For those who have already spent too much on this hobby...

[bastianbux]

Using the Itar's tiles, I made this in Sketchup:

That's the Dwarven Forge people? It takes three basic sets? Yikes, that's more money than I'd want to spend. :/

[Sjeng]

No, that's the Itar's modular tiles set.

[TMU]

What would be the cheapiest (with good quality) material to cast walls and tiles and stuff???

[Daedalus]

I always thought Hydrocal was the superior alternative to ordinary plaster that was reasonably cheap. What you consider reasonably cheap is subjective, however. Hydrocal is a harder plaster for the hobby market.

[Sjeng]

Itar's workshop dungeon terrain has put his pledge manager online, and people who missed the KS can still get in on this:

Our pledge manager is now live and ready for you to use. It will remain live until the end of June for people to add items or for those who missed out on this campaign to still get in on it.

http://www.itarsworkshop.com/ks/pledge_manager.cgi

1. Go to Login
2. Click Create an account
3. Fill in the info and click the validation link you get by email.
4. Login to the pledge manager
5. Make sure your browser window is at least 1600 pixels wide. The controls for your shopping car get covered up by the item selection list if your browser is too narrow. Shrinking your browser fonts way down helps. I saw this problem in Chrome and IE 10 on Win7.
6. Click plus or type in quantities on the items you want.
7. Click Checkout and review your order.
8. Click submit.

Note: Anyone who didn't pledge in the initial Kickstarter but gets in on it through the pledge manager will have their items shipped only after everyone who pledged in the Kickstarter.

For reference, the image I posted above is an attempt to recreate the HQ board with these tiles, using 3 basic sets plus stretch goals.

[chaoticprime]

I always thought Hydrocal was the superior alternative to ordinary plaster that was reasonably cheap. What you consider reasonably cheap is subjective, however. Hydrocal is a harder plaster for the hobby market.

Merlin's Magic is harder than Hyrdocal White, but also more difficult to mix. A 50 lb bag of that will run out on you before you will believe. Hydrocal White costs as much to ship as to buy outright, but its good, strong, stuff. That said, if you get really good with simple and cheap plaster of paris, and you mix it up to be really dense, it will last damn near forever. Especially if you paint it with outdoor vinyl paint.

Also, the HirstArts brick molds Itar has used to create this terrain (licensed officially by Bruce Hirst) are actually really easy to do. I have created hundreds of dungeons tiles with them. Also, let me tell you first-hand that walls are usually a pain in the ass. Too many new style minis do not stick to the area of a one-inch square.

[Sjeng]

I would love to see some photographs of your dungeon setups

[chaoticprime]

I used to have these badass photos of my caverns that I made. I also built a buttload of simple grey 2x2/2x4/4x4 tiles to build D&D modules with. At once point I had enough to make damn near anything with, but you start to get lazy when you want bricks to make something new. I cannibalized a lot of them, as well as my first Heroquest board. I made some Super Dungeon Explore room tiles, and I still have my caves and a lot of dungeon tiles--I could get some pics, probably.

We also nearly completed making the Tomb of Horror (we being my brother and I). We got it to around 70% or so.

I will look for photos of that. Til I find any, here's a build-up of one stage from the Aliens boardgame we built for a friend.

[knightkrawler]

Also, let me tell you first-hand that walls are usually a pain in the ass. Too many new style minis do not stick to the area of a one-inch square.

The German fans choose their squares to be 3 cm, some even 4 cm. That's basically the solution for the wall and mini size problem,
combined with adding half-square wide areas along the walls. Besides, half high walls are more than sufficient in any case. No funbling around when handling the minis I'm told.
Look at the pictures of Sidorion's thread how to do it perfectly. There's no dungeon out there that's better thought through and fleshed out.

http://www.hq-cooperation.de/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=1582

There's 20 forum pages on his stunning work, but the very first picture sums up what I just presented.
You don't have to be able to read German; just look at his flow of pics. There's also picture tutorials.

[chaoticprime]

I bought a bunch of molds from Germany, some of which were enlarged replicas of Hirst-Arts tiles, and they were 3cm. Those walls in that link are the same as Hirst designed for one of his projects. That 3cm or 30mm is still just barely wider than the normal 25mm spaces. If you're using just HeroQuest, they'll work alright--I have a 30mm tile HeroQuest board. The doors work perfectly. The average contemporary fantasy miniature fits on a 30mm base, and is 35mm to 40mm tall. There are honest-to-goodness 35mm Reaper Dwarves. The more room we afford, it would seem, the larger minis get. They're like sharks.

The best reason not to use walls, however, is modularity. If you have nothing but sturdy floor tiles, you do not have hardly any limits to what shapes can be formed. They take up less storage, too. Walls limit you to lots of tiles that can be nothing but hallways, pre-built rooms, or modular rooms with modular walls, which interlock fine until you actually play on them and a fulcrum effect from having someone accidentally nudge a wall causes the entire room to warp.

Another good point is that using Hirst Arts bricks, each wall block uses as much material as one floor tile. Each wall is built up on another half-floor tile, too, and is two wall blocks high. The walls are stacked like bricks, too. So for each floor tile to have one of its sides mounted by a wall, you must use twice as much material as you did for the tile itself. Wouldn't you rather just have three-times the amount of floor tiles?