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I am thinking about designing modular city terrain for my 6x4 gaming board for use with 40K miniatures. I like the concept of a dense downtown city in ruins divided into blocks by roads. I also like the concept of tanks and transports weaving their way through the streets of a city and having to fend off ambushes. I’ve seen a lot of very dense and amazing terrain in WD and wanted to experience something like that myself but have the ability to change the whole thing up every game. My plan is to make tiles that will represent city blocks and build the ruins on them. So when its time to play a game we just put the pieces on the board so they fit and we have a unique city to fight on. I plan on building ruins on most of the pieces but a few will be open areas like a park with trees, a parking lot, or a collapsed building with a lot of rubble.

Initially I thought of doing it in 1’x1’ tiles. Thus, I could make 24 (or more) individual pieces and place them on the board in any order to make a new battlefield every time. But I then started thinking about the roads. Because it would be a hassle to use tanks (which my opponents and I use a lot of) without roads I decided that each block must have a road around it so when its placed on the board there is sufficient room for a landraider to navigate the battlefield. I believe the widest vehicle in 40K is a landraider, which measures about 5 ½ inches wide, so the roads would need to be 6” wide. If I put a 3” road around each tile then when all of the tiles are put together on the board they’d make a 6” road around every block.
When I drew the 1’x1’ tile out in Visio I realized that the 1’x1’ tile with a 3”road around it would only leave a 6” square in the middle. It would make my city mostly a bunch of roads with a small ruin here and there. So I decided to play around with road placement and tile sizes. Pictured below in Figure 1 are the different sizes I came up with:

Figure 1: Tiles Sizes Chart


Figure 2 shows what the battlefield would look like if I were to only use Tile A. A board full of Tile A would be a lot of roads and very little ruins. Not what I was going for, but I think that Tile A could be used in conjunction with 1’x2’ size tiles. The only good thing about this is you can just place the tiles in any order and the roads will match up correctly. I added ten 25mm circles in black to represent a typical squad on infantry into each Figure.

Figure 2: 1’x1’ Tiles With Road on All Edges


Figure 3 is an example of a board comprised of all Tile B. Because I only have the road on two edges I have a 9”x9” spot to place more terrain/bigger ruins. But you are limited on how you can place each tile as you must make sure that there is always a 6” road around it.

Figure 3: 1’x1’ Tiles With 9” Center.


Tile C in Figure 4 is comprised of long narrow blocks. The problem is you just can’ haphazardly place the tiles out there as they may not fit on the board correctly. So some planning of tile placement is required.

Figure 4: 1’x2’ Tiles With Road on All Edges


Figure 5 uses Tile D, which is really a combination of two B Tiles. Less variety but less tiles to worry about making it easier to place them correctly.Placement is still important to make sure they fit on the board and still form 6” roads.

Figure 5: 1’x2’ Tiles with 9” Center


Figure 6 uses Tile E is a 2’x2’ tile which makes board setup very easy but very little variety at all. Also, the tiles would be huge and very difficult to store and transport.

Figure 6: 2’x2’ Tiles


Figures 7-9 are Hybrids. Using two or more size tiles to give a little variety but will make constructing a viable 6’x4’ board a challenge.
Figures 7 uses Tiles A and D to make some different designs. I did break the 6” road rule but figure a narrow alley wouldn’t be that much of a big deal.

Figure 7: 1’x1’ and 1’x2’ Hybrid


Figure 8 uses Tile A and C to great effect. Gives it some variety but does provide a lot of openings for long range shooting. It also guarantees 6” roads everywhere.

Figure 8: 1’x1’ and 1’x2’ Centered Hybrid


Figure 9 uses 3 different tile sizes (Tiles A, C, and E) but offers the widest variety of possibilities. The 2’x2’ tiles allow me to make big center pieces of terrain if I want, but the flexibility to use smaller pieces elsewhere.

Figure 9: 1’x1’, 1’x2’, and 2’x2’ Hybrid


Now that I’ve shown my plans for building module city terrain and shared my problems and goals I’d like to hear C&C from those who have experience with this kinda thing. Or those who have any other good ideas I might try. This is just the concept phase to see if its worth trying and what direction I should go. The next step of planning the terrain pieces and deciding what material to use will be discussed in a later thread. And if you read down to here, thank you in advance.

It is a cool idea. But is it any better than just creating a bunch of individual buildings and terrain pieces and just placing them where ever you want on a flat board? The tiles would seem to limit the flexibility of your board.

I do like how you put the roads around each piece. It would really create a dense urban feel. I would say that figure 9 is the best layout.

Just a heads up: Secret Weapon is doing exactly this (or at least one of their boards is urban streets) on their Kickstarter:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/518451.page

This can be a source of inspiration, or if you're willing to shell out money in exchange for not doing it on your own, then this is the way to go.

 Depraved wrote:
It is a cool idea. But is it any better than just creating a bunch of individual buildings and terrain pieces and just placing them where ever you want on a flat board? The tiles would seem to limit the flexibility of your board.

I do like how you put the roads around each piece. It would really create a dense urban feel. I would say that figure 9 is the best layout.

I put terrain all over a flat board now but I wanted to add a real city feel to my games. Dense buildings but terrain that I can re-arrange for a different battle each time. If it works out well I will add different terrain tiles to the collection. Like trenches, hills, fields, and such.

 heartserenade wrote:
Just a heads up: Secret Weapon is doing exactly this (or at least one of their boards is urban streets) on their Kickstarter:

http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/518451.page

This can be a source of inspiration, or if you're willing to shell out money in exchange for not doing it on your own, then this is the way to go.

Yeah, I've seen that. but I don't want to spend that much money for a flat gaming board. I could just put a piece of felt across my table. I want modular terrain, not just a board. My terrain pieces are gonna have ruins and other stuff on it. A real downtown of a city.

It's a good idea, but not particularly new. I've seen many people do this kind of thing before.

The issues which crop up are the same kind for any terrain project:
1) You get yourself a much of modularity, but how many combinations actually make for a viable game?

2) Lots of 1'x1' boards with built in terrain can get problematic to store. This might seem like a minor nitpick, but do the math. Lets say each board is 3" tall - which is very conservative if you want a 'dense urban environment' where buildings are 3" tall per floor - you're taking up 6 cubic feet of space for your minimum amount of tiles. That's 3 plastic storage tubs at least, assuming you can actually fit everything in there. If you're putting 2 or 3 story buildings, you could be looking at 6 tubs for your 6'x4' board.

3) You might end up with too much terrain. If every single one of those boards is has ruins on it, that becomes too much terrain to play 40k effectively. Remember the recommended terrain density is ~25%, and everything except the A tile exceeds that. At the very least, you would need to have a few of the tiles be open areas - plazas or gardens or whatever.

4) Is it really better than if you built the same 'terrain' bits (the white squares in your diagrams) without the roads surrounding them? Could you build the terrain without the roads and put it on a road-coloured baseboard?

Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea and I've seen it done very very well before. But realise the tradeoffs you are making. Terrain is a compromise between Modularity, Price, Durability, Storage, Playability and Realism. Work out where your terrain will fit on all of these aspects and see how that fares compared to just building 6x4' of ruins without the boards.

Trasvi wrote:
It's a good idea, but not particularly new. I've seen many people do this kind of thing before.

I'd really like to see the results if there are any out there. Can you point me to any examples?

Trasvi wrote:

The issues which crop up are the same kind for any terrain project:
1) You get yourself a much of modularity, but how many combinations actually make for a viable game?

Each piece is gonna be different. Some would be tall buildings, some would be short buildings, one or two were just gonna be rubble. I have an idea for a park, a parking lot, and a monument with a bunch of statues and even thought about doing a small pond. Was gonna make 1 as a trench.

Trasvi wrote:

2) Lots of 1'x1' boards with built in terrain can get problematic to store. This might seem like a minor nitpick, but do the math. Lets say each board is 3" tall - which is very conservative if you want a 'dense urban environment' where buildings are 3" tall per floor - you're taking up 6 cubic feet of space for your minimum amount of tiles. That's 3 plastic storage tubs at least, assuming you can actually fit everything in there. If you're putting 2 or 3 story buildings, you could be looking at 6 tubs for your 6'x4' board.

Yeah, it will take up a lot of space, but I got room in the garage and my office.

Trasvi wrote:

3) You might end up with too much terrain. If every single one of those boards is has ruins on it, that becomes too much terrain to play 40k effectively. Remember the recommended terrain density is ~25%, and everything except the A tile exceeds that. At the very least, you would need to have a few of the tiles be open areas - plazas or gardens or whatever.

Recommended is 25%, but I want to make a real city fight. Not just tossing several buildings on the board but a dense city with streets and city blocks. I know this would work against my Tau army, but I think it would add some flavor to the game. And not every block will be a building/ruin.

Trasvi wrote:
4) Is it really better than if you built the same 'terrain' bits (the white squares in your diagrams) without the roads surrounding them? Could you build the terrain without the roads and put it on a road-coloured baseboard?

I thought of that but I still want to add the roads to the tiles. I was thinking of using a roll of cork with it ripped up in places to give it the feel of a road that has seen better days.

Trasvi wrote:

Don't get me wrong, it's a cool idea and I've seen it done very very well before. But realise the tradeoffs you are making. Terrain is a compromise between Modularity, Price, Durability, Storage, Playability and Realism. Work out where your terrain will fit on all of these aspects and see how that fares compared to just building 6x4' of ruins without the boards.

I'd really like to see examples of it done cause I'm just in the planning stages right now. Part of the fun of doing this is the planning and designing of it. I always wanted to be an architect but I'm an idiot when it comes to math and joined the Marines instead.

If you remember back to 3rd ed, there was a special set of rules for playing on a board that dense with terrain. It has a big impact on the game dynamic. You essentially have to tailor army lists to deal with the restricted lines of sight and the fact that everything is getting a cover save pretty much all the time. The overall result is that the terrain becomes the dominant factor in the game and tactics are secondary at best. If you're not tooled up for a close in fight, there's not a lot you can do against an army that is.

I'll give you that a fully tooled up cityscape looks impressive and makes for cool pictures for a Codex or rulle book but it is a really un-fun board to play on all the time. Every once in awhile, maybe just to do something different but variety is the spice of life. Even with a different pattern of buildings, the fact that there is so much dense terrain on the board means that the game will lack variety.

If it becomes too tedious to play then I'll use less pieces.

I did terrain tiles for a cityscape when my group was playing pulp city. some tips.

Roads on the terrain tile looks goofy if you just want to throw down a few buildings.
roads for one scale make problems for other scale games (if you play them, we did)

I made terrain tiles 12inch x12 inch and 6x12 road tiles were 6x12 or 6x6 inch
most tiles had sidewalk on one or 2 edges so it could section off park tiles or make foot traffic only sections if you put 2 together.

here is an older video of most of my terrain table.

I think 7 - 9 are the best ones. I know I would enjoy playing some games on them. It sounds like you are your friends are just doing friendly games, so if you bend some rules then no big deal, its not a tournament game.

The worst that happens is you and your friends have to play Tetris before you start your 40k game.

I like Figure 7 the best. Alleys are very cool because only smaller vehicles and infantry can use them. Would definitely add some "Tile B" tiles to the Figure 7 mix.

Built this modular system for large Armorcast demo games. City blocks are 18"x24" x 1/4" plexiglas with 1/2" x 1/2" grid plasticard for sidewalks. Roads are 1/8" x 5" wide expanded ABS. It needed to be very transportable (local cons, GenCon, Origins), so nothing was permanently attached to the boards except the sidewalks.

Wow that takes me back... I had one of those armorcast baneblades. Those pictures are kinda what my goal will look like. City blocks but oper areas with parks and sparse terrain and the ocasional tile with just rubble.

 Depraved wrote:
It is a cool idea. But is it any better than just creating a bunch of individual buildings and terrain pieces and just placing them where ever you want on a flat board? The tiles would seem to limit the flexibility of your board.

I do like how you put the roads around each piece. It would really create a dense urban feel. I would say that figure 9 is the best layout.

Technically yes...and no. His idea will allow him to incorporate more detail at the base of the building making it more realistic. It just looks...so much cooler than putting down pieces on a felt/cloth or even textured game board. I see people make these awesome game tables, but to get the same effect you either have only one or two because that's all your wife will allow, or you need a warehouse to store them all. Small modular tiles let's you get the detailed, unified look with the flexibility of having a different layout every time you play.

Here's my setup: Ok, so I have a bunch of 12"x12" and 6"x6" sheets of parquay (sp?) flooring tiles. They're about as thick as MDF board and they've been donated to the cause by both the former owner of my house, and fellow gamers. The cool thing is they're all slotted to fit together. If I want a bigger piece, I glue a couple together. The only downside is you have to either sand them or heavily texture them, which is ok since I want a ruined cityscape with piles of rubble everywhere. Permanently affixing the buildings to the bases does require a slight bit more storage room, but what you can do with the bombed out rubble look as opposed to removable buildings is totally worth it.

I have found that having roads be separate tiles is the way to go. Incorporating roads into the building tiles leads to problematic mis-match arraingements if you're not careful and you can wind up stuck with a layout that's too static to include "specialty" tiles which don't necessarily conform aethetically with half a road right next to them.

For a perhaps better way to do the roads, see this kickstarter (and the thread in the news section).

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1084069684/tablescapes-by-secret-weapon-miniatures?

basically, the roads in the middle of tiles, not on the edges...

best of luck!

Also:

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1744629938/deadzone-the-sci-fi-miniatures-board-game/posts/475246?ref=activity

Modular buildings!

I am all over kickstarter and have seen these projects but Deadzones' buildings are not what I'm going for and they're expensive.

Secret Weapon's road system takes up 1', that's too much road and not enough buildings. They would also be expensive and to make 1'x2' and 2'x2' boards I'd have to glue the boards together.

@timid

Holy ****. Are all the floor levels of those buildings removable? It appears there are units in random floors! how the hell do they get there! I presume the roofs are at least removable by grabbing the exhaust vent or whatever, but curious if each floor is done this way or what!

Thanks!

Sounds awesome.

Here is some inspiration

Consider me inspired...

skyfi wrote:
@timid

Holy ****. Are all the floor levels of those buildings removable? It appears there are units in random floors! how the hell do they get there! I presume the roofs are at least removable by grabbing the exhaust vent or whatever, but curious if each floor is done this way or what!

Thanks!

Yes, all of the floor levels are accessible. This was the whole point of the design. There are base level buildings and upper story modules in quite a few sizes. The roof of each two story module is removable, allowing access to the fixed-in-place middle floor. To put figs on the bottom floor of each module, just lift up the building, place figs and put the building back in place.

Upper stories have pegs at each corner to locate them on the story below. The stepped upper stories were made by combining walls from the base modules and upper story modules in the same building. Somewhere I have pics of a 20 story building made with a bunch of the pieces in the photos.

Pics of all the sizes on the Armorcast web site:
http://armorcast.com/store/index.php?cPath=122_46&osCsid=4b4e0bc9ffd052e6f5e9177ffcd53faa

Tim

My thoughts, since I'm planning on doing something similar, I'm building the tilse with "foundations" of various sizes, and magnetizing the buildings to fit the bases, that wat I can store the tiles flat under my table's drawers and the buildings, witch can then be used for either cityfight or regular terrain, sit on top of the drawers. Once I finish a few of the tiles I'm working on I'll post pics so you can get a good idea of what I'm talking about.

Well color me inspired.

I'm going to try your #9 style of boards for our club. I should be able to knock them out in a couple of weeks after school ends. I'll post some pics when I'm done.

Thanks for the idea.

saw this on TMP & thought you might find it useful:
http://theminiaturespage.com/news/?id=1694940681

Here is what I did with your #9 pattern. I think it turned out okay, it's not painted yet so you'll have to forgive that portion. Also the garage was moved around to accommodate the table so there you go. Anyway here are the modular parts to my city.

Nice looking city so far. Can't wait to see how it looks completed.

Please do not use card board for your bases. It will ward badly over time and when you apply paint to it. I don't think that you would like to replace all the bases after the amount of work you're putting into it.

MDF board or any hard thin wood would work great. About a 1/8th should be fine.

Yeah, I noticed that after painting the park. I got some eighth inch Masonite and stuck it on the bottom thinking that would straighten it out, no luck. I may have to use quarter inch mdf, I didn't want to because of the weight but, I might not have a choice. If I paint the bottoms of he cardboard it should bow back right?

It should, yes.

What glue did you use to attach the mdf to your tiles with?

PVA will also result in warping due to the shrinkage as it cures.
A non-shrinking adhesive is often better for this purpose.

I'm using a non-shrink silicone adhesive (sikaflex) to stick my cork tiles down to 3mm mdf. It doesn't shrink/warp as it sets and will stick most things to most other things. I got the tip from a builder.

I used a wood glue to stick the cardboard to the masonite.

I was able to unwarp the cardboard by painting both sides. When I stuck my 1 x 1's and 1 x 2's down they stayed nice and flat. My 2 x 2's though did curl up a little bit. I'm thinking of putting grooves into the masonite so the weight of it will make it fold back down.

Anyway here are some pictures of my finished (for the most part) city terrain, complete with propaganda posters and chaos graffiti.