WWG Urban Grind - Mayhem Skateboard Park

This is the latest project that I have been working on these past couple of months - the World Works Games Urban Grind set or as I call it - the Mayhem Skateboard Park. First, a little background info on this set. It was produced as a charity set to help fund the care of Chase Ripper, nephew of WWG's CEO Denny Unger, who sadly contracted cancer at the age of 8. All profits from the sale of this set goes towards helping funding the day to day care of Chase. It is a worthy cause that I was only too happy to support. Oddly enough, this set is one of the cheapest sets in the WWG catalogue at only $10.00. I'd have gladly paid twice that amount. Perhaps Denny thought a low price would attract more customers. I certainly hope so.

So, onto the review. The photo above shows my gaming board without any props on. The two spectator stands and the perimeter fences are glued in place, something I have never done before with regards my modular gaming boards. However, this time, I think the decision was warranted. I just have to be extra careful when I pack it away when it's not in use!

Here is the same view as before, but this time with all the props in place. This set-up utilises all of the props that come with the set, plus one other - a litterbin (seen to the right of the opening at the bottom of the photo) which came from the Bits of Mayhem set.  What I particularly like about this set is that it comes in two flavours - pristine clean or covered in graffiti. I opted for the graffiti covered version. It looks more characterful. Besides, even if a park was spotlessly clean, how long would it stay that way? Less than a day would be my guess.

Some props appear more than once. For example, I printed out four sets of picnic tables and eight benches to go with them. The design of the benches and tables are the same as those which appeared on the patio of the apartment building that appears in the Mayhem Armoury set, although the textures are very different.

I have placed two extremely large speakers in two corners of the park. These play a part in the game Skate! which comes as a free bonus with this set. I must admit that I have not played the game but I have read the rules. It looks like a simple and fun game. With only four pages of rules to learn it won't take you long to get the hang of it. WWG are to be commended for adding the game to this set. It comes with 8 sheets of counters and 2-D characters, which I'd probably replace with 28mm scale figures if I did get round to playing it.

The two props with the three ramps and back walls nearest to the spectator stands are called Fun Boxes. When it comes to skate-boarding terminology I am totally ignorant. Abutting the two Fun Boxes and appearing just in front of the entrance between the two fences are three rectangular boxes. These are called Grind Boxes.

In the photo above note the large ramp that can be seen in the centre of the picture in between the two Grind Boxes. That is called a Large Bank. It comes with a small fence atop of the upper platform.

The spectator stands are made up of a 4" corner section, two 3" long sections and a 4" long section that has been cut in half to form two 2" sections, giving a length of 9" and a width of 7". One thing that I am not too keen about these stands is that the width of the steps making up the stands is only 3/4". I'd have prefered them to be 1" wide. Why? Well that way would make it easier for placing figures on 25mm diameter bases on the steps. Figures with 20mm diameter bases will fit on without any problem but you have a slight problem when it comes to the more popular choice of 25mm diameter bases. The fences are called Grind Fences and, incredibly, are used by skateboarders to skate/slide down!

The two small ramps closest to the speakers are known as a Small Ramp (the one with the straight ramp) and a Small Quarter Pipe (the one with the curved ramp).  Say, who has noticed that the litterbin has been knocked over? It was fine when I started photographing the park, but it must have got knocked over once I started shooting and moving the board for each shot. How odd that I've just noticed it now!

The series of four large ramps running across the board are flanked by two Large Quarter pipes with a Spine Ramp in the middle. I read on the WWG forum that if you were to make such a set-up there should be flat sections in between the ramps. So, bowing to superior knowledge,  I made mine by sticking two off-cuts of the base of the spectator stands to two pieces of mounting board 2" by 2.5". Of all the props in the set, this group looks the most impressive.

Finally, here are four views of the park taken from a much lower angle. I made the stands first, without the added fencing. Next came all of the ramps, then the speakers, tables and benches. Finally I made all of the fences. Cutting out the pieces between the uprights of each fence was incredibly tedious work, which is why I left them until last. Having made such an impressive gaming board, I wanted it to feature in a zombie apocalypse battle report. I have two All Things Zombie battle reports coming up soon (in fact, the first of them should be my next posting) and you can see it features in both games. This was quite an easy project to work on and is ideally suited for beginners to the hobby. I highly recommend it and it certainly gave me a warm glow, knowing that my money was going to such a worthy charity.