Review copy courtesy of Black Scroll Games.
Pros
The art continues to be great. Really, it’s amazing what is able to be done here. I particularly like these sorts of sets due to my lack of drawing ability, and they always get a good reception.
Day and night tiles are provided as we’ve come to expect.
Printable and Virtual Table Top versions are ready out of the download.
Lines can be toggled in the PDF.
Many items are provided in the sets too. So we can further populate the maps we generate. The Docks and Canals set also has some boats. And open water tiles. So you could even build an open water map with it.
The whole series is incredibly complete with these tiles. Just about everything you could want to build a city or town is here. What’s left in that’s not covered now? Open forest? Though not in this series, Black Scroll Games has a set that can be used for underground dungeons.
Could Go Either Way
It’s still a matter of taste with the art. I absolutely adore this style still. And so do my players. I think many others will too. So take a look at some of the images to make sure it’s a good art style for you.
Some sets use PNG, some use JPG, and some use both for the Virtual Table Top (VTT) files. I’d ideally like one format throughout, and it’s a bit odd to have both formats in one set. But it’s not a big deal.
The items in some sets have small amounts of the background on them as a border. So the boats have a border of water. In some cases, it can be fairly large. This only affects Virtual Table Top (VTT) files, as the physical files can always be trimmed to a sharp edge.
Cons
Some tiles, such as the village set, lack empty building tiles. Ones that come to mind as very useful are the houses in particular. The sets also provide many items, so we could populate the interior ourselves if we had some empty building tiles.
The sets can be inconsistent in how the tiles are provided. Some have PDF files for day and night, as well as folders for the Virtual Table Top (VTT) day and night (Village and Docks and Canals). This is what I’d like to see. The Cemetery Set and Moats Set provided day and night folders for the VTT, but no separate PDF files for printing. In these cases, you can toggle them in Adobe Acrobat Reader as they are provided as layers. I just wish it was consistent, and my personal preference would be for all the sets to have separate files. That way different software, or even browsers, can be used.
* Denotes nitpicking.
Introduction
I reviewed the original release of tiles for Cities of the Black Scroll. But my work there isn’t done, as more sets in the series have come out. For the sake of brevity, and due to much overlap, I’ll be covering them here all at the same time. And put simply, I really like it. As a series I think the tiles are an amazing product, and I imagine the backers behind the Kickstarter are very happy right now. While my review is based on a review copy, I have used previous tiles from Black Scroll Games almost exclusively in my online D&D campaigns due to their appearance and convenience. And generally, these tiles continue to meet or exceed my expectations.
Four sets will be summarized here. They are: COTBS Cathedral Modular Map Tiles, COTBS Cemetery Modular Map Tiles, COTBS Docks and Canals Modular Map Tiles, and COTBS Moat Modular Map Tiles.
What’s In A Set
Sets are well organized. Inside there are draft tiles, which can be used to plan which tiles are needed for your designs. They are smaller than real tiles, and grey scale. So you save on ink. I’ve liked this feature since I first saw it, and I’m glad they continue doing this.
A PDF of basic instructions is included. They also detail what’s found inside, and often also include sample layouts using the tiles.
The tiles themselves are provided in PDF form, ready for printing. If you print regular sized paper, it will come out perfectly to scale. If you’re using Adobe Acrobat Reader, you can also toggle on and off the grid lines.
Finally, Virtual Table Top (VTT) files are also provided in PNG and JPG form within specially labeled folders. The delivery is nice, however, the mix of formats is a bit strange. Some sets have both formats mixed together. I’d ideally like one format used throughout, and that being PNG. I wonder if worries of file size occurred.
Files for outdoor tiles often also have day and night versions, for both printing and Virtual Table Top (VTT). These are provided for all the outdoor sets.
All in all, they are very complete sets. In fact, the most complete Virtual Table Top (VTT) and printable sets I’ve seen.
The Art
The art continues to be great. As far as tiles for Virtual Table Top (VTT), the sets are the most complete I’ve seen. The art style is also wonderful. If there are comparable sets in this area, tell me in the comments. I’d be happy to hear about them.
Historically, the lighting has been one of the big highlights for sets done by Black Scroll Games. The way it was shown flowing into rooms, as well as light from torches and light sources in the night tiles always looked great. What they’ve done before, but they’ve done gain with the outdoor sets, is night versions of the tiles. Given that I often run horror themed games, and Halloween is right around the corner, it’s a very nice feature. Don’t care? Don’t use the tiles. If you do, you can make day and night versions of the maps. And these maps live up to the quality Black Scroll Games have done in the past. They’re absolutely lovely.
What I felt was Missing
It’d be nice to see more items and props provided. The ones provided for the docks set is perfect. But I wish the village set in particular had more items. Chairs, tables, scarecrows, horses, plows. It’s a lot to ask, and probably unreasonable, but such would make the sets absolutely perfect. Though it could also make for a good prop set in the future on its own. And would be compatible with other maps.
The item tiles in themselves have small borders of background. So for example, the boat will have some water around the edge. These look amazing when placed on the board with no background, or to make it easy to see on a water tile. Some may not like this, and would prefer sharp edged items instead. There doesn’t appear to be an option for this without doing the trimming work yourself. This of course would only come up for Virtual Table Top (VTT) use as no-one can control how you cut out the items. An option could be provided here, but I’m also not sure it’s worth the trouble or extra download size for the set.
Consistency between the sets would be nice. This comes from the multiple file formats, but also from some sets using layers for day/night and others having separate files. Everything is there, and it’s mostly consistent. But a little more would help it be less confusing for customers.
Summary
All in all, these sets continue to be my favourites out there. Each new sets makes the system more complete, and the appearance and quality continues to be outstanding. I look forward to seeing more from Black Scroll Games, and I’m sure I’ll use these tiles often in the future. The only things I can think of is more items, particularly in the sets missing them. This would be more work, and the sets are already very complete and useful. And more consistency in file format and how the day/night tiles are accessed. This is quite minor. I continue to be impressed with what I’ve seen here. I’ve used these sets quite a bit already, and will continue to do so. My most used are the Docks and Village sets, as I feel they are the most plentiful. Maybe it says something about my campaigns that docks or boat rides happen so often. The boats and items provided in the Docks set in particular are useful just for naval campaigns.
