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Dwarven Forge Produces Another Great 3D Dungeon Set

April 13, 2009 By

I have several Dwarven Forge Sets that I use to help bring atmosphere to my home game. I bought directly from them in the past so I get emails about new sets coming out and I can tell you their latest set is outstanding. The new set is called Realm of the Ancients 2. I am getting ready to run another group through the Tomb of Horrors and sets like these are really helpful in getting the players up to speed on what is where in the dungeon. The weakness here is portability, when compared to WoTC Dungeon tiles, basically Dwarven Forge stuff is just not very portable, but to solve that problem, just stake out a space in your home, and mark it off as yours for D&D, then make everyone play at your house and that will solve that problem. Another weak point is visual blocking, the pieces being 3D can actually block views of the dungeon to some players. I solve the blocking issue by placing just enough parts and pieces to get the point across and drawing around them with wet erase markers on my battle mat. The bonus of 3D dungeon parts, I have never had to stumble around looking for my DF spiral staircase piece, while my buddies with their flat WoTC dungeon tiles tend to just give up on flipping over cardboard squares.

I love using what I have to make multi-level towers or cliffs for the players to climb and battle the beasties on.

Dwarven Forge Realm of the Ancients 2

Dwarven Forge makes high quality 3D dungeon pieces. Their products are all hand painted and a lot of care was put into every detail of every part. The stuff is durable too, including the packing boxes, I have been collecting since 98-ish and the parts have stood up over three long moves and even held its own against my four year old son and his army of transformers.

Close up on entrance

I asked the wife and I may be able to get this one, or at least whatever I need to make the model above. The email news letter said pre-orders go on sale April 16th.

What sets do I have already?
Cavern Set x2
Wicked Additions #2 Set x1
Narrow Passage Set x1
Advanced Builder Set x1
Room & Passage Set x2

Yes, I have a good wife who lets me indulge in gaming collectables from time to time. I suppose it helps that she is a gamer too.

What sets do I wish I had besides the one I mention in this post?
Cavernous Passage Set
Cavernous River and Walls Set
Cavernous Lake Set
Cavernous Lake Expansion Set
Cavernous Chasm Set

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About shent_lodge

Shent_lodge, AKA Jon, started this website, in 2000, initially as a player's guide to his home game. He has run through, and run for hundreds of players of the Dungeons and Dragons game since 1980. These days he mostly plays the Pathfinder RPG at cons.

Comments

  1. Mike Shea says:
    April 14, 2009 at 6:12 am

    I too am a big fan of Dwarven Forge. I have a pile of sets now including:

    3x Room and Passages
    Wicked Additions 1&2
    Fantasy Floors
    2x Caverns
    1x Chasms
    1x Rivers
    1x Cavern passages
    1x Medieval Buildings
    1x Medieval Advanced set

    You’re right about portability, though if you plan your game out, you can pack up just the pieces for that game and bring them out wherever your going. I’ve done that and it works pretty well. You can’t build out a huge dungeon floor but you can build out three encounter rooms pretty easily.

    I’m torn on the Realm of the Ancients set. It looks great but it’s a little more specific than the other sets. Also, the foam boxes are really beginning to pile up in my dining room. I don’t know about adding two to four more.

    Still, they look really really good…

  2. Mike Lee says:
    April 14, 2009 at 9:04 am

    DF is awesome. But if all you’ve got are are Dungeon Tiles try this: Use poster-tack to pre-build some of your rooms by sticking tiles together.

    I imagine Dungeon tiles could work well with DF where DF is used for important details and terrain and Dungeon Tiles are used for open floor area and hallways. That might also help with blocking issues.

  3. shent_lodge says:
    April 14, 2009 at 10:30 am

    @Mike,

    Thanks I’ll pass that on to my Dungeon tile buddies.

  4. TMan says:
    April 14, 2009 at 10:40 am

    I love the Dwarven forge I’ve got, but I rarely get it out. Once I get 6 players and myself around the table, there just isn’t room for more than two rooms at a time in the middle of the table. I can’t even begin to guess how much space that first picture would take up to set out.

    I’ve started playing with poster-tack like stuff to pre-stage my dungeon tiles on foamcore board. Helps me ‘drop’ a small setup down very quickly.