" If you can afford it you need it. "

      Title: Mage Knight Dungeons 3D by Wizkids

      Format: Miniatures gaming dungeon tool

      Reviewing Monkey: Dungapult

      The Hype: There have been a number of three dimensional dungeons produced over the last decade but most have been very limited in scope and form. Wizkids heads out with their Mage Knight Dungeons 3D in hopes that they can draw you in to some intense corridor combat and enhance your Mage Knight play.

      What This Monkey Thought...

      Sculpting and Paintability: The Dungeons 3D line is composed of a number of features that include flooring squares, interior (or exterior) walls, multiple types of doors, and traps. While only the traps are really highly detailed (and gorgeous) and most strongly resemble their miniatures counterparts, even the floor and walls are nicely molded and really have a genuine dungeon feel to them. And while that may sound silly to say, it only takes one game on one of the nasty cardboard dungeon sets out there to really appreciate the play-value of a nicely modeled molded plastic one. Each wall piece is composed of textured stone, the floor is carved, and the traps and columns, as mentioned before, are really something to see and their easy to use snap-together fittings make dungeon layouts easy and heavily customizable. 4 out of 5

      Usefulness: Dungeon 3D is designed for use as either a combat environment for your Mage Knight battles or as an adventure setting and so has a number of potential uses in your MK games. If all you want is a battlefield, ignore the traps and create open rooms and antechambers to duke it out in. This really accomplishes two things that are worth noting: it gives you a much prettier field to wage war on (if you, like me, have been playing Mage Knight using salt shakers and empty Coke cans as scenery) and it also provides even spaced squares if you want to put the ruler away. All good. As an adventure setting there are a number of traps and items that can be spaced throughout the dungeon and works great as a single player or scenario played series of events. The traps, definitely worth noting, are composed of squares with a click dial resting in the middle. When a character encounters the trap a reader card with red cellophane is put over the trap and the trap's effect is revealed to the player controlling the character. Sometimes this is an attack, sometimes it's goodies, but it's always random and is a great way to break up the potential monotony of battle after battle.
          It's also worth noting that after our initial review play one Friday I left our set up dungeon sitting in the office and returned Monday morning to find several of the other monkeys playing another miniatures game in it. They, in turn, were surprised to find that the dungeon was actually designed for play with a specific game and quickly pointed out that it works great for just about any other strategy game out there. The scale and random setup work perfect for just about any miniatures game you can imagine and we have sense had fun playing all manner of table top and roleplaying games using it. Very good stuff. 5 out of 5

      Value vs. Cost: The good news is that Dungeon 3D is durable, nicely molded, and usable with any and all mini games you're likely to play (of course Mage Knight especially). The bad is that it ain't cheap and runs about 30 bucks for the starter interior (36 floor squares, 24 walls, and 8 doors) and another $20 for 8 traps. That means your in a good 50+ to get a full on dungeon running and will likely need floor boosters on top of that to make anything impressive (another $12)…but if you're going to keep playing with your little people for a long time it's probably worth picking up. 3 out of 5

      The Verdict:

As a Mage Knight player it's always nice to get new traps, rules, and scenery to use in my regular games. As a miniatures gamer in general, it's wonderful to have a nice stock of easy to assemble and highly customizable dungeon terrain. Add it all up and you have one very happy tunnel dwelling monkey. Ya dig?

      The Good: A fantastic variable design dungeon accessory…

      The Bad: That's a bit on the expensive side.

      The Overall Ugly: If you can afford it you need it.

      What it's Worth: Market…but boy I'd like to find it on sale.