I got about 5 molds as I have been lusting after the pics for years, and I tried to make a bunch of blocks, and the skill wasn't there yet because my blocks were crappy. I definitely got a feel for how the system works, and you can make really cool things, I think I prefer cardstock. Allow me to elaborate with a list:

* paper is lighter and more portable
* paper is easier to make large dioramas
* fine detail is easier to develop with a printer
* TLX is more like legos then set pieces therefore more useable
* from 4 or 5 feet away, paper has a cleaner look then painted plaster
* if your dream is a 4' X 6' table of some sort of city, plaster is very, very expensive, paper is less so.

I use both. I love the compact storage of TLX, but there are a lot of places where HirstArts works better.

For Christmas I made a dungeon set for my son, who's just started playing D&D. It's basically indestructable, which is good because it gets a lot of HARD use.

It looks like this:


and more pictures of the pieces in the box are over at the HirstArts forum under pictures "Christmas set for my son."

But for my games, I'm using WWG terrain all the way.

Steve
(Edit to remove link -- not sure if HA is competitor or not?)

Which is better depends entirely on what you want to do - for permanent builds Hirst really shines. Solid, versatile, and properly distressed and painted it looks fantastic.

For one use or disposable terrain the old World Works was great - solid enough to live through a campaign, attractive, less labor intensive than either Hirst or foamcore, and, like Hirst they are versatile, especially for mixing and matching.

TLX adds portability and increased modularity.

It's all good.

The Auld Grump

Strange but I've moved in the opposite direction from most of you. I find my HA builds take up less space than my World Works builds. Maybe it's because I design from modular as my starting point when building Hirst arts.

I have a castle that I can use in many different layouts I have a fully modular dungeon where the walls are independent of the flooring

Note for the flooring of most of my builds I use World works stuff - there I've found it's cheaper faster and easier to store.

What i have at this point is basically Hirst arts Walls with World works flooring.

at this point i have about $140 in casts and have spent about $45 on plaster (I use a material called Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty - very low chipping once dried). Paints and sealer put me at about $220 dollars - although most of those I already had for painting warmachine minis.

My main problem is that to get the quality I wanted from TLX I estimate my investment would be bigger than what I've already spent on HA - that is by the time I bought a decent printer and Robo cutter. For most of my previous builds I used local printing services which made making my builds much harder (print on demand is really nice - as it is I had to design everything before hand)

For outdoor scenery I still rely on Hinterlands, although I'm using the non-tlx version as I have a 28"x35" swamp masterboard and about the same amount in regular hinterlands. The trees are still nicer and somewhat easier to store than plastic (they don't shed).

I'm very much looking forward to Terraclips, but I think I'm done with making my own paper terrain for now (with the exception of tiles) Probably mostly because I enjoy the building aspect of Hirst arts more.

Not that I don't love and respect world works.