Used this for a fantasy cops campaign, the PCs raiding the place with a squad of troopers - and a tavern filled with patrons both criminal and innocent.

A fun place for a battle.

This is an excellent model for any area that has been torn apart by the ravages of war - I intend to use it both for Mordheim and for my own setting, which is based on the Thirty Years War. It could serve equally well for a modern farmhouse.

Despite the gaping holes (easily large enough for an ogre to pass through) this is a sturdy model - I have placed three metal ogre miniatures on the second floor with no visible stress upon either the floor or the walls of the building.

The textures are very nice, with signs of both weathering and fire. The feel is not that of a recent fire, but rather of a building that was abandoned, either because it had burned, or had caught fire after being abandoned. Dave Graffam's use of layers on this model was extensive - there are a number of differing materials, from wood to half timber and stucco to brick two types of stone. I am not sure whether the use of textures will make multiple models dissimilar enough for use on the same tabletop, but if you don't mind some repetition then it will be no problem at all.

Good vantage points for marksmen, with decent cover for a few. All in all one of the best ruined building models I have encountered. Unlike many of Dave Graffam's models this building has a fully detailed interior. Five out of five stars for this model.

A very nice piece for wargaming - the gate makes a nice choke point. The North and West Gate models are very similar in construction, and work well together when flanking an enclosed or semi enclosed area, such as a marketplace. Because the two buildings are so similar I am going to review them together. (Both are also very similar to a model I built years ago using foamcore and spackle. I would be willing to bet that for the North Gate Dave Graffam used the exact same building for a model as the photograph I used as my model. It is a very nice building.)

The North Gate model would have benefited from the layers that Dave Graffam has used on other models - if I could do the whole thing in brick then I could use it for a manufactory in my steampunk setting. The textures are excellent, but the lack of layers limits the usefulness to from late mediaeval to Elizabethan settings. A good match for the Tudor buildings in this series. Since steampunk is still very much a niche market, I cannot really blame Mr. Graffam for not catering to my specific needs. Even so it has a somewhat industrial look, perhaps a workshop of some variety.

The West Gate model is much closer to the German market gate building that I used as a model - half timber and stucco construction, excellent for the Empire in Warhammer. I can picture it being one of the main routes into the marketplace, perhaps part of it serving to house the local city watch, who would stand in the gate to collect the entry fees and tolls.

Construction is simple - each of the buildings is essentially a series of boxes that glue to one another. There are no interiors, which limits use in roleplaying games, but are excellent for tabletop wargaming. Either model would look right at home in a game of Warhammer Fantasy Battle, for example. The resulting models are sturdy, and if an ogre could fit on the balcony I have no doubt that the building could support him, as it is, the balconies serve as good places to put marksmen, be they archers or handgunners.

I use several of Dave Graffam's models to flesh out a city by another company, with the gates straddling a canal in one case and a road in the other.

Because of the lack of interiors I am giving this model four stars, but if you do not need interiors then it would easily get a fifth star. (Call it four point five.)

I am fond of mills, their creaking, and groaning, even when the sails are at rest a mill is never silent. This is a nice model of one. A fairly quick and easy build, filling a niche that has been sadly neglected.

Both the outside and inside of the mill have been detailed, the mill would look at home in any place from the Netherlands to Rottingdean. The mill workings have been simplified, as they would pretty much have to be for tabletop use, leaving enough room inside for figures to be moved around. For my own use I intend to leave the stones out of three of the mills, and have them working pumps along a canal. My one request would b to have some alternate machinery, as it is designed the mill is a flour mill. (I wonder if my players will remember that flour mills, under certain circumstances, can go off like a stick of dynamite....)

I fully intend to scavenge parts from this building to use with other models, a very nice set. This model gives me hope of someday seeing a water driven mill.

The cottage is, well, it's a cottage. It could belong to the mill keeper, or to a farmer. Unlike the mill there is nothing really outstanding about it. Nothing wrong with it either, but the main focus of this set is most decidedly the mill. Given that the pictures shown of this set also focus on the mill, a doubt anybody would disagree. I think that the set is worth the price for the mill alone, so I can call the cottage a free bonus.

The Auld Grump

Hey, what can I say - it's good and it's free.

I used the tree and Jack O'Lanterns for my Hallowe'en game to good effect, and I can easily see uses for the cornfield in my more modern games as well as mediaeval fantasy.

The tree is probably the most useful item in the set, and certainly has the most presence. I am very happy with the set, and as a free download it is a very nice package indeed.

This was the second purchase that I made for my somewhat delayed Hallowe'en game, and like the first choice (Haunted Graveyard) they were an excellent choice, at an excellent price. Only one figure out of this set saw actual use, but I have o doubt that I will be using others when I am either running a kid's game or heading out to a convention.

One feature of cardstock minis that I forgot to mention in the previous review is that they can be folded flat (with the exception of the cart from Haunted Graveyard). And while these designs are rather stylized they are detailed on both side, rather than being one sided - making them much more attractive than some other standees that I have tried.

While they will not be replacing my traditional miniatures these served well in the role, and I will be picking up some more sets when I feel the need. They are very well done.

Okay, let me start off by saying that I generally do not use cardstock standees for my games - I enjoy painting miniatures, and like their weight in my hands. That said, I was running a somewhat late Hallowe'en game for some of my players' kids. From past experience with kids I decided that I would be better served if I really did not care overmuch what happened to the minis.

So I bought several of the One Monk Bundles (Haunted Graveyard, in this case), which would cover most of the NPCs needed for the game. One Monk also has some free samples that I could use to flesh out both the PCs and the remaining monsters. (In fact, it was the free examples that lured me into buying a few sets - not merely free samples they are very useful in their own rights - and he has a Cthulhu as one of the free downloads....)

They served very well in that role - I really can't complain, and the price was excellent. I will likely bring some of these along next time I run a game at a convention, having had minis disappear makes having these easily replaceable PDFs a very worthwhile investment. There was a decent variety of poses, lots of gravestones and statues, and grave robbers' the cart was a really nice touch.

So, while I still prefer me bits of lead, pewter, and plastic, these will definitely see use again, and I will be purchasing more sets to expand my selection. For the price they are an excellent addition to my library.

I am in the midst od creating a B5 campaign for a few months down the road, and this will be an almost perfect match for my intentions! The corridors and rooms are modular enough thath I can design some free standing 'sets' for the game, much like the sets on the soundstage of a TV show, swapping out props to use the set in multiple scenes to represent a number of different rooms and corridors.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Modularity and detail are incredible. The use of transparencies adds a great deal of verisimilitude, the addition of the expansion builds on this quite nicely.

Good for Star Wars, Star Trek, and (of course) Babylon 5. I can see this becoming integral to many campaigns.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: More! I want more! SOme things that I would consider essential do not appear to be in either this set or its expansion - in particular bunks for the crew, and proper quarters for the captain.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

This looks to be a very nice expansion on the rules given in Hot Pursuit. While I have not yet tried out the rules in Hot Pursuit: On Foot they look like they will handle the complications of foot chases quite handily, regardless of whether they are being used in D20, D20 Modern, or in my case OGL Steampunk. I was very pleased to see that it is much more printer friendly than was the first work in the series. (My biggest complaint about Hot Pursuit was the horrible ink guzzling color borders on every page. Otherwise it was and is a great book, one that I have used at least a dozen times in my game since I made the purchase.)

Rather than create new foot themed terms for manuevers On Foot uses the same terms that were used in Hot Pursuit, making it very easy to switch from one to the other rather than trying to remember which term goes with type of chase.

Like Hot Pursuit the writing is breezy, but while it does not take itself seriously it does a very good job of making the rules clear. In particular On Foot builds on the combat rules, in particular as pertains to melee combat, a much more likely event during a foot chase than between two vehicles (sword fights on flying carpets not withstanding).

Over all I am very happy with this purchase.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Fast and easy chase rules for any D20 type game, and compatibility with the first book means not having to switch gears after they bail out of their vehicles.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Like the first book there are no feats specific to chases, a decision that I can understand if not agree with. However it also fails to take into account the effects of existing feats on the rules, and this is a bit of a problem.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

The Monster Geographica series has become my second most used source for creatures in my game, just behind the Monster Manual. This is a supplement that is far more useful as a PDF than it would be in print - I can copy and paste to whatever I am working on, so I can use this with all my adventure writing tools.

Rather than pull out favorite creatures, this is a book of recycled monsters after all, I will comment on the format, which is the best that I have yet encountered for this type of work.

Thoroughly bookmarked, breakdown by CR, Type, and alphabetical order, it is easy to work out an encounter for any level adventure.

There are no illos beyond the covers and the splash page, and no statblocks for the creatures, but there are around 200 entries in the book, so it covers a lot of ground, err, muck and water.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The format is wonderful, having the works broken down by environment, and their contens broken down by CR is unbelievably useful!<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: No stat blocks. No SRD Creatures.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

A fast, furious, and simple way of running chases. I have only used it once so far, but it was a lot of fun, with players standing up and shouting at eachother in character as they tried to get away from the baddie. 'We need to split up!' 'WHAT?!! ARE YOU CRAZY!!!' 'Go ahead and split off, just don't expect us to come back for you!' and etc.

It was a lot of fun, and will see frequent use in the future.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Fast, and energetic, easy to run off the cuff, even by somebody who hates running off the cuff.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Not at all printer friendly, no feats for chases, nor how to impliment existing feats.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Very Satisfied<br>

I picked this up in the never ending quest to not accidently kill my player's characters. (Killing them on purpose is okay, killing them by accident is embarrassing.)

So far so good, I have statted up two creatures, run them through the spread sheet, and realized that using the creatures on the party at their current level will end in a TPK, so already this book has saved the lives of four heroic(?)adventurers!

It breaks down how to calculate the CR, and running a few Monster Manual creatures through shows that it comes within close range on most creatures. Dragons are a major exception, and guess what my two homebrew creatures were? Dragons in the Monster Manual are meant to be tough, so they drop the CR by a bit.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: Having a guide in the wilderness of CR Calculation is a big help, and will likely save the lives of the PCs more than once.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: The spreadsheet does have a bug or two, Natural Armor caps at 20, and I could not find a way to increase the die type for breath weapons.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

What can I say, this is a map of London in the 1860s. The map is public domain, provided in a useful format, and at a reasonable price.

Since I am running a game set in London of 1887 I cannot help but find it useful.

Hopefully Split Eye will come out with further period maps for Victorian London, I would love to see a black and white example as well.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: An attractive choice for a map. Worth getting as a decoration even if you do not use it in game.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: It is anything but printer friendly, there is no white space in the entire document.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Very Good<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>

Well, it had to happen sometime, this is the first Ronin Arts product to really disappoint me.

I had been hoping for letters that I could print out and hand to my players in game, but instead I will have to copy these to a word processor and change the fonts, one at a time. The value for money is also very poor at only 10 pages, one of which is the OGL.

Sadly, I cannot recommend this book.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: There are a fair number of decent plot hooks.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Presentation.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Disappointing<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Ripped Off<br>

For those who want a Gaelic theme in their games Ogham is a good supplement, adding a new form of magic item to the game and a secret language for the druids to exchange messages in.

Information about the historical ogham is provided, as well as game rules, and several characters have been added for sounds that occur in English but are not found in Gaelic.<br><br><b>LIKED</b>: The Bardic Knowledge DCs are something that I wish I saw more often in products, adding purpose to what can be an underused ability.<br><br><b>DISLIKED</b>: Not a problem for me, but narrowly focussed on Celtic themed games. I would also have liked to have seen some inscriptions using Ogham for use when in a hurry, to shw to the players when encountered. Then again, requiring the author to know Gaelic might be a tad unreasonable.<br><br><b>QUALITY</b>: Excellent<br><br><b>VALUE</b>: Satisfied<br>