Terrific Table Topping Terrain? July 25th, 2024 Crowdfunding Roundup

Does your inbox fill up every Tuesday with Kickstarter emails? Well, mine does - so I decided to start writing my thoughts on new tabletop gaming Kickstarters every week. Keep in mind, most of these thoughts are based on initial impressions and looking at the Kickstarter video.

There may be no "topping" this week's campaigns, as there's a "bastion" of good products. I really didn't have to go on a "D-Quest" to find them - it must have been "Providence".

Bastion of Stone 3 - Gearstone Tower

There's something nice about a 45 second Kickstarter video. Especially when I'm sold in the first few seconds - as soon as I saw the tower move I knew this was pretty cool. Then I saw how big it was: I was expecting it to be sized for a single line of miniatures to walk through, but I'm fairly certain I could fit some Warhammer 40k sized vehicles through that gate. Yes, it's *just* a drawbridge, but having it be open on the sides so you can see the gears working is what fascinates me the most. There's a lot pieces involved in 3d printing this gate, but for about $12 you can get all the files you need to assemble the drawbridge. If you like the style of the drawbridge, there's also add-ons for other ruins. Putting all the pieces together would make a pretty sweet wargaming board in my opinion.

Game Toppers 4.5 Galactic Game Tables, Terrain Packs & Mats

I have to disclaimer this first: I've backed previous Game Topper campaigns and I've already backed this one as well. During Pax Unplugged 2022 & 2023, I even helped sell Game Toppers at Burky's booth. Also, we've had Burky on the podcast to talk about his previous campaign if you are interested in more behind the scenes details on Game Toppers. So you can tell that I'm a fan of the product, which is a portable gaming surface that you can put out on your table. The toppers are easy to assemble and take apart, which is great if you don't have a dedicated gaming space. I no longer have a game room, so I've gotten used to taking my Game Topper in my car to our local game store for playing games of Warhammer.

So what's special about this campaign? At the highest tiers, there are Game Toppers available with new Sci-Fi themed graphics in the rails of the topper. It's super cool, but obviously not for everyone. There are also new designs for the neoprene playmats that are sized to fit each topper, specifically an "arid" mat and a "snowy grassland" mat for miniature wargamers like me. Not into miniatures? I've also got my eye on the "Galactic Deck Builder" mat for playing games of Star Wars Unlimited on.

However, the coolest feature of this campaign are the "Terrain Packs" - terrain features like rivers, roads, craters, etc. that are printed on the same neoprene as the playmats. Any wargamer will tell you that coming up with new terrain pieces for their games is a constant struggle. While epic 3d buildings & structures are cool, it can be expensive to get a lot of those. These terrain packs can be added to your games and help make them even more immersive.

D-Quest: The Level-up Modular Board Game Bag

There have been a lot of board game storage bags on Kickstarter. I even have one - the Game Canopy. If you squint, the D1 bag in the D-Quest series of bags looks very much like my Game Canopy bag. However, one of the things I've noticed with my Game Canopy is that when you want to bring games that don't have the "Ticket to Ride sized" square box, it can be a bit hard to Tetris the games into the bag.

The D1 bag has a bunch of dividers that you can velcro into the bag to create small pockets for games. All of the bags in the series zip down and collapse into a small stack, which is also another improvement over my Game Canopy. The big bag is almost $200, but there are smaller bags for different gaming use cases that are more affordable options.

The Fantasy Grind, Fantasy Adventures for OSE and 5E

A truth of Kickstarter is that if you have a RPG that you are trying to fund, that making it available for D&D5e is a good way to get it funded. I've featured a bunch of them in these columns. Here's a campaign though that not only has 5E content, but content for Old-School Essentials (OSE). It consists of 4 different pamphlet adventures and a 5th one that connects the previous 4 maps into one big adventure. For $18, you can get PDF copies of all of the adventures, or you can pay more for the printed versions along with dry erase stickers to help you run these scenarios.

Providence - 3D Printable Modular Space Station

We've seen more fantasy based printed terrain in the beginning of this post, so let's close out with some Sci-Fi terrain. This modular space station looks like a style of terrain that you'd have to break out the LEDs and make sure that it lights up for your players. While my brain goes to using it for Space Hulk-style wargaming, it also could be used for various Sci-Fi RPGs. The tubular corridor is probably my favorite piece out of the campaign, it reminds me of so many "airlock" type rooms in space movies or even more modern day space station capsules.

Note: I generally assume I know nothing. So if I've missed something, let me know in the comments. Or let me know on Twitter or Facebook. If you like these types of posts, consider subscribing to our patreon.