I had a near miss that I discovered last night - not sure when it actually happened but some time in the last week. A Sub Search game, one of those MB games from the 80s, took a dive from a top shelf, bounced off the box containing all the ready-to-go CaveWorks stuff, bounced off another box of minis to paint, then hit the floor, splitting the corners and dumping plastic parts all over the basement floor. Thanfully, it just shuffled the Caveworks parts a bit - the bridge looked like it had been smashed but was just leaning a bit - and the only real damage was the box of the vintage Sub Search game. Bit of decent tape and it will at least hold the game again.

So far, the mice havent gotten to the WWG boxes yet. The stories above have made me look for better storage options, though. Had a serious rat problem at Ft Monmouth, NJ, in our storage shed, where it appeared a rat went through a box of old wool uniforms, a box of Christmas ornaments and a box of plastic model kits. Amazing what all damage was done.

It's amazing what rats will make nests out of.

If they eat some GW Skaven is that cannibalism?

Finally able to do some damage figures and while I am not happy the end result could have been much worse. The mangas now all have brown stain along the open side of the pages but it doesn't appear to have penetrated much deeper, no moisture or warp damage (possible damage cost, $130). The RPG books all took the coffee on the binding side, since Palladium covers its books in a near waterproof coating the only one I ended up worried about was the hardcover version of the new rules edition from Rifts (Rifts Ultimate Edition), no damage, and little staining along the papers sides (potential damage cost, $250). Tools...well they are mostly waterproof as is, other than wiping them off and cleaning them for reuse no damage.

Finally the terrain itself. Of the stack of printouts I had sitting on the table I only lost five pages, most of the liquid damage on the rest of the pages was restricted to the outside margins and so almost everything was completely salvageable, some will have to be trimmed out as not every page escaped soak damage though.

The ship, small, four inches wide, two inches deep, and a little under a foot long...complete writeoff. The coffee sloshed right over the railing and down into the recessed cargo hold filling it with a nice pool of coffee and in the process soaking the mast and sail. Needless to say it's now a moist crumpled up ball sitting in the garbage, worse, by the time I got to it trying to save everything else even the matboard was completely soaked, soft eneogh to turn into a ball .

The Inn and stables combination I was building, a 1ft x 1ft building with extended fencing, yard and stables to suit a dozen horses, three stories high and over half finished...complete writeoff, well...mostly, I had set aside the roofs to work on later. The first and second floors took a wave of coffee one through the front door of the finished floor, the other across the neat stack of walls that just needed to be assembled (already cut out, matboard based with transparency windows). If that weren't good eneogh, there was also airborne coffee drops and splashes that soared nicely, coating every internal and external area with nice splotches. The third floor was cut out and had been set aside in a stack for later work. The stables were all cut out and based on matboard ready for assembly, and the fireplace (DungeonWorks Classic type), as well as the fencing and yard printouts, just like everything else they were soaked through as well.

In the end I lost two full printouts of the "Castleworks: Classic" keep (minus roofs), three of the smithy, ten fortification walls which I had used to build on the interior. I also lost four printouts of the stables from "VillageWorks", two full pages each of "Castleworks: Ultimate" doors and windows. And finally, near a dozen full pages of floortile printouts (various). Most of the "Maiden" textures I lost were scrap left over from building the "Maiden II", so I was not as irritated with that loss, but the work lost really frustrates. I also lost about half a sheet worth of Matboard. Time lost was weeks to months of work, most of these projects were completed, having been in production, since the beginning of this year. I was going to buy batteries to take pics, the pics of the 3D boom for the ship above drained the camera's current. Still have no batteries and I'm not keeping that depressing reminder around long eneogh to get them, all of it's in the garbage and went out this morning .

I didn't lose as much as I could have, for that I am grateful, the table that resides beside the one that took the coffee spill is only half an inch higher and normally overlays the edge of the table that took the spill, I had only seperated them because I was cutting matboard on the one, otherwise the coffee would have gone right over both. If that table had taken a hit from the coffee I'd have had to have taken a day off of work for mental reasons. There are two stacks of about $100 worth of fantasy/scifi novels, 3 Shirow artbooks, full color glossy ($200), 14 manga ($200), 6 part "Akira" manga collection ($200), and two full 2 inch stacks of sorted printout WW's pages each worth about $100 plus ($200). The Maiden II was also moved to that table for repairs and could have taken a broadside easily for all my efforts to salvage the current damage . And while I doubt coffee would damage them, $800 worth of dvd anime series and movies which I had been packing and ran out of boxes.

Actual damage: $100
Potential damage: $550
Worst case scenario: $1700-2000 (more if the cup had hit the dvds at the speed it was flying)

I got off lucky for pulling a stupid mistake like that one , booting a full coffee cup across the table like that I deserved much worse. They are dry tables, there is a reason "I", and only I use them and why my coffee is the only one ever there, because then I'm the only one to blame .

Edit: oh, and if your wondering, I take cream and sugar in my coffee, alters the damage and salvage potential somewhat.

A great deal of destruction to my TLX Titan builds at the Fallout game on Friday - a runaway 2 liter Mountain Dew bottle. The laser printed bits may be recoverable, the ones done with inkjet are done for.

Sixteen tiles, I don't know how many walls and props. Some were crushed as the bottle rolled over them, some were sprayed with foaming Mountain Dew, some stuck to the table by a combination of Mountain Dew and glue.

And I don't even drink Mountain Dew!

The Auld Grump

*EDIT* Managed to save four more tiles - stained, but useable.

Someone needed to be cut off. That's a shame, but at least you saved some.

Wow, thats awful. I've found a drip on a couple tiles after a game but nothing like that.

How bad was the destruction to the tiles? Did it just run the ink or did it warp the foamcore? If the foamcore is still good I'd be tempted to try just popping off the anchors and just cut out a new top section and glue it right over it. Even if the sides had run, its not hard to hide sides.

Ouch...

12 tiles is painful no matter what.

That's part of the reason 2 liters are not allowed at our table.
Spilled 12 oz sodas or glasses of wine/beer destroy much less area.

I need a new blade for my Craft ROBO.... (Thank the gods for the GSD files - otherwise I don't think that I would ever see the replacements....)

The Auld Grump

May be you could use those ruined tiles as 'special areas'.

Ouch! That hurts.

Hope the offender has the patience to do a good job on the replacements.

Wow, that sucks. I have nightmares about such things. I don't know how I would handle that situation, but based on the fact that you are still posting I guess you didn't kill the guy...

With some luck perhaps he'll like building and you'll have permanent help building new sets.

1 1/3 of a model railway layout trashed due to a leak in the shed roof thankfully not much done to it but a 6X4 layout got drenched in another shed!
GW plastic tree's (the one that looks like banana trees) constantly get broken and now has pins running the whole length of it!

A dave griffen games model half built got soaked when I dropped the plastic box it was in on the road in the rain!

I have a very quick way to edge: Do it immediately after the (robo) cutting. It wastes ink, but is very fast:

Hold the piece down against scrap paper (usually print side down) and run along the edge, bleeding most of the ink on to the scrap. Do this also for scored lines by pre-folding over completely, and then run the pen along the edge against the scrap.

It's faster than cutting!

I've found that sharpies bleed too much for my tastes, so like to use either very-cheap Bic markers (for colored edges) or brush-pens for greys/black: Faber-Castell are pretty good for this, but at $2 each, can be a bit pricey. http://www.amazon.com/Faber-Castell-Art ... 438&sr=8-5

I'm considering posting the technique to YouTube - any interest?

Me, I prefer edging to cutting. With edging I can hold the piece up in front of me as I do it. Cutting requires me to bend over the piece, which gets to me after a while.

Most my cardstock terrain that has been ruined, has been destroyed by the Great Black Beast, my cat. Most the time its from him climbing over it or laying on it.