gamewizard

Hiyas all, thanks for the invite to the site, WildEyed!

For anybody that doesn't know me my name is Chris and I'm the guy that now owns what used to be called Gallery of Champions. The store is now called Castle House Hobbies and Games and we are currently in the process of moving to Evelyn Hills Shopping Center. This will move our venue closer to the U of A and hopefully we can draw in some of the folks that are interested in gaming from the U of A.

I hope the move will be completed by July 11 since we are having the Magic The Gathering M-10 Pre-release event that weekend.

I plan on having 4 to 6 tables set up at one time (at least; I have to look at the location and get a floor plan done) for all the GW games. I am currently trying to cast a Mines of Moria board for Lord of the Rings using Hirst Arts molds and dental plaster that lots of people are admiring as well as asking when it will be done. (Dunno)

Let me know if there is anything I can do to indulge all of us in our hobby. I can even take orders by PM if WildEyed will allow that.

Thanks for this wonderful site, WildEyed!

Welcome! You bet about the PM's and please feel free to post and let us know about anything special going on at Castle House. We want this forum and site to be beneficial to both the gaming community and stores as a whole! Without the stores we don't have a community!

I came into Castle House on Sunday to pick up some terrain (mooscape craters) for the jungle themed table I am building, and I think I saw the hirst arts board in progress. Looking good. Big D has used quite a bit of the Hirst Arts moulds and he loves them!

Cool, I wondered who had bought the moonscape! I need to get more.

I have every Hirst Arts mold except the inch and a half molds they did for Mage Knight. I went to Gen Con 05; saw their 50' table set up and started drooling. This was what I had been looking for for years. So I went a little crazy and asked "How much for one of each except the inch and a half?" One guy at first thought I was kidding and then he said great, he would even cut me a discount. It still wound up being $1400. The wife NEVER knew about that little expenditure, heh.

Good to see this site, it looks great! I'll get my co-owner to look at this website to see how one should be set up. The Castle House sucks at the moment.

Wow. I am impressed. I have about four of the molds so I bow to you.

My first go round with em I used the dental plaster and had really good results with it. That was a few years ago. I have been using plaster of paris since I broke em back out and you can really tell a difference. I get quite a bit more air bubbles and they aren't as sturdy. The biggest problem that I had with em was making enough blocks. It was just so fun to put together that to keep up you had to constantly be casting more.

I was down at the shop on Sunday and I saw the table. Looks like it coming along nicely. I was quite impressed by the Warhammer selection that you had on hand. I had been to two other places on my way down and you were the only shop that had any of the new IG Cadian command squads in stock.

big_d wrote:

Wow. I am impressed. I have about four of the molds so I bow to you.

My first go round with em I used the dental plaster and had really good results with it. That was a few years ago. I have been using plaster of paris since I broke em back out and you can really tell a difference. I get quite a bit more air bubbles and they aren't as sturdy. The biggest problem that I had with em was making enough blocks. It was just so fun to put together that to keep up you had to constantly be casting more.

I was down at the shop on Sunday and I saw the table. Looks like it coming along nicely. I was quite impressed by the Warhammer selection that you had on hand. I had been to two other places on my way down and you were the only shop that had any of the new IG Cadian command squads in stock.

He would have had two of them, but I bought the other one a few days ago...

I would definitely go back to using the dental plaster if you can. I've never worked with the molds myself, but I've had the opportunity to game with a lot of the results, and I'd think plaster of paris would be way too fragile to last any significant amount of time.

I have tried both dental plaster and the plaster they make especially for the molds. I don't have the website here at work but I can link it when I get home if you like. The price is the same as dental plaster, maybe about $5 more but there is a huge difference in the lack of bubbling you get with the special made stuff. They have a link to the people on the Hirst Arts website. It's cool that the guy is just up the road in Columbia Missouri. When you order form the website call in your order and tell them you are in Arkansas and ask them to have it drop shipped to you because the plaster is made in Conway. Otherwise the plaster goes all the way to New Jersey and then comes back here.

I was buying the Dwarven Forge stuff but I had two problems with it. #1 was "Made in China" which I assume means Taiwan and the second was that you had to build the rooms for it instead of just plunking a room down on front of the players. It takes a while to build up the room and one wrong nudge will knock walls down. I've seen it happen. But with the Hirst Arts molds you can make entire rooms and just thunk them down. Now the downside to that is that you have to have a storage area for the rooms. But with a 4700 square foot area I believe some storage space can be set aside.

WildEyed: On a totally separate note; who did your website? We would love to hire them to work on ours. No kidding.

I'm actually a big fan of the Dwarven Forge stuff. While I acknowledge the problems of setup, those can be mitigated with proper planning. I was part of a successful Warhammer FRP game that used Dwarven Forge setups for many of the adventures. The GM simply set it all up ahead of time and covered it with a sheet, pulling back the sheet as we explored the area. Of course, for this to work the GM also has to be the host. It's a lot harder to use the stuff if you have to transport it. The main drawback is the cost, but for $1400 you could get a good selection

Big D and I worked on the website as a joint effort. I typically do design portions and big d makes sure its all working right. We are using the free forums as a basis. Let us know what you have in mind, and maybe we could work something out?

Fulminata wrote:

I'm actually a big fan of the Dwarven Forge stuff. While I acknowledge the problems of setup, those can be mitigated with proper planning. I was part of a successful Warhammer FRP game that used Dwarven Forge setups for many of the adventures. The GM simply set it all up ahead of time and covered it with a sheet, pulling back the sheet as we explored the area. Of course, for this to work the GM also has to be the host. It's a lot harder to use the stuff if you have to transport it. The main drawback is the cost, but for $1400 you could get a good selection

True, but my $1400 is the gift that keeps on giving.

And I love all the Egyptian stuff they have; DF doesn't have that.


But I certainly don't want to get into a flame war over DF and HA. I like DF; I just prefer the flexibility of the HA molds. And I have made a little money back building and selling a few sets of dungeons and a Wizard's House.

We did the same thing at my place once on the set up for the DF stuff. I spent a couple of hours building a dungeon and everybody came over and we had an "arena bounce" (old Cal-Tech D&D terminology) Everybody wrote up a 20th level 3.5 character with around 200,00 gp worth of stuff. We started in separate sections of the dungeon and headed towards each other with weapons out and spells ready. As the dungeon was explored different sheets of paper would come off each section. It was a riot but not something I really would want to repeat. I don't really like one-off games; I prefer a nice long campaign.

I'll get back with you on the web design, WildEyed. Thanks much!