10mm scale terrain guide.

OK. I promised that I had a source of cheap buildings to talk about you and was going to write an article there. The article is not done yet, but I have received an order of the stuff I was after and can confirm its quality as well as its price.
This article is for 10mm gaming which notably includes Dropzone Commander and MWA and/or Battletech at that scale.


The companies and ranges I am going to recommend are mostly Japanese, one is called Tomix the other Greenmax. Unlike other N scale Japanese railway kits these are at a decent price. Tomix, also known as Tomytec deals with cheaper pre-constructed buildings, example here:

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2035/3540571876_3633e89b7f.jpg?v=0

The building above is large, in scale and above all potentially very cheap.

Greenmax, which is the real prize deals entirely with plastic kit buildings. Their range is superb, and even cheaper. The plastic kits are the quality of what you would expect from a plastic model kit company and have sprues laden with bits.

http://www.greenmax.co.jp/Catalog/GMstract_2.shtml

Here is a link to the relevant page of the companies online catalogue. Now here is the problem, they only deal to Japanese toy shops and don't deal direct. So access is going to be difficult, thanks to Miguelsan on Dakka Dakka for some research into this. Two eBay webstore frequently get supply, neither have an off eBay presence (I asked). Search both under the words Tomix N gauge structure or Greenmax n gauge structure

ebay store: Hit-Japan
http://stores.ebay.co.uk/Hit-Japan-Video-Games-and-Anime

eBay store: Plaza Japan
http://myworld.ebay.com/plazajapan/


One could try this website that deals inside Japan
http://www.1999.co.jp/

Buying in the UK is difficult as the one or two sites selling include a HUGE markup. I am resorting to eBay shop Plaza Japan for now, it is not expensive, but stock levels are fluid. Much is missing.

Yanks have it easier
http://www.bttrains.com/categories/Japanese-Prototypes/Structures/

BTTrains is reasonably cheap as are Lees Trains

http://www.leestrains.com/N%20Bldg%20Accessories.htm

For those in the US I recommend BT trains or Lees Trains as a source, here is the relevant page for Greenmax items. Take especially note of items 34, 44, 46-4, 46-6 and 46-7. All of which are cheap have as many of six buildings in the set that are assembleable many aways and can be kitbashed for spares. There are numerous kitbashing threads for Greenmax model kits, mostly involving making skyscrapers out of them. We wont need stuff that tall but could certainly use the versatility.

As a bonus most of these kits are flat roofed or can be modeled with removable roofs. This mans that with a little simple interior detailing (mostly just a top floor made of plasticard one can stand miniatures on or in them. As they are Japanese kits you can make them more futuresque for the most part, some other buildings fit straight in as 'kurita style'. An exception being the factory I will review below, which pays back with its limitless versatility.


I held off my review of Greenmax stuff until I saw it for myself. I bought the factory as a starter and its every bit as impressive as I hoped it would be. I \m going to buy a whole lot more Greenmax kits especially:

34 Houses (6)


44 Apartment blocks (2)


I am reading so much on how both or those kits are kitbasher gold. Cheap numerous and stackable. Kit 44 especially can be assembled as large tower blocks real easy. More thasn enough to cover 6" height buildings with roof space to place stands of infantry. Not only are they big but you get multiple models in the set, score.

46-4, 46-6 and 46-7




46-6 and 46-7 are different kits but have the same instructions.

Very 'Kurita', but also with a little work quite futuristic.


Think about stacking these kits high or wide as you might a GW bastion. So by omitting internal dividers a two unit kit can be either joined together or doubled up and built twice as wide and deep with the same walls. As the buildings are sold in pairs or sets of four you can do this from a single kit. You can easily make up flat rooved high rise buildings for objectives with this, many kits include extra base elements so you can convert those into extra roofs to allow for the doubling up. the kits also include a large choice in roof edging and toppers so you will have more than enough stuff to trim the roof edges, provide ventilation units etc and still have room for stands of infantry.

I will leave you to search the rest for yourself.
There is too much there to show here. I will be producing an article including kitbashing guides (mostly taken from model railways sites), my own kitbashing attempts as they progress and a sourcing guide. 10mm gaming is going to be big thanks to Dropzone Commander and while Hawk Wargames Hawk Wargames are doing a fine job in providing accessibility for structures in scale I know we can take it to a whole new level with Greenmax and Tomix kits.

I will end here with a Tomix 'skyscraper' that is 25cm tall and pre-assembled prepainted as seen here yet selling for only £17 if you look carefully.




If like me you liked the container range from AT-43 as decent non nonsense plausible LOS blockers you might be happy to note that Tomix can provide a container park for you at a fairly reasonable price if you look carefully. When searching make sure you get plastic kits not cardboard cut outs, the difference in quality is enormous.

For example
http://www.newhallstation.com/store/product_info.php?products_id=548
Mentioned for the picture links, you can shave half that price off by shopping around elsewhere.

All told even with the discounts it is easy to sink a lot of money into 10mm scale terrain, but it is also possible to buy a lot of diverse and quality terrain items to fight your battles in around or over.

Enjoy

Now for the star of the show, for today at least.

THE FACTORY

I bought a copy of this and it arrived today. Images from net:


This little picture above fails to convery the awesomeness of this kit below.


This factory is BIG and stupid cheap. I paid less than £15 for it, and that was after translating the price from Yen to £ through Paypal.

Only buy the factory itself, model number 37. It includes all the other elements of the set, the factory, pipe farm extra bits and chimneys. I will however be iusing 37-x subkits to show you what is on the sprues.


Here is the chimney stack and bitz set. One of the chimneys is begging to be converted into an oil derrick objective (a way of having an out of the way, place anywhere objective which is small and a logical focal point for capture). The main chimney is not only awesome to place beside the main factory, it can kitbash into a fantastic looking cannon barrel for a Baneblade or an artillery installation.


Now this is a copy of 37 Set A. Now unlike the other sets where what you see you get in the main 37 set, you only get one sprue, exactly haldf of what you see below. So the shack is reduced to just a lean to to add to the factory. You do therefore gets plenty of industrial bitz, plastic building toppers, vats and barrels and an I beam loading rig.



The set includes this pipefarm:



I really like the pipefarm its gamer terrain gold.

Now the factory is fit to be an objective for MWA scale games straight off. Unlike Dropzone Commander a retro looking factory fits in with Battletech real easy, as it probably ten times as worthy as an objective, especially if playing in the 3025 or Dark Age era. However as an added bonus so long as you cover over or rescale the human sized doors there is little reason you could not scale up this factory for standard scale games of Battletech. Only now the factory is even bigger and more important and even more worthy of the batchalls you issue over it.

I am blown away by this kit. I suggest you buy one and blow away anyones mechs who dare get near it. Just a suggestion.

Kato was mentioned in the orginal thread on Dakka from which I condensed my article here, but not recommended for a reason, it is a quality manufacturer, but Tomix provides similiar quality for a significant price difference.

Greenmax produces only kits, Kato and Tomix both produce complete buildings.

For a competetive purchase review article I couldn't fully recommend Kato products, I recommend Kestrel, Greenmax and Tomix/Tomytec each for different reasons. Kato is good but overpriced.
Actually on reflection I know of at least one exception I found earlier.

Kato makes the cheapest power pylons. Added to either the Tomix or Greenmax power transformer station.

I have returned home from a long trip to open and take a long look at the second set of N scale buildings I bought.

I bought this:



The Tomix Condominium set is an excellent piece well worth the money.
Each storey is a seperate clip together layer with seperate windows and rear stairwell. This means that you can add or subtract storeys with a second set (one more storey is needed to reach the 6" mark (for Dropzone Commander tall building status). I don't advise that as the building has a clear flat roof and it is just not right for the rules to arbitrarily says its too high to fly up to. The Burj Khalifa it is not.

Anyway the plastic is unpainted, which is good because you can take the whole thing araprt and spray paint it befiore reattaching the windows. It will be easy also to make a ruine of the ground floor on the inside, make it come apart easier at that pojnt and thus have twom states for the building, whole or ruined, which is what i wanted to do to begin with, only now it no longer needs a saw.

The base said 140x140mm which was a bit much, but the rear parking is on a seperate stand so you can fit the condo onto a smaller space as the base its part detachable.

There is only enough room for two stands of DZC infantry, or three stands of MWA infantry, on the roof. You can fit more both on the roof and on the top balconies if the stands rest on the walls. A third infantry stand can fit reasonably enough over the siode room on the first floor 'balcony'. With a little bit of remodelling that area could be expanded to fit a base properly allowing a full squad to sit on top.

Tomix Condo set sells for about £15 on ebay.

Secondly I got this:



Greenmax No29 Station office kit.

This is a full plastic boxed kit on sprues etc. It has sheet plastic for glazing and has enough room up top for a whole platoon of defenders to be represented without having to place any inside or at the foot of the building. The open ground floor has two sets of stairs, one running into the bullding one running out of a whole at the back at platform level which will need to be covered in. Many kitbashes turn the ground floor into a mezzanine, there are lot of ways you can play with this.
Some people have stacked these kits to make skyscrapers, which will be easy to do.

As it stands the building is 4" high, excluding the ventilation units, repeating the central section will add another 2.5" to that easily bringing the building into the tall building classification for DZC if that is desired.

Because of the hole at the back there is some work to do to turn this kit from a station to a standard office building, but nothing difficult. A single piece of plastic will work, and as the ground floor is smooth untextured then any piece of plasticard will do. The hole is elevated half a story up so the platform access is halfway between the ground and first floor. It has a rim which make it convenient for filling with plasticard and furthermore allows the filled hole to be just right size to act as a billboard. All one needs to do is print off some suitable advertising and glue it on. With the molded on plastic rim it will look an intentional part of the original kit. Perhaps it is.

Here is what someone did with two of these kits:
www.quinntopia.com/2009/06/greenmax-29-x-2-58.html


So far Greenmax and Tomix have done nothing to disappoint, and the quality has exceeded expectations on inspection. My wholehearted recommendation for these kits continues.