Mullets and moustaches are no place to hide from the raging hordes of the undead and my internet research revealed that most zombie gaming terrain was, unsurprisingly, not built on Rock and Roll but was based on printable card terrain, plastic railway buildings or scratch-built masterpieces. After finding the incredible ZombieTown initially thought I was going to go down that route but the discovery of Vampifan’s Blog revealed the wonders of printable terrain and I figured I would be able to put a play set together a lot quicker that way.
It probably goes without saying that Worldworks Games produce some of the finest printable terrain suitable for modern settings. I decided to tackle a basic ‘flat’ first, something that would look good on a table but wasn’t going to require too much time to create. I settled on the Mayhem Downtown set and with a ludicrously plentiful supply of foamcore at my disposal I decided to make shells and simply print to paper and ‘skin’ the buildings. To keep cost down I settled on Tesco’s Glue Sticks for the large areas and Power Pritt for the edges and details. I printed and cut out the ‘skins’ first and measured and cut foamcore from those. The shells were glued with PVA and I used a little sellotape to keep them in place whilst drying.
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| Mayhem Downtown - Beige Brick |
The first building worked out ok and only took a couple of hours to build and does the trick although I thought I could do better. For my second building I chose to add a parapet wall and simply cut up some test prints to skin the inside of the parapet wall. Note: I did 'miss' skinning the corners, as in the pics below, but I do plan to go back and fill them in.
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| Parapet Wall |
It is worth noting that most of the Twilight Street range is designed for 20mm scale (although they do produce a ‘Heroic’ scale range), great if that’s your chosen scale but a simple trick for me, wanting 28mm compatibility, was to print to A3 and select ‘fit to page’. A3 is 1.5 times bigger than A4, therefore 20mm x 1.5 = 30mm; it worked out fine and what’s a couple of mm between friends? They are a little on the small size, so I ‘sealed’ the roof of Drakes (a bit too tiny for a full interior), but they add some superb character to the terrain set. I couldn’t wait to move onto other buildings in both of these retailer’s ranges.
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| Microtactix Free Download - Drake's |
Matt over at ‘Too Much Unpainted Lead’ pointed me in the direction of the Microtactix Twilight Street ranges available through RPG Now. Their superbly evocative models have a more cartoony style that Worldworks but I felt they suited the theme perfectly and would bring some welcome variety to the table. Three Buildings, Drake’s TV and Video, Horseman’s Deli and Stinky’s Pizza, are also all available for free download, result!
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| Microtactix Free Download - Stinky's Pizza, Yum |
Great review, Zombie Ad. If I may, I'd like to point out another source for card buildings and that's the Ebbles website. Ebbles are in the process of being taken over by WWG, which makes sense as they both have a very close working relationship. Of particular interest are the Ebbles Folding Unit Structures. These are essentially pre-fabricated buildings that come in small, medium, large and extra large sizes. If you check out my last batrep, I used one in that scenario.
ReplyDeleteI like how you mix and match your scenery. Very sensible decision! Of course I'm aware of most of the card scenery websites and I have stuff that is non-WWG. I just haven't gotten round to make any of it yet. If ever you decide to add interior detail you'll notice your build times slow down considerably.
Good post on a process that I failed at miserably but thats just me.
ReplyDeleteVery good Adam - like the buildings you've created. Been wondering about the micro tactix buildings for a while and might try them out, although I can't print A3 :(
ReplyDeleteNice progress thus far Zombie ad, terrain as a 'whole' is looking really good, before you know it you will be writing out a Batrep.
ReplyDeletelooking forward to that.
Thanks All
ReplyDeleteYes Vampifan, I did discover Ebbles just before Christmas with the intention of picking up the back catalogue CD in Jan, whoops, I missed it by a few days. I did manage to pick up some of their forum freebies which I'l post some pics of soon. Those folding unit structures did bring me visions of a military compound on the outskirts of town, I see that working very well, hope it is all available again via WWG soon :)
I have completed one interior, again pics to follow in a future post, and yes, it slowed down the build time considerably, as did cutting out all the windows on the same build, you have my utmost admirtation for your builds Vampifan.
I'll check which of the Microtactix freebies is in A4, I am sure one of them is. Their downside (if you can call it that) is the gridded roofs. I have now replaced a few with downloaded textures, simple enough to do.
I'm sure I'll get around to a Batrep at some point, still a few posts to go till I've gone through al the bits I've done so far and I catch up to 'present day'.
I have to mirror Bryan's (Vampifan) recomendation on the Ebbled FUSS, I am slowly building a bunch of them up, currently have 2 Small, 2 Med, 2 large built. I am envisioning them as a Military Outpost and/or a refugee camp. After the outbreak has been in full swing going to have (hopefully) my group find a warehouse complex full of these (folded and ready for deployment), I am hoping they will be able to secure the area and them transport the structures to the community they are part of for the extra housing, workshops and even Latrines and shower houses. Unlike Bryan I didn't cut the doors out to open (though I am going back and carefully cutting out the doors so they open). If you do get the Ebbles Archive DVD in the 2007 models there are interior props for a Barracks, Workshop and Storeroom, I am planning on printing these out to fill up my FUSS's (even the Lavatory surprise/freebie in the Barracks Props).
ReplyDeleteAlso as Bryan said Ebble's is going to be merging their library of models with World Works, though they (Ebble's and WWG) will be cherry picking the best of the Ebble's Models and offering those the rest will probably be discontinued. So if you want to have access to all the Ebble's models your opprotunity to get the DVD is slowly running out, one the current stock of the DVDs are gone Chris/Mel Ebbles wont be getting any more made.
As for the Batrep don't sweat it, I myself havent had one yet, most the games I do play of ATZ are small 1 survivor games just to keep up on the rules, right now I dont have any room for an actual game, I am more focusing on getting and painting minis and building terrain (mostly been building the Ebble's Vehicles and the FUSS's, but I do have about 3 inches of WWG Urban Mayhem stuff printed waiting to be cut and assembled, though I need to get me some black foam core for the road tiles first).
Thanks for your support Doug, I have just checked the Ebbles site again and the DVD is available, whoot! Not sure why I thought the offer had ceased, will be ordering that immediately.
ReplyDeleteI'll get around to a Batrep at some point, but I still have plenty of stuff to build and figures to paint to keep me going for while.
Can't wait to see your FUSS camp too, superb idea about the warehouse find.
Wish I had got black foamcore, I got white before I realised the benefits, and I picked up 2 packs...of A1...doh! I'll be painting edges for some time to go.
DVD now ordered :)
ReplyDelete