PnP Wiz-War - Part 1: Foam Core

One thing I have been meaning to do for awhile is make a Print and Play (PnP) version of Wiz-War. The most recent, and nicest looking, re-design of 5th edition I have found is Ilya's which is posted at BoardGameGeek.com. 5th seems to be the most popular version to PnP as it was the last iteration by Jolly Games. 6th and 7th are simply 5th with minor graphical updates. I have never done PnP before, and am not that good at crafts so making my own copy of a board game is going to be a challenge.

The first step was printing out all the boards, token, and other game pieces (excluding cards & rules) on full sheet labels. (Base game, 1st Expansion page 1, 2nd Expansion page 1, Community Expansion Part 1 pages 1-3, Auto-warps, Wizard HP) This allows you to just stick them to your backing without worrying about glue. It is really the simplest way to go about making pieces. The one catch with this game is the pages are formatted A4 which is slightly bigger than letter. Most stores only sell full sheet labels in letter size. My advice when printing is to choose the Actual Size option and just look at every page in the print preview to ensure nothing is being cut off.

A big recommendation I have seen when researching this topic is to use an ink affixative to preserve the printed images. Also it seems that ink jet printer's color can be faded by the sun, so needs UV protection. I used Krylon UV-Resistant Clear Coating Matte for this project. As of now I am still experimenting with it so not sure how necessary this step is, but will go over what I have done, will do and have learned.

I sprayed a few coats on the sheets before mounting them on my chosen backing. Then used another few coats once mounted and cut. This makes the pieces look nice, but they are grainy to the touch. Plus I found a fine white powder from handling them, which is a bit annoying. I think that I used too much on my first pieces and didn't give it enough time to dry before handling. I would spray VERY thin coats, you shouldn't see any wetness, and leave them to dry for a good few hours. Plus I would only do 3 coats or so. One before mounting and 2 after mounting.

For this project I choose 3/16" Black Foam Core for the mounting material on my boards, auto-warps and HP trackers. A large sheet of this will provide you with exactly enough space to mount these things. Before mounting I cut most of the white space off. This way the pieces didn't take as much room and I could save the tokens for another material.

Being the perfectionist that I am, I used a decoupage tool to ensure no air bubbles and a flat mount. It is probably overkill, but an option for those who must have it perfect.

Once mounted I used an exacto knife and metal ruler to cut through the foam core, using the nice registry lines Ilya included. This take about 4-5 passes per line to ensure a smooth cut. For the player boards and Wizard HP trackers the results are quite nice.

I am less impressed with the small warp markers and auto-warp markers. The foam core is hard to cut in a circle and doesn't like to be cut starting from an edge. Which makes it hard to cut small pieces and anything else fancy.

I also STRONGLY recommend that you have a vacuum on hand. Foam core is pretty messy and leaves lots of particles lying around, especially with the smaller pieces.

One last cool thing that I found is a storage case which holds all 8 boards and the auto-warp pieces perfectly.

As I complete more pieces of the game, I'll continue this series. Next up will be the massive number of tokens for this game.