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So, after playing a couple games of Apoc at my local store, I found our city terrain to be lacking, at best. I decided to wage war on the lack of decent terrain to play our gigantic games on. This WIP is the result...

ALL PICTURES ARE LINKS TO BIGGER PICS


*Disclaimer*
Brand new digital camera (like, two days old). Learning how to use it as I go along here...




CONCEPT:

I wanted to make a city that was modular, thus allowing a vast amount of terrain options. I wanted to have a nice balance between form and function. It needed to look nice, but it had to be playable, too. I decided I needed three key elements:
1) Buildings
2) Roads
3) Free-standing Rubble/Craters/etc.

For the roads and buildings, I decided to go with a 12"x12" base. I thought it would fit nicely together on most any size table, four foot and up. I used masonite (hardboard) for the bases on all buildings and roads. The buildings and ruins were made out of 3/16" foamcore and 1/16" cardstock (picture mounting card). I used varying sizes of PVC tube for pipes, etc. All my rubble is made up of Woodland Scenics talus (varying grades), chopped up sprues, balsa wood, small rocks, bitz-box bits, and the odd doo-dads I've picked up along the 17+ years of gaming (which makes my wife VERY happy, now that I am doing something with all "that junk in the basement").




ROAD SYSTEM:
The first element I decided on was the road system. The roads needed to be big enough to allow massive amounts of troops, vehicles, huge super-heavies, titans, and aircraft to pass through easily. They also needed to be able to look alright when butted up against the various building tiles and other road tiles. I decided that a 10" roadway with rubble on the edges/corners ought to do the trick. I would make a bunch of straight-aways, several 4-way intersections, some t-intersections, and some corners. Enough of each of these elements and we could have ourselves a fine road system.



After making a whopping thirty-six tiles and basecoating them, I had a nice start to my city.



Here is an example of each tile type I made:
(left-right, top-bottom: T-intersection, corner, 4-way intersection, straightaway)




Now, before you say anything, I realize that the road portions of the tiles are very clean and uncluttered. Remember, this is a work-in-progress! At some point, I will go back and add the grime, stains, and loose bits of rubble, gravel, etc. For now, I just want it playable.


After setting up a bunch of road and building tiles together on a gaming table, it occurred to me that a 10" wide road is just too wide to have covering your entire city. It's just looks kind of odd. Too big with too much space between buildings. So, I have decided to make another entire road system out of 6"x12" tiles. It will be a far narrower road that will occupy much of the gaming table's space, with the large 12"x12" road tiles making up the main thoroughfares throughout the city.

Here's an example with a ruined building tile, so you can see how the tiles operate together:




All told, the 36 road tiles took me two weeks of daily work, several hours a day, to cut, rubble-ize, prime, and basecoat.




Buildings to follow in a couple of day's time.
Thanks for looking!


Ghidorah

BUILDINGS:
All buildings are made from 3/16" foamcore with 1/16" card stock. They all took about a week to build, each and they each painted up in a day. Bear in mind, this city project is being built primarily for games of Apocalypse. There will be very tall buildings for a scaled look to Titans on the table as well as to provide them with a little cover. This city will naturally be usable for standard 40k games as well.


Here is a WIP of a building ruin tile. It has the construction complete and is ready to prime, then paint.

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Next up, a few buildings that are completed. I have no WIP pics because they were completed before I got my new digital camera.


This chapel was built in one week and painted in an afternoon. The stained glass window is a freehand based off of the Dark Angels banner, painted on to a printer transparency with a white paper background to make it brighter. The sindow stands about 3.75"x2".
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This is a 5-storey ruined administrative building. The roof is removable. There is a 2" base of pink insulation foam to raise the interior floor off of ground level. Technically, this makes the building four usable floors. Each floor is 3" high. This is the standard height I use for building floors. I get the 3" between floors from all the years of playing Necromunda.
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Next up is another 5-storey ruin. This one is actually 5 stories tall. Again, Each floor is 3" high. The weathering and damage is considerably more detailed than the building with the eagle on the roof. After finishing the painting, I decided to go back and add a little more rubble which I have yet to paint. I will do so this afternoon when I finish up the paint on the WIP ruin at the beginning of this post.
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Below is a small ruin tile. This has the remnants of two smaller buildings on one tile. This is to break up the HUGE building syndrome. (I have a hard time doing small scale projects). I wanted to break up the color on the table, as well. Cities are not all Codex/Fortress Grey. I went with a similar weathering/damage style as the latter of the large buildings.
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Up next: A large building tile. A 12"x24" base with a factory.
Thanks again for looking!


Ghidorah

That's some ambitious stuff, and smartly done, at that! Keep it up!

Ghidorah wrote:odd doo-dads I've picked up along the 17+ years of gaming (which makes my wife VERY happy, now that I am doing something with all "that junk in the basement").

I've told many a gamer of the wonders in that very basement. And in fact, whenever my wife complains about how much gaming stuff I've got, I just describe your wall of pegboard with unopened blisters hanging like a store display, and she realizes how much worse I could be...

I seem to recall you having a fairly large scratchbuilt imperial palace type building, like 2-3 feet long or something like that. Is that thing still around?

Mike,

You could just show her this thread.

malfred wrote:Mike,

You could just show her this thread.

Thanks, Felix, I just might.

Unfortunately, she just tried the same thing- last night she was showing me pictures online of other peoples' huge collections of makeup.

You've seen my Gaming Closet of Doom one of the times you've been over, haven't you?

(Sorry for the thread hijack, Ghidorah!)

Ok. I've been working on a factory/vehicle repair facility for the last two weeks. I started it when construction finished on an apartment ruin. The last week and a half I have been working exclusively on this. Construction is done now, as is priming. Just painting the building and interior details/loading dock. Here are some WIP shots:
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I'll have some post-painted pictures Monday, I hope.
Thanks for looking!


Ghidorah

wow.... just wow. Can't wait for the painted pics.

Ozymandias, King of Kings

That's awesome!

I love modular whassa-magiggies.

Looking great Ghidorah! It's good to see another terrain builder post his/her work. For the ramp surface on the factory did you just use thick cardstock to cover it or is that foamcore/board on top?

Grand Preceptor wrote:

Ghidorah wrote:odd doo-dads I've picked up along the 17+ years of gaming (which makes my wife VERY happy, now that I am doing something with all "that junk in the basement").

I've told many a gamer of the wonders in that very basement. And in fact, whenever my wife complains about how much gaming stuff I've got, I just describe your wall of pegboard with unopened blisters hanging like a store display, and she realizes how much worse I could be...

I seem to recall you having a fairly large scratchbuilt imperial palace type building, like 2-3 feet long or something like that. Is that thing still around?

Anyway, neat stuff. Love seeing the modular workings, and that cathedral is ace. Balsa wood, it looks like?

VermGho5t wrote:Looking great Ghidorah! It's good to see another terrain builder post his/her work. For the ramp surface on the factory did you just use thick cardstock to cover it or is that foamcore/board on top?

Thank you for the compliment! For the loading dock, the frame was made with 3-16th" foamcore (for glue surface and sturdiness) covered with 1-16th" matte board (aka cardstock or framing board).

syr8766 wrote:Wait...Ghidorah, are you Chaptermaster? Yair is confused...

No idea of whom you speak... Nope. Not a clue. :S



So, anyways... the updated factory which, incidentally, went through a bit of an identity crisis. It started out as a factory and eventually turned into a motor pool/garage. Meh.
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As a side note, I haven't decided how I want to rubble-ise the base yet, so it is just base coated for the time being.


Thanks for looking!

Ghidorah

eh, my confusion. After so many migrations, it's hard to know who's who these days.

i would keep Imperial iconography to a minimum number of setpiece tiles. then you can use the city for all 28mm games.

This city block could easily be in Cygnar, AT-43 or surrounding the tractor factory in Stalingrad.

That factory would be an awesome place for warjacks to
walk out of.

i would keep Imperial iconography to a minimum number of setpiece tiles. then you can use the city for all 28mm games.

This city block could easily be in Cygnar, AT-43 or surrounding the tractor factory in Stalingrad.