Craft Project: Stackable Terrain Hexes

For a while I've wanted my own set of stackable terrain hexes, like the ones in the now-discontinued Heroscape line. These can be useful not just for my own design purposes, but for any hex-based miniature or RPG system that involves the procedural generation of new terrain features. The ability to lay new terrain tile by tile is valuable for an exploration-based game, since it helps create that fog-of-war effect that makes 4x games like Civilization so addicting.

I have no idea how to make interlocking edges, but I think that the density of porcelain tile is sufficient to keep them from sliding around too much. I used this direct supply website (a bit nervously given the suspiciously low price!) and ended up with a decent collection of tiles. Then I printed terrain from the same default terrain set I used to create the map I posted previously, which is available with the free version of Hexographer. After cutting and pasting, this was the result:

Greek letters, since that's how I roll.

The green tiles are too dark for good contrast, but all the others look great. In hindsight, I should have used something less mountainous for the hills, but I'm too lazy to redo them all.

I've tossed on some star-shaped wood counters from Hobby Lobby, which I use to mark the locations of settlements, ruin sites, and encounters. The tiles are laid on a felt Hotz Mat, which does a good job of keeping the rough side of the tiles from sliding around. Another alternative, for a more portable map, would be to back the paper tiles themselves directly with more felt. Sort of like the old flannelgraphs from Sunday school, but with fewer apostles and more necromancers!