The second release in the set, Cave Tiles: Set 1, takes the set in a dramatically different direction: underground. It's also a much more modular set of tiles, rather than one intended to depict a solitary, existing setting.
The Caves
The caves come as a set of seven 8x10.5" tiles. Unlike the previous set, you cut apart these tiles--the work of just a few minutes with some scissors. When you're done, you'll end up with 16 pieces: two large caves, four small caves, six passages, and four junctions.
When you put them together, the result is a set of very regular caverns that have clean, relatively straight passages between them. On the one hand, I think this loses some of the realism of a cavern system (which would be more likely to full of endless, winding passages). On the other hand, this makes the cavern tiles very practical to use (especially when compared with the one other set of Cavern Tiles that I've used, which I'll get to shortly).
To test these tiles out, I used them to depict a small cavern system beneath the Isle of Dread. I tried a really free-form approach where I threw the tiles down almost at random, then generated contents for each room. This worked quite well, and given that one of my main criteria for successful Dungeon Tiles is the ability to use them easily during gameplay, it won me over to the tiles.
The Components
As with the previous release in the series, this is an "erasable, modular mapping system". The caves are produced on good-quality clear plastic film that you can write on with either dry-erase or wet-erase markers. The tiles also have a foam backing, which keeps them from moving around once you place them on the table.
The artwork on the tiles is all computer generated and uses an isomorphic 3-D view. I don't find the results nearly as attractive as the previous Stone Bard Inn, largely because there's just not as much interesting stuff to show in a cavern system.
However, there's still some nice texturing and a few elements of interest, like fungus, stalagmites, and stones. More importantly, one of my players complimented the tiles as soon as I started placing them on the table.
Comparison & Conclusion
You can find an extensive comparison of the Art of Wor tile series with other tile systems on the market in my previous review. My general conclusion was that it was hard to argue against Wizard of the Coast's Dungeon Tiles for price and quality, but if you want to write on your maps--which you can't do with Wizards' offerings--than the 3 Sage tiles are a top contender.
However, for this new release, I actually think the Art of Wor tiles are better than Wizard's similar Dungeon Tile set, DT5: Lost Caverns of the Underdark. Though Wizards is able to use really high-quality materials and offer them for a low price, I find their cavern tiles much less usable, because they're more modular--which means that you have construct a room piece-by-room, carefully fitting walls and exits onto your cavern ... and that makes them just about unusable during real-time play.
Conversely, 3 Sages' tiles, though a bit more simplistic, are really easy to drop down during play, as I've mentioned already.
Overall, Cave Tiles: Set 1 uses the same attractive, erasable materials as the previous release in the series, but the caverns are much more rudimentary looking, thus I've given the set an average "3" out of "5" for Style.
Conversely, I find these tiles more usable than the original set, because of their more modular nature and the fact that they'll be easy to reuse in many different situations. Thus I've given them a "4" out of "5" for Substance.
