So I've started looking for other sources of dungeon tiles to help in my quest-making, since I currently don't have the space to accumulate 3D terrain a la WHFB. I have the board from HeroQuest and most of the stuff from Advanced Hero Quest, but of course the squares on those are a bit too small. I also have the boards from Dragon Strike, but they suffer from the same problem. Of course, it's both a bonus and a hinderance that WHQ tiles came with such large squares.
Obviously the gargantuan WHQ stairway tile still dwarfs the other ones but as you can tell from the picture, a model on a GW base (and one of the larger ones, at that) can still comfortably navigate those floorplans without the goofy overcrowding you'd get from trying to use the HeroQuest board.
Today I got my hands on a set of Dungeons and Dragons tiles from Wizards of the Coast and was pretty happy with them. They are adequately spaced on a 1" grid, double-sided, and set on pretty thick card stock so they do a decent job of matching up with the original WHQ sets. This is also gonna let me do some pretty cool ice caves of Norsca, deserts of Araby, and stuff like that. The only downside to these is that they are marked with these super ugly white triangles on squares designated as "rough terrain", which really screws up some of the visuals.
There are similar tiles made by Paizo under the name Gamemastery, but they are so damn thin that you'd have to mount them on thicker card to be really happy with it, I think.
Anyway, these tiles look like they'll work out well for caverns and dungeon rooms and stuff, but I'm still sort of hesitant to use them in outdoor settings when I'd much rather just do it on a flocked gaming table. I'm also wary of the sets which have indoor shops like settlement locations, since they always end up way too cramped to be accurately represented on a small tile. I usually prefer to use a couple of the original 4x4 dungeon rooms dressed up with some HeroQuest furniture, if anything.
My next project is to investigate some of the larger "battle mats" that these companies make, which might allow me to create visually-attractive outdoor scenarios without really needing a gaming table. WOTC makes them as roll-up vinyl mats, which look pretty nice, but I'm concerned that they won't lay flat half the time.
And the Gamemastery range has a similar product, but theirs is like a series of laminated cards held together, so that it folds up like a traditional game board.
While the weight of the individual cards seem to make it so that the mat will lay flatter, I'm still not sure about whether or not the creases will make the board wonky for you.
If anyone has first-hand experience with these products, I'd love to hear about it!
Been doing more research: Yes, the Gamemastery Flip Mats by Paizo will display their creases on a table, but supposedly the card and laminate is heavy enough to lay them pretty flat. They are also double-sided so you get two maps with each pack, and only cost about $13.
As far as the D&D Game Mats by Gale Force 9, there are precious few reviews out there but a couple I found seem to suggest that they are actually a heavy enough material to lay flat, especially if you remember to roll them up with the image facing out, so that the weight of the mat helps hold it down once on the table. Those are almost twice as expensive as the Paizo flip mats though, are only single-sided, don't fold to as compact a size, and can only be written on with wet erase markers (which actually is not much of an issue for WHQ since it's not like we ever drew on our board sections in the first place). Nevertheless, some of their designs are really tempting.
Both mats are 24x30 inches.
I realize this thread is pretty much a monologue so please tell me to shut up if you guys are sick of it, but I think that sourcing new "floorplans" is a pretty big part of keeping WHQ alive, and I can't wait to come up with new quests using these things.
I don't have anything near the space (or money) necessary to make good use of them, though.
One more thing: I am REALLY happy with the Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Tiles produced by Wizards of the Coast. They are the exact same thickness as the original WHQ board sections (and the ones from Advanced HQ) so the WHQ doors clip onto them perfectly. And actually, because of a slight difference in the material they're made of, the doors hold on to them more tightly than they do most of my original board sections. Because there isn't a black border around them, any models standing in the first two squares of the room will have their bases partially on top of the door piece, but that's not such a big deal.
To me this is definitely the new standard for getting new dungeon rooms in WHQ. As I said I'm not sure about their usefulness in creating outdoor scenarios (I'd rather have one of the large mats) but as dungeon rooms they are easily the best thing I've found.
Each Dungeon Tiles set looks like it comes with at least one or two large (8x8) rooms, which of course are double-sided, making it well worth the price. The variety of new scenarios and tactical challenges that will be available to my players is about to skyrocket.
I'm going to have to start getting extra doors off eBay for all the huge dungeons I see in the future!
Really appreciate the information you've presented, including pictures, and comparisons to the WHQ tiles.
Can you post a pic with the D&D tiles attached to the WHQ tiles with a doorway?
No problem! I'm glad you're finding this useful. I know that back when I ran my WHQ site in the late 90's, finding good floorplans was one of the biggest headaches.
The only D&D Dungeon Tiles set I have so far is the "Caverns of Icewind Dale", so that's where both of those are from. They would be absolutely perfect for quests set in Norsca or Kislev.
I also went ahead and included a room from Advanced Hero Quest just in case people weren't too familiar with those. They work great as Lustrian temples or perhaps the halls of Araby, but the size is definitely off. As you can see, a miniature on a small base still fits OK, but the discrepancy is enough to pretty much nullify whatever advantage you would have gotten from having some of the "larger" (in terms of squares) rooms. If I can get some nice sandstone tiles from the D&D sets, I don't really see myself using the AHQ ones as much anymore (though the round room is still kinda cool).
Here's a close up on the large 8x8 room from the D&D set. You can see how the bottom of the door intrudes a bit into the play area due to the lack of a border like in the WHQ floorplans, but it's not too bad. What's really nice is that the grid is on ACTUAL 1" by 1" squares, so not only do you have plenty of room to move minis around, but you can truly appreciate how much larger the room is.
I forgot to include the larger tiles from D&D:FAB in the picture, but they fit on the doors as well and I would definitely recommend getting them from the eBay link I posted. I would also recommend searching "Dungeon Tiles" on YouTube, as there are several videos of folks unboxing some of these sets from Wizards of the Coast, and you get to see exactly what comes in each set.
Having been spoiled by WHFB-scale wargames tables, I don't think the outdoor tiles are particularly impressive (probably gonna end up using the mats for those), but I'm sure I'll try to get a lot of the dungeon or cave-type sets. This is by far the most useful non-GW product I've ever found for WHQ - and best of all, they're still in print!
Good work on your board section investigations :-) We really appreciate it, as most of this can only be bought online, it is good to have photos and reviews about how suitable these are for 'Quest.
Three different kits were produced and are now OOP, but eBay is full of sets of all three going for around $10 (watch out for shipping costs). The tiles are double-sided, but I'm not too familiar with MK and I think the bases on the minis from that game are actually 1.5", making these tiles (never thought I'd say this!) too big for WHQ. I'm really not a fan of corridors that are only one square wide, anyway. So this gets bumped down to the bottom of my list of supplements to acquire, but it's nice knowing that it's still so available online. There are also MK forums out there and if I ever get around to it I might register on one and see if I can get a more detailed description of the tiles.
Also, for the sake of more information about the WOTC D&D tiles, here's a really good video showing an unboxing of their large Dungeon "Master Set". The video isn't in English, but it's the best one I've found in that the presenter actually takes the time to show you each tile carefully. This is gonna be about twice as expensive as a regular set.
Keep in mind that he's showing you the tiles fresh out of the box, so they haven't been punched out, yet. The largest tile you'll see there is 8x8 inches, and some of the other ones also pop out in weird shapes (I think there's a couple 8x5's) so you may have to look closely to be able to tell exactly how many rooms there are per sheet.
There's a lot of useful counters in the set as well, plus some pretty silly ones - for instance, if 1" = 5ft, then that throne is made for a giant!
The box that this set comes in is made from the same material as the tiles, and also serves as a huge 9x12 room (score!), raised either 1" or 2" depending on if you use the box or the lid.
The Holy Grail of tilesets right now would appear to be the ones put out by the French company Rackham for their Cadwallon miniature skirmish game a few years ago. Rackham has gone out of business now, and traces of Cadwallon's existence have all but disappeared. Try as I might, I can't find these tiles anywhere - not eBay, not RPGgeek, nowhere.
At least four sets were produced - A, B, C, and D, plus whatever came with the starter set and then maybe an extra "master" set, I'm not exactly sure. It's literally that difficult to find any information about these.
The tiles look absolutely gorgeous, and seem to have been printed on thick card. One of the nicest things about these sets is that all the outdoor locations have a "night time" version of the same tile printed on the reverse, allowing for some really interesting and immersive scenarios.
The squares are [sign in to see URL] by [sign in to see URL], which still adds up to almost a square inch, making these among the largest tiles ever produced at just under 12" by 12". This size allows some of the outdoor and cavern locations to be truly impressive, so by all means keep your eyes out for these sets anywhere you may find them. Those of you in Europe may have an easier time tracking down some loose ones, since the company was French.
EDIT: The artist who did those tiles has a website where you can look at a little bit of his work. Check out ]this link and scroll towards the bottom to see a few of his sample board tiles. They're just ridiculously beautiful, probably better than anything else I've seen come out of the industry.