one at the same time...

And having a tangible product should really help with piracy. Though the truly desperate might be able to improvise something with foamcore....

The Auld Grump

Cutting foamcore is no fun at all... I'd definitely buy a starter and would likely buy more once I tried it out and found that things went the way I expect they will.

I have voted for option number 3 but I am prepared to consider a price that may be a bit dearer than foamcore,if it saves time and pain

Given that its going to be 3/16, and that Denny has said the price will be substantially higher than foamcore equivalent...i see no advantage for me to invest in this...it would be different if it was 1/4 or if it was at a reasonable parity expense wise to foamcore...As stated so far...I dont think i shall be buying

As someone on the other side of the pond, are we looking at this being a US only product (at least initially) or is it "shippable" or even better, could it be made over here too?

Trust me, as someone with no time anyway, ANYTHING that speeds stuff up is great for me!

While I think this is a great idea, and will definitely speed up the build times on many a project, I want to see what the final price is on these before I buy. If it's comparable to foamcore (so, about 50 cents per tile for a 6x6 mount), then I'll definitely be ordering. If it's slightly higher than that (probably up to 75 cents per piece), I'll probably get the base set to see what the quality is before jumping in whole-hog. Anything more expensive, and I'd probably pass, as the cutting process on the foam itself doesn't consume that much time (especially compared to cutting out the tiles themselves... I definitely need a CraftRobo cutter...)
Magius out.

If it's shippable to Europe i say YAY !!! No more thoughts on my crappy cutting skills.

Like the others said - if it's not 100$$ or €€ a sheet i'm likely to buy some.

Aramil

I voted for "1. I'd buy whatever you had in stock!!! I'm freakin CRAZY about TLX!!!" This would save me a ton of time!

Ditto that!

Another concern is shipping expense and time from Canada. I'd like a shipping cost cap and some discount scheme based on quanity as well.

Currently I pay around $3 for a sheet of 20x30 foamcore, which produces 15 6x6 tiles. Hence each 6X6 sheet costs approximately $0.20. That said my first TLX build was terrible, it's vaguely unusable. Of course I was using my printer which I know is offset, and it was my first build, and from what I understand Thoumonts wasn't the easiest set to begin with. I can also say that due to poor cuts I've ruined a few tiles (including the nearly 45 minutes to assemble the tile and the roughly $0.40 cents per page I pay for printing costs.

Depending on the quality I'd be willing to pay between $0.50 to $1.00 per 6x6 sheet depending on quality and shipping cost. If the quality is substantially better I might go $1.50, but that would virtually have to include shipping costs, and I probably couldn't afford that for most of my builds. $2.00 is an order of magnitude larger, and that just seems pretty excessive.

I'd be willing to invest around $20-$25 for a starter set and I'd see how it goes from there. maybe $30.

Even if these are much more expensive than foamcore, any tile construction I do will be on these once they're rolled out. Life's pretty busy right now, and I'd much rather spend my little tabletop time playing the game than cutting tiles. I won't be able to buy many, probably (money's about as tight as time), but all of my future builds will likely be on this stuff, even if it means I can only buy a handful each month.

An official starter will very likely be a single frame containing the following mix (this is being test cut now):

* 4 - 6"X6"
* 2 - 3"X6"
* 4 - 3"X3"
* 14 - LinX tabs

That puts things into a consolidated format that we can flat pack to save on shipping. It also gives better yields with our materials. We have to calculate CNC machine time, materials & a very slim profit margin. Only die-hard builders and or time crunched hobbyists will likely support these initial offerings due to price but we hope to bring it down over time (if we can get volumes high enough). We first experimented with laser cutting but found the price to be about twice as much as CNC. Die-cutting would be less expensive for customers but its a substantially higher investment on our end and would require much higher pre-order volumes than we can currently support.

The material is a very dense core of foam, surfaced with melamine. That means, no sag, warp resistant and high strength while maintaining its light weight.

Pricing soon