Hello everyone, I am new to D&D, miniatures, and any sort of 3D terrain.
I bought a couple sets yesterday (Friar's Inn props, Hinterlands Forest, Thoumonts, Castleworks Ultimate) and thought I would post my experience here.
I read the instructions, watched the video, got the printer settings, made a list of what I needed to print for the buildings (using a published D&D 4e module, making the buildings found on the battle map), picked up some 110# white card stock and made my way to FedEx Office.
I started by printing a 6x6" wood floor (upper floor-Thoumonts). I am very impressed with the resolution and detail of the print. At this point I started getting excited about my new discovery in WWG.
Then I printed a 6" wall.....
Now, I know the instructions say don't scale the print, and we didn't, but when I measured the color part of the wall it was not 6". This confused me because as a noob I was not taking into account the tabs that need to slide into the posts. Well, we started scaling stuff to make all the color parts of the pieces the "right" size (I.e. 2", 3", 6") and as you can imagine it did not work out so well!
43$ later I left FedEx Office frustrated and confused and unsure of my purchase.
I went home tho, and cut out a wall and a couple props and set them on the gridded battle map and that's when it hit me. The color part of the wall is not supposed to be 6", the ENTIRE wall is... To accommodate the posts... Duh!
I'm not happy about wasting all the money printing and the wasted card stock, but I know I should have just printed with no scaling wether it looked right or not and tested it before messing around with scaling.
The ONLY criticism I have with WWG is that their instructions could be a little more fleshed out and detailed. You know, for noobs like me.
I am not going to let this first unpleasant experience ruin it tho. I see some truly amazing potential in this system, and honestly I can't wait to get off of work and go back and print some more sheets (with no scaling!) and give it another try.
Well, thanks for reading about my experience. I would love to hear any thoughts, tips, criticism, whatever, about my experience or yours.

Welcome to the forums! Sorry to hear about your missteps with the product. I've made the same mistakes - reading the instructions but then thinking maybe I'm doing something wrong, and so try to correct what wasn't actually incorrect...

When I built , I found myself extremely cautious about making mistakes, or correcting things that weren't really mistakes. The forums are a Really Helpful Place since everything has been built by SOMEONE at some point in the past, and we all selfishly want people to be successful with their builds so we can see more cool pics and support WWG making more cool products! Enough people are watching that you'll get some form of helpful response in short order.

The suggestion most people get on the forums, and maybe this should be encouraged in the instructions, is to start small. If you make one 6" file one page of 2-way posts and a 6" wall page, you'll either (a) discover pretty quickly if there's something funny with the printing or (b) be psyched more quickly when you see the potential. It turns out, even once you've become fluent in building TerrainLinx (TLX) stuff, it's good practice to build with goals in mind that are more constrained than "I'll build one of everything! Mwah hah hah!" I still catch myself doing the latter, and get really burnt out since it's a LOT of building before you can have anything to play with.

I'd pretty much echo the OP on this one. There was a point in my first build where I jumped to conclusions that weren't so. It was on the third attempt it finally clicked.

I found that a combination of the product pics, the instructions and someone else's gallery pics really helped with the specific build. In addition, the how to vids and general advice were a great help.

But what I liked most of all, was the knowledge that it was fine if a messed up. It's the cost of one or two bits of cardstock (hopefully). I hadn't ruined a project or destroyed a model. I could print whatever got messed up again. Personally, that was a big relief. Not that I destroy projects or models, just that I knew I could relax into it a lot more.

Oh, and it gets better over time as you deal with similar situations (something I'll be picking up for years probably)

Ok, I printed off 30 more sheets today and this time I didn't mess with anything, I just told the guy what pages to print.
Success!!
So everything looks great and I made 2 floor tiles tonight, 1 3x3 and 1 3x6 from Thoumonts lower floor tile set.
Wow, it takes a longtime to make pieces, but I know over time I will have to make less and less (unless I keep buying sets!).
I agree that there isn't a ton of pressure about messing up, especially now I know the set actually works, just print a replacement page if you mess up.
I'm very much looking forward to making posts / walls tomorrow after work. I'm not sure which part of this whole thing Im more into, the actual game, the miniatures, or the terrain.
Anyways, I'm very happy about my newly discovered hobby and I look forward to being active on this forum and posting pics of my builds (yeah, I took pics of my 2 tiles lol).

Welcome to the Fold, Lethal - Paper Fold, that is! You'll soon have a lot of fun and sense of accomplishment as your harem of models (terrain, props, vehicles, etc) grows.

welcome aboard! We all make those kinds of mistakes when we first start out, but you will be an old pro in no time.

You will find the group on here very eager to assist and answer your questions. One of the best pieces of advice I've ever had is "Start Small" You can start with a goal to fill a 4x4 table. It's a bit daunting. Or you can make a couple small buildings here and there, and then some outdoor tiles, and soon enough, you will have enough to cover a 4x4.

Oh, and as we require of all noobs....take pictures of your work and post them

Thank you for the welcome : )

Noob question, is there a tutorial or video specifically for roofs?

Oh I can tell you the roofs are a lot easier than they look. I looked at the directions and thought, "HUH?" Then I printed some out and tried to assemble. Made SO much more sense.

I haven't printed any yet so I may (and hopefully) have the same experience. I feel like I have the basic idea down. End trusses, those pieces you put in the middle to hold up longer stretches of roof, but the part that I'm not sure about is changing the direction of the roof like on an "L" shaped building.
The first building I'm makin is a small farmhouse. It consists of a 3x6 and a 3x3 piece making an "L" shape except all sides are the same length. Oh yeah, I'm using the Thoumonts set.

On a side note I am disappointed I didn't discover this product sooner in life. I am really enjoying coming home from work and tackling a piece or 3 each night. It is very relaxing and satisfying watching my little farmhouse come together and envisioning the battle my D&D group will face defending the widow and her son from the raiders that will be attacking them.
I've noticed the designers are active on the forums so I just wanted to give props and let you know you've hooked another customer. I cant wait to get more TLX sets and also The Maiden.

Welcome to a great hobby, or, addiction, depending on your interest.

As for you experience with roofs and Thoumonts, you will quickly fine there is no such thing as a Hip roof. I ran into that problem right away and was crushed. It will limit your designs available as you realize only Gable roofs are possible. You can build a cross gable which will sort of work many times, or if not a gable on top of a gable for a building with a larger footprint.

Someone did come up with a work around but I am so lame when it comes to computer stuff I did not use it. Might go back to the thread and give it a try again. Maybe the third time around, or forth, might do it.

Also, you might give the Friar a go. It works very similar to Thoumonts, just with different skins. Very nice skins. Then you will need Streets, and then Sewers, and then ...

TLX rules!!!

Thank you for the terms Gable & Hip roofs. A quick google search showed me that I was picturing a hip roof, but I can make this work with gable roofs.

Yeah, with the gable we can also do a cross gable and a Skillion type of roof, but with a Hip roof we can also do Pyramid roof. The only other major style would be the Gambrel with which you can also make a Bonnet roof sort of. Only roof I wish for is the Hip roof. These other types are less frequent for Western European Medieval or Fantasy types of buildings.

Yeah, architecture is one of my geeky areas. Sorry for the spiel.

Lol don't apologize, you just have me more things to google : )

So I've been looking at different tile sets for dungeons (as I have city and wilderness already) and I'm wondering your all's opinions on TLX vs the Dungeon Rising Sets?
If you prefer TLX, which sets work best for a generic non themed dungeon?
We play D&D 4e.

Preference for TLX vs TCPs is a tough one. I find I enjoy the versatility of the TLX sets...but I also like the time and effort saved from TCPs.

As for dungeons, check out:

(and the various expansions found linked on that page)
(comes in handy more often than you would think)

My preference is for the TLX, mostly because I have so many of those sets. TCP is very appealing to me because they look so cool and seem to be very versatile, but they don't really hook up to the TLX sets I already own. The time saving factor is such a draw.

After giving it some thought and reading your posts and another thread I found, I think I will stick with TLX for everything except underground dungeons. I'm going to go with Dungeon Rise TCP for that because I won't really need to hook it into any TLX sets and I need the time saving benefits.

Last night I was building some posts and walls and my wife came in and sat down to watch me for a couple min. Then she asked me if this was something I wanted to do by myself or could she do it with me. HA! I'm a lucky guy AND I have a helper now : )

Ha, maybe we could clone her? You must be the only one on the forum who's wife not only tolerates this hobby but is willing to suffer through the nicked and glued fingers. I so envy that about you already. Trying ti imagine just how huge my TLX builds would be if my wife wanted to sit down with me and build stuff instead of the honey do lists she give me that don't really allow TLX time on a regular basis.

I know a couple guys wives who enjoy roleplaying and terrain building. Heck, if your wife does scrapbooking, she'd probably be really good at making cardstock terrain. Just tell her you are building houses for your toy soldiers.

My wife doesn't help with the building, although she tolerates and even encourages my various terrain/gaming/painting hobbies enough that I have my own room for everything and have bled out to the game room with my paint station. But, she does game with us quite a bit and really enjoys (most) RPGs. D&D 3x got a little complicated at higher levels, and she doesn't like FATE so much, but she's played in our a variety of our games and one shots.

Its very cool.



(Plus, she's a world class cook and food blogger, and loves football. And she's hot. Yes, I married up. Way up.)

So this is off topic from my first post but I dont think Ill get to mad at myself for hijacking my own thread : )

A question for a moderator. Is it against forum rules to link to a site that has free 3D and 2.5D papercraft monsters? As far as I can tell there are no competing products, but I want to make sure.

Also, have you guys thought about monsters and npcs to populate the beautiful buildings & tile sets you make?

The standees that WWG has available are all 2d printouts set on bases to stand up (or at least I think they are).
I found some really awesome 3d ones this guy makes and gives away the pdfs for free that I think everyone would really like but also if WWG isn't aware or them somehow they should be. I bet they could take the idea to a whole new lvl.
Sooo still awaiting an official answer from a mod or staff... (Pst I think you should let me link to them). : )

Wow man, you coulda just said everyone already knew about it.
Some people...