This update announces a revision to the delivery estimate of The Vault of Mini Things from late summer/early fall to fall/winter. It goes into the reasons behind the revision and in particular gives a look into the iterative engineering that’s gone into the vertical terrain elements of the Vault. No action is required.

When we launched this project we anticipated delivery in late summer/early fall of 2024. This estimate was based on our extensive experience making terrain and Marshall’s deep, existing catalog of minis. Today, we’re announcing that the delivery estimate is changing to late fall/winter 2024. To put an exact deadline on it: we’re targeting orders to be in the mail and on the way to customers by December 6–the first day of PAX Unplugged 2024. 

Three factors contributed to us not being able to hit the original delivery estimate:

Even with hundreds of minis art already “in the can” thanks to the Printable Heroes catalog, the Vault demanded the creation of hundreds more original works of art. Marshall has been making minis art for years and is quite fast considering each mini actually requires two pieces of art at minimum: the front, and the back. And Marshall being the creative illustrator that he is, his pen will often lead him into making variants of a mini. Say, different weapons, hair or armor styles, or a variety of fantasy races. Looking at what we already had and what we needed, we felt that we could hit the original estimate if Marshall’s output was augmented by an already-lined-up contractor artist. Unfortunately that contractor went through a major life event and was unable to contribute. It took several months to find and onboard a new artist. Fortunately this new artist, Jordan Kotzebue, is up and running and we are moving much faster now. Moving the delivery estimate gives us the time we need to complete the art lift.

The minis in the Vault (and Pouches of Mini Things) are packaged on sheets of die-cut cardstock. At first glance this seems simple enough: just print all the minis onto a sheet, make a die to cut (or rather, score-for-punching) that sheet, and off we go. However: each mini in the Vault has a unique silhouette / shape. And some minis will come in multiple quantities–enough so that you can field a raid of orcs, or a rattle of skeletons. Figuring out how to efficiently arrange as many minis as possible onto a sheet, and taking into consideration multiple quantities, for a product containing a thousand minis… that’s a task for a computer. Fortunately, the Tinkerhouse team includes a member who writes software tools for a living. Unfortunately, writing such a tool takes significant time, and can’t be fully tested until all art and design is finalized. 

Some of that art is the miniature art mentioned above. But some is art and design elements we’re developing to improve quality-of-life and user experience for you, the backer. For example, colored and numbered tabs to make both initial setup and daily play quicker and easier. Some of these quality of life elements were discovered as we iterated on production and amounted to time-consuming feature creep. But we strongly believe that they’ll result in a more positive user experience.  

Tinkerhouse has been making full-color chipboard wargaming terrain for many years, and we anticipated that the seemingly-simpler terrain for the Vault would be fairly quick & easy. This was not the case. The terrain in the Vault is meant to compliment the inherently 2-d nature of the Vault’s standee minis. This is conceptually and practically very different from the 3-d terrain we’d been building. Whereas Tinkerturf Terrain can feature robust, thick columns and supports Vault terrain must attempt to represent the maps found within RPG adventure modules–and those maps often don’t account for wall thickness or buttressing. We also had a product design goal/constraint of quick-and-easy setup, with no glue or “hobbying” required, while still being sturdy and strong. 

So we went through several rounds of engineering iteration, covered in the Terrain Engineering Overview section below.

The method Printable Heroes had been recommending for print-and-play walls, with thin printed walls permanently taped onto elongated hexagon bases, just wouldn’t work for the thicker cardstock we’re using in the Vault.
 

They’re too tippy, and the thickness of the bases would unpleasantly tilt any mini placed alongside a wall. We tried many different shapes and thicknesses for supporting walls from a flat base, and each had a flaw that negatively impacted setup and gameplay. So while small elements such as torches and treasure chests will be supported from the bottom, using the same base that the minis use, we had to come up with a different solution for larger elements like walls and big obstacles.

The traditional method for standing up a simple vertical terrain element is to use one or two notched cross-pieces. This is simple, intuitive, and quick to set up and take down. It’s what we settled on for supporting outdoor vertical terrain elements like rocks, trees, and fences–elements that will be placed with plenty of space between them, and lots of room for minis to maneuver around.
 

But cross-pieces don’t work in tight interior spaces, such as a dungeon environment. If a cross-piece extends even just one inch from a wall, this effectively creates a barrier all the way across a 10-foot wide (two 1-inch squares) corridor–and completely prevents setting up a narrow 5-foot wide (one 1 inch square) corridor. That limitation just isn’t feasible.

In the end we selected the same system of support used in home construction: we support a wall by attaching it to another wall. Two perpendicular linear elements joined together forms a sturdy structure. Since the actual use-case of our collection of walls and door frames is forming rooms and corridors, we figure we can safely assume that any wall or door frame will be joined to at least one other vertical element. Once we settled on that concept it took weeks to design, engineer, test, and select our solution for the method of connection: plastic compression-fit columns in a brick texture suitable for both dungeon and tudor village environments. They’re quick & easy to set up and take down, store compactly, don’t meaningfully protrude into the playspace, and look good. 

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While a delivery delay is not what any backer wants to hear, we hope that the quality (and quality of life) improvements will make the Vault much more enjoyable and user-friendly when it reaches your table. Thank you for your continued support of The Vault of Mini Things.

We'll conclude this update with two short gifs from Marshall showing a turnaround of a complete Vault mini with front-and-back art, insertable terrain pog, and custom base.