I've been ROBO-izing Swampwoods Village a little bit every week for awhile, and I'm finally to the point that I'm going to start building (anything to avoid working on Winterhaven crenelations).

I love the ground tiles in this set. I loved them even more after I made them purple. Everyone knows swamps are purple.

I'll be doing a 26" x 38" battlemat, so I've got a ton of space to work with. Here are the four 13" x 19" sheets that I'll glue to foamboard..

Mounted the maps today. Note to readers, if you don't have one of these little rollers (the thing in between the boards), they are the bomb when flattening out battlemats.

This actually isn't as big as I was picturing, I may need to do another two mats to get the build size I'm after.

Glad people are enjoying it. I've decided I need to make a tree hut and place it on the map to get a real visual scale of how big a layout I actually need. I'm envisioning something with around a dozen tree elements (some support, some hut), and I think it will dwarf the board I have now.

Here's the trimmed battlemats. I'll probably add a couple of TerrainLinx to them next week

Ok, I've started on my test Hut. I'm doing a 3-inch hut with a walkway and a roof. I'll install the ring support inside the hut as well for future expandability.

Once I got all the GSD files made and everything set up, it took right at 45 minutes to go from pic one to pic two -- most of which I spent web surfing and drinking coffee. The slowest pages were the ones with tons of the little triangles on them. They take up to 3.5 minutes. I got through the whole set with two cardstock carriers, and could probably get another 4-6 pages out of them.

Look at all those damn little triangles I didn't have to cut.




Here's the cutlist (the **ROBOed** is how I keep track of what's been prepped):
********************************
One Level Hut:

=== Create a Base ===

Supports.PDF
p10 x1 (Tree Base Template) ** ROBOed **
p12 x1 (1-inch grid round base, or use grass textured one from treetrunks.pdf) ** ROBOed **

Tree Trunks.PDF
p1 x1 (3" trunk with supports) ** ROBOed **

=== Create a Ringed Hut ===

Huts.PDF
p1 x2 (large ring templates) ** ROBOed **
p3 x1 (wall 1) ** ROBOed **
p4 x1 (wall 2) ** ROBOed **
p6 x1 (1-inch grid floor and anchor brace) ** ROBOed **
p8 x1 (roof) ** ROBOed **
p9 x1 (decorative branches as needed) ** none **

Walkways.PDF
p3 x4 (1-inch grid walkway and rails) ** ROBOed **

This morning was "edge and glue". All of the flatfolds are sandwiched under coffee table books. The rest is drying on the table. I'll finish it off this evening I hope.

By the way, when you cut out your tree base template, be as perfect as you can, and save the piece surrounding it. It will prove invaluable later...

And the roof is another great place to use rare earth magnets as clamps.

Thanks

So this is why we were so careful when we cut out the tree base. When you're trying to glue an edging onto a curved surface, the proper way to clamp it is with a matching curve. Were this wood, I'd use a vacuum press and make two glue passes. Since it's paper, we use foamcore.

The foamcore piece that we cut out has been split in two on a diagonal. A bobby pin pushed into the corner acts as a spring hinge, pulling the two pieces together.

Apply glue to the edge and put the edging on. Position in the clamp, and let it close. Pull the open diagonal together just a tiny bit, ensuring even pressure all the way around. Clamp it.