While old-school TTRPG players are used to drawing their tabletop maps on dry-erase grids, there’s no rule that says that has to be the only way to do it. Many Game Masters use actual physical terrain at the table not just for set pieces, but even for entire dungeon crawls.
Several companies are dedicated to providing pre-made terrain for tabletop gamers. One of these, Archon Studios, launched their latest terrain campaign on Gamefound earlier this year for Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves. The pledge manager recently opened, and the campaign is accepting new backers via late pledges until December 13th, 2024.
What Is Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves?
Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves is a modular plastic terrain collection from Archon Studio featuring three separate underground themes. The terrain is compatible with earlier Dungeons & Lasers sets, and can be purchased either painted or unpainted. Pledges start at the “Surveyor” level, which includes 1 Core Set of your choice from the three available themes, and all stretch goals. The Surveyor pledge is available for $99 unpainted, or $139 pre-painted. The Gamefound pledge manager for Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves can be found here.
It should also be noted that as this is the pledge manager, any late pledges will not go towards unlocking any additional stretch goals.
New to Gamefound? Check out our crowdfunding primer.
Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves
There are three different core sets, one for each of the themes: Rocky, Demonic, and Fleshy. These sets allow for generalized terrain layouts. Additionally, there are a number of subthemes tied to each theme, which provide more specialized set pieces. These include: Goblin’s Lair, Spider Nest, Deep Mines, Combat Arena, Chambers of Agony, Ritual Site, Maw of the Abyss, Evil-Eye Hive, and Carnage Track.
Archon Studio sent me a few unpainted sprues from both the rocky and fleshy core sets, as well as a legacy pre-painted Dwarven Mine set.
Fleshy Theme
While I only received 5 sprues of the Fleshy terrain and some connector sprues for use with both caves sets, it should be noted that each of the core sets contains 15 sprues of terrain and connectors. If you take a look at the Gamefound campaign page, you can get a sense for how much you can build from a single core set.
Here are the sprues I received:
To assemble, I first used some clippers to cut the pieces off of the sprues. After that, it’s a simple matter of inserting the clips into the bottoms of floor pieces to connect them together. Walls fasten to the floor pieces by plugging them into holes in the connectors.
When connecting floor panels together, there will be open holes along the sides where each of the panels meet. If these aren’t being filled by a wall piece, then you can use the included plugs to disguise the holes.
Here’s a layout I put together with the Fleshy theme:
And here are some closer looks at that layout:
Rocky Theme
For the Rocky theme, I also only received a sampling of different sprues as well as a sprue of connectors.
Here’s a layout I initially made:
And here’s an alteration to that same basic layout:
One of the Rocky sprues also came with a couple of pieces of scatter terrain, which you can see here:
Enhanced Dwarven Mines Pre-Painted
This was the one complete set that Archon Studio sent me for evaluation, and it was also the only pre-painted one. This set and other, similar dungeon sets are available as add-ons during the Gamefound campaign.
Archon Studio uses a proprietary technique called PrismaCast to mechanically paint the terrain on the sprue. The terrain is initially hand-painted by an artist, scanned, and then the paint scheme is automatically applies to the sprues. You can read more about the process here.
The Dwarven Mines pre-painted terrain contains the following:
– 6x double floor
– 6x single floor
– 6x long wall
– 24x short wall
– 6x doorway
– 6x door
– 6x lamp post
– 12x torch
Here are all of the pieces, clipped off of the sprues:
The doors are functional in the set. Doors clip into the doorways, and can be opened and closed.
And here’s a look at an assembly using about 2/3 of the pieces in the set:
Why You Should Back Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves
Even though Archon Studio has had several previous crowdfunding campaigns for their terrain, this was my first hands-on exposure to Dungeons & Lasers. And I have to say, I came away impressed. The sculpting of the plastic pieces is full of detail, and the system they’ve developed for connecting the terrain pieces works well. I found I could very quickly throw a layout together on the table, and equally quickly could break it down for storage.
There is the minor inconvenience of having to snip all of the pieces off of the sprues, but this is offset by two things. First, all of the terrain is modular, and can be assembled simply by clipping it together instead of having to permanently glue pieces together. And second, the cost is very competitive for the quality of the terrain.
Having an assembly system that carries across the Dungeons & Lasers line allows you to mix and match any of the available sets. Just using what Archon Studio sent me, I could have easily set up a layout where a descent into some Dwarven mines transition first into caverns, then into some strange bio-organic chamber. It allows for endless expandability, especially if Archon Studio keep coming out with more sets over the years.
The PrismaCast system is astonishingly good in presenting a tabletop-quality paint job. If you don’t have the time or inclination to paint terrain yourself, you’ll likely be very pleased with the pre-painted sets. And if you prefer saving some money and getting the unpainted terrain sets instead, you’ll find plenty of rich detail that will take paint well.
With the Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves Gamefound campaign, you can get a tremendous amount of terrain for a very reasonable price, especially when you consider all of the unlocked stretch goals which backers also receive with their pledges. It’s fun and easy to assemble, and the plastic itself is lightweight but durable. The option to get everything pre-painted with the proprietary PrismaCast system is really the icing on the cake, and a real boon for people looking for some great terrain without having to worry about gluing and painting it themselves.
For more information or to make a pledge, visit the Dungeons & Lasers VI: Caves Gamefound page!
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Disclosure: GeekDad received samples of this terrain for review purposes.
