Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

So I have:
-- 2 full Imperial Sectors
-- 1 Sanctum Imperialis
-- 2 Shrines of the Aquila
-- 1 Fortress of Redemption
-- 2 Death Company Statues
-- some miscellaneous Mantic Battlezones sprues
-- lots of other little misc pieces mostly from GW sets

I love Cities of Death games (obviously!) ...but I think I can adequately build enough buildings for CoD and still make something Epic and unique with what's left... I'm looking for any and all ideas, picture references would be fantastic!


Thanks...

I see a few people building chapel's / monasteries with the parts left over, I found some really creative ideas just viewing the setups that Warhammer World have built. I saw someone using the Shrine of the Aquila eagle and two un damaged panels as sloped roofing which looked pretty cool!

I don't have any pictures of my own but I found this, could give some kind of ideas.

https://c1.staticflickr.com/9/8459/8031397290_d14aed999f_b.jpg (not my work)

Chapel would be easy.

make a mega chapel that is like 3 by 4 feet.

with multiple heights and rooms. make the roof come off so you can fully play with in it.
(maybe make some of the side panels go with it to for the sake of play.) and magnetize that bitch.

maybe something like this?

http://m.imgur.com/gallery/d1NFB7G

I also think some really cool mega-structures should be done - but focus on different levels if you can. You can later on add some gantries, walkways, skypads, etc connecting it all. Just stack buildings and have some AWESOME battles with different levels for real atmosphere. Really get that jam-packed hive, overdeveloped, labyrinthine, hyperurban sci-fi theme of 40K happening.

A 40K version of The Alamo?

combine it all together into a Warlord Titan.

 MechaEmperor7000 wrote:
combine it all together into a Warlord Titan.

Don't think small!, make an Imperator Titan! Or make a gaming table that is a horizontal crashed wreck of an Imperator Titan with the 'city' section at 45 degrees to the table... Then you can have a complete nightmare trying to move your models through it.

I've thought this out.
MASSIVE buildings aren't all that playable.
If intact they just block off large areas of the table for vehicles and make you question why the Russ can't just blow holes in the walls. Then they can either be occupied, becoming a huge rhino, or cannot be occupied, leaving you with a large cubish hill.

There's only so high an infantry model can move per game to take advantage of height: 6D6 + (6D6-12) leaving you with lots of space unused.

What would work well is some reasonably sized intact buildings with decorative towers/skyscrapers on top- smaller footprint towers that let models be placed on the 'real' building. These towers can stretch as high as you like- they're not for models to occupy, just to show the massive scale of imp. architecture.

The other thing to do is have gantries running from building to building. You use all of your balustrades and floors for this- the ones you would have put inside the intact buildings. You can also use the aquila buttresses to form end points that look like bridge supports. Magnetise the ends and appropriate areas of the buildings so it all stays modular and easy to pack away.

 Adamski Alders wrote:
A 40K version of The Alamo?

If OP considers this here is the map back during 1836. That would look pretty awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 =Angel= wrote:
I've thought this out.
MASSIVE buildings aren't all that playable.
If intact they just block off large areas of the table for vehicles and make you question why the Russ can't just blow holes in the walls. Then they can either be occupied, becoming a huge rhino, or cannot be occupied, leaving you with a large cubish hill.

There's only so high an infantry model can move per game to take advantage of height: 6D6 + (6D6-12) leaving you with lots of space unused.

What would work well is some reasonably sized intact buildings with decorative towers/skyscrapers on top- smaller footprint towers that let models be placed on the 'real' building. These towers can stretch as high as you like- they're not for models to occupy, just to show the massive scale of imp. architecture.

The other thing to do is have gantries running from building to building. You use all of your balustrades and floors for this- the ones you would have put inside the intact buildings. You can also use the aquila buttresses to form end points that look like bridge supports. Magnetise the ends and appropriate areas of the buildings so it all stays modular and easy to pack away.

Massive buildings could technically work.

The way I would do it with my hobby group (This is a house rule for us)

Elevators are available, you roll a d6. On a 4+, the elevator works and does work for the rest of the game (pretty much the test is done when declared that they want to move up a floor and you have a marker for working elevator)
On a 1-3 roll, it doesn't work and they have to find another route to get up there.

In a normal game, no starting on the higher levels of course. If it's objective based like "Kill this guy!" (again just examples here), then the team that starts on the level chooses what elevator works that cannot be the closest one.

Again though, just how we would do it. Another idea is, lets say a team that has the capability to have a tech-priest or some sort of mechanic. If the elevator is broken, the engineer can attempt to fix it but if they fail their roll, elevator is broken for the rest of the game.

Another thing to consider is...

Zone Mortalis.

My GW once built a board out of 40k terrain and it was awesome.

Another cool thing you can do, and im looking at buying the stuff needed to do this my self.

Is get a bunch of polystyrene sheets, and make a large block out of it, then carve away edges to make a large rock formation, and then use the parts of the building to make it looks like a massive fortress monastery built into the rock face. can make a really cool SM fortress outta it.

 =Angel= wrote:
I've thought this out.
MASSIVE buildings aren't all that playable.
If intact they just block off large areas of the table for vehicles and make you question why the Russ can't just blow holes in the walls. Then they can either be occupied, becoming a huge rhino, or cannot be occupied, leaving you with a large cubish hill.

There's only so high an infantry model can move per game to take advantage of height: 6D6 + (6D6-12) leaving you with lots of space unused.

This is partly due to rules design, but mostly due to the compressed scale to which wargamers have become so thoroughly accustomed. A building that would be huge in 'real life' should take up most or all of the table. By infantry model scale, even a modest modern office building would have a footprint that would cut the table in half, at bare minimum. With enough concessions to the rules, a visually 'decompressed' (i.e. even vaguely realistically scaled) space can be made to work... but it's a tough balancing act.


To the OP: I'd suggest building your city on modular tiles, then build a few extra building tiles. Vary the shapes/sizes/levels of cover, so you can significantly change the battlefield each time you play. THEN, and only then, take stock of what you have left. No sense planning for what to do with the leftovers when you don't even know what they'll be, yet. Not an answer to your question, but it's my response, nonetheless!

Wow thanks guys great response. I'll admit when I bought the 2 Death Company statues I was thinking of some sort of Blood Angels fortress but I didn't have any specific plans or ideas.

I agree that a huge building might not be very playable, which I'll probably avoid then but I want something 'epic' - and playable.

My group plays ruins terrain, and their base/footprint as "area terrain" but I'm thinking from here on I might not base any of these, though I could be swayed either way.

Yeah, definitely go modular. E.g. six buildings which fit together in multiple ways is so much better than one giant unchangeable building. (Also makes storage and transport much easier.) Consider going modular with height too, e.g. with removable two-level sections.

Honestly would be cooler to see a bunch of not ruined buildings for a change.

one that doesn't cater to foot in grass MCs

 Gunzhard wrote:
I agree that a huge building might not be very playable, which I'll probably avoid then but I want something 'epic' - and playable.

What is more important to you/your group, then? Epic looking battles on interesting terrain or competitive, balanced, rules-centric terrain? Both have merits, but until you distill your needs and wants to that level, it will be hard to plan anything that satisfies either criterion to any meaningful degree.

To bring this back from the vaguely metaphysical to the fully practical/experiential... I plan and plan and plan. I build very little. It's less than satisfying. Just get building and see where it takes you. Tack things together with poster putty, if you're unsure. JUST GET BUILDING. Things tend to fall into place, from there.

 oadie wrote:
What is more important to you/your group, then? Epic looking battles on interesting terrain or competitive, balanced, rules-centric terrain? Both have merits, but until you distill your needs and wants to that level, it will be hard to plan anything that satisfies either criterion to any meaningful degree.

To bring this back from the vaguely metaphysical to the fully practical/experiential... I plan and plan and plan. I build very little. It's less than satisfying. Just get building and see where it takes you. Tack things together with poster putty, if you're unsure. JUST GET BUILDING. Things tend to fall into place, from there.

Good advice.
It's important to note that the way buildings are handled has changed dramatically since 3rd ed.
In codex cityfight, you couldn't see through more than 6 inches of area terrain buildings and conversely, could see through 6 inches, regardless of LOS. This allowed lots of freedom in how buildings were represented.
In 4th, the idea of area terrain with a height value was introduced and people adapted.
When buildings stopped being abstract and TLOS came in for area terrain (5th) people scrambled to add interior walls and block off windows so the buildings could actually offer some cover.

Build nice buildings that support models well and view the rules as a tool to help you navigate your model buildings, rather than the buildings as models to take advantage of rules.