Stoelzel's Urban Tiles (Clean)

Last time I showed you the car park tiles from the Stoelzel's Undeveloped Real Estate (URE) set. This time, I want to show you the urban tiles I have made. Quite a few of the tiles come in two versions - clean and dirty. Most of the urban tiles I have made are of the clean variety. As my ATZ-FFO campaign progresses, I'll introduce more and more dirty tiles.

I have decided that my standard game board size is going to be 15" by 15" thus allowing me to fit four ground tiles per board. All of the boards shown in this review are this size. Putting six of these boards together gives me a gaming board measuring 45" by 30", which is a nice size for most games I'll play. Plus, it fits nicely on my dining room table. I should mention that the six boards in each set-up are not attached in any way. They are simply laid flat on my tabletop.

My first set up utilises three straight double road boards, a double road curve, a blank courtyard and a park. By gluing the standard two-lane tiles side by side you can create a dual-carriage way. I particularly like the way that Carl has designed the 90-degree curve section. My one gripe about this four-tiled curve section is that making the pavements for it (especially that large curved pavement) was a pain in the backside! The "one way" signs on the roads leading to and from the curve were a very helpful addition. The tiles that make up my courtyard gaming board proved to be very popular when I was making these gaming boards. These are the tiles that will be covered up by my buildings, so consequently, I'll need a lot of them. The four tile park was something I thought I needed for Mayhem City. After all, patches of greenland are important to cities. Once I get my collection of trees based I'll add some of them to my park tiles.

My second set-up has a much more urban feel to it. My first thought when I saw the URE tiles was that they were a lot darker than my WWG tiles. I pondered whether this was a good thing or not. Eventually, I decided it was a good thing. Mayhem City is not a nice place to live in with its very high crime rate and places of lawlessness. Throw in a zombie apocalypse and I realised it should look dark. Mind you, when I printed out my first road tile, it was very dark indeed. I played about with the settings on my printer and by increasing the brightness I produced the tiles you see in these photos. The colours on them are much more acceptable to me. One unexpected bonus of Carl's darker tones is that the bases of my figures blend in well with the colours. That's what you call serendipity!

This set-up comprises two straight road sections, two T-junctions and two courtyards. One of the straight road sections is made up of two road tiles with broken double-yellow lines running down the middle and drains along the sides of the roads. The other straight road section has broken white lines down the middle and no drains. You can often choose whether to have drains or not. If you do want them and they aren't marked on the tile, Carl has handily provided a sheet of drains for you to add to any road tile. One of the T-junctions (shown in the upper centre of the photo above) is a standard T-junction with three pedestrian crossings. The other T-junction (shown at the top right corner of the photo above) has a road leading to a dead end. This is most likely a loading bay for a store. One of the courtyards is clean and is identical to the one shown in the first set-up. The second one is made up of four tiles, each with four drains on them and a few pieces of litter. To break up the uniformity of the tiles I have added a few extra sheets of newspaper. The courtyard tiles to the right of the photo above do like dirty and littered but are nowhere near as bad as the proper dirty tiles. They are covered with litter!

One of the two courtyard tiles that I added to the white-lined road section was another crime scene tile. Remember that I showed you one in the small car park I reviewed last time. This particular crime scene is far more gruesome. There three chalk outlines showing where the victims were murdered. Vampifan looks on bemusedly. Personally, I think the crime scene tiles are far too cool to ignore.

There is a bit of duplication in my third set-up, with three of the boards having appeared in previous set-ups. They are the the straight road section with the drains to the side of the road, the courtyard board and the four-tile park board. The other three boards with the roads on them are all new, however, and this was a good way to show them off. The straight road section in the bottom left of the photo is similar to the road section directly above it but it is missing the drains down the sides of the roads.

The road board at the bottom right of the photo above has had a small two-tile park added to it. Once again, this adds a bit of greenery to my board, whilst still keeping the urban vibe. What I love about the park tiles is that there is litter dotted around the four sides of them. I find that very realistic but also a sad fact of life.

The reason that I have highlighted this curved road tile is because it is a conversion. I have replaced the grass section that appeared in the top right corner of the tile with part of a standard courtyard tile. This makes the tile look like it is part of an urban environment. The rural equivalent of this tile comes without the pavement sections and has grass on either side of the road. For me, the official urban tile still looked like it was part of the rural set. This was a very simple conversion and you can tell immediately that this is an urban tile. I would also consider doing this conversion on the four-tile large single road curve and large double road curve. Carl, I'm wondering what your thoughts are on adding these conversions to the URE set?

Finally, I'll leave you with a few useful tips. By far and away the best method to glue the tiles to the foamboard is to use aerosol adhesive. I use 3M Spray Mount. I draw a grid on the foamboard (usually just two lines for these boards) to show where the tiles should go. Yes, I know - one in each corner! But the grid gives you something to line up to when fixing the tile. Secondly, always edge the tiles before gluing them in place. A black marker pen is ideal for this. Thirdly, when it comes to edging the foamboard I use acrylic paints and I match the paint to the colours of the tiles. I use white foamboard for my gaming boards so they certainly do need edging just to finish them off. You could get away with not edging if you use black foamboard, but personally, I wouldn't recommend it.