TerraClips for Dungeons and Sewers

Over on The Miniatures Page, I was asked what we used for the sewer/dungeon in our "Wastes of Athkatlos" mini-campaign.

Some years ago, I picked a box of TerraClips "Sewers of Malifaux" by Wyrd Games. There's no link provided, because Wyrd Games have stopped production on TerraClips. I'm not terribly surprised.

Upon opening the box, I was underwhelmed. It seemed pretty obvious to me at the time that I was not going to be able to create the cover illustration, despite what Wyrd Games might have claimed.

Also, the box doesn't include the necessary clips. That was a Marketing stroke. Literally.

Here's a few reviews, addressing my complaints, taken from Amazon:

"Cheap cardboard, no connectors, 40$. You do the math."

"Seller was fine, the actual product is not. They don't tell you that you need multiple sets to make what is on the box art, or that just to utilize the tiles that come with it that you will need two sets of the connectors. The boards are nice-ish, but they get damaged by the connector far too easily, and there is not enough of the kind of tiles that you need, and more of the ones that no one is really going to use. I'm gonna save my money next time and just buy some random supplies and make my own terrain."

"It is utterly absurd that the clips are not included. It's beyond absurd. The company and all involved should be ashamed of themselves. They are called Terraclips and the buildings and structures come minus the clips. They actually have the nerve to print in tiny type on the box, "don't forget the clips." ugh! I'll go get the clips, but I don't have to like it. There is zero excuse. Nothing anyone could write or say could sway my opinion. The owner could send me a truck filled with clips and I'd still be annoyed they were not in the box."

So, small wonder Wyrd Games dropped this product - I'll wager the plastic clips were cost prohibitive.

Now, that said, the assembled tiles look pretty good, especially digitally. The look of most paper terrain is generally improved as a photo. I noticed this last year, for a Call of Cthulhu game - the results from the game pics looked pretty good.

1970s Investigators search a Haunted Cellar...from blog Tempests in a Teapot

In the photo above, the flooring itself was digitally scanned, printed, and fixed to foam board. The walls were cut with shears and glued in place. This was the first time I'd found a use for Terraclips - and, except for the central arch, mostly ignored the clips - so I had little regret in altering the basic build pieces.

Fast forward a year, and I was contemplating an introductory sewer-crawl for a new D&D campaign. Remembering there is a sewer channel printed on the reverse of the tiles, I was able to assemble a two-part sewer/dungeon. Furthermore, using printed floors on foam core/board, I could create rooms that could be dropped into gaps in the construction.

In fact, the ability to deploy multi-part "reveals" makes the Wyrd Sewer a bit more useful, and I un-ironically ordered a duplicate set from eBay, recently. (NB, I searched on multiple sites and couldn't find any of the clips, so there will probably be more scanning and fastening in the near future). 

Final rating?  Two Stars out of Five. If the reader is willing to do some DIY stuff, you can add a star...