Wednesday 6 March 2013

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.

34 comments:

  1. Nice, I'm liking this set more and more.

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    1. There is a LOT to like about this set, Sean.

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  2. Those are impressive!
    I'm a little disappointed in purchasing the mayhem streets and harbor as well as the streets of legend. I like the looks of these.
    I'm set on getting the muck and groundtile sets now. The crimescene stuff is great!

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    1. A year ago I'd have said WWG made the best card scenery on the market. Now, I'd have to say that Stoelzel's Structures are just unbeatable. MUCK and MUCK2 will give you a lot of bang for your bucks, David.

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    2. Bryan you've always been very supportive, and I thank you for that. This set might not have been if you guys hadn't suggested/requested it on the forum a few months back.

      For David, IF you are already set on the MUCKs and ground tiles, just wanted to let you know there is a bundle of them, save a few bucks. Also, so you don't rush into it, there is another set of ground tiles coming soon (week or so) that will focus on cobble stoned streets. Food for thought. Cheers.

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    3. Really a fan of these! The 8" tiles with naturally occurring 1" square grid in the form of the sidewalks will help for measuring distance in ANY miniatures game!

      The description you have of a 90 degree turn that doesn't have pavement on both sides saddens me, but your solution is a ready and easy fix!

      I'm already going to be purchasing a few sets of these (the muck package, the arcade, and a few others) as soon as I get my tax money (allocating $200 for gaming, at LEAST $60 of which looks to be going to stozels...) Not the least of which is the impression he made on me for putting out that derelict building set so quickly after suggesting it to him on TMP

      Side note: this set oughta make converting Zombiecide (which I saw you recently picked up) from a boardgame to a minis game (a project -I- am working on) since the "zones" on a zombiecide tile equal about 4"...

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    4. Good to hear from you, Nick. The response you got from Carl on the TMP (yes, I did read it) is so typical of Carl. He really does go the extra mile for his customers.

      One small clarification,the tiles measure 7.5" square not 8" square and the squares on the grid are ever so slightly smaller than 1" square.

      The new urban curve tile is indeed a very simple conversion. I'll have a go at one of the four tile large curves to show you how that can be converted.

      I'll be very interested to see how you go about converting Zombicide from a boardgame to a minis game. By the way, have you signed up for Zombicide Season 2 on Kickstarter? I have, and it is an awesome deal!

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  3. Looking awesome Bryan,
    Can't wait to see them in action!

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    1. Well, in that case you won't have long to wait as I'm playing my next FFO scenario in the next day or two.

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    2. Looking forward to next game for sure, and I enjoy the street tiles as well. You are very creative with these. Thanks also for your mini tutorial on how you mount your tiles to foam board. The one time I did this when I made the McDoom building and the tile that went with it, I used glue and the tile bubbled up too much from the foam board. Next time I will try the spray adhesive.

      Thanks, Ernie

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    3. I'm glad you found my tips helpful, Ernie.

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  4. Very nice VtG, plenty of work and a good result - well done!

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  5. While I am anti card scenery due to the way it would be stored and treated at my club (nothing deliberately intended just in the rush to pack up at the end). I have to say that you are slowly changing my thinking. These are great, I particularly like the "Chalk Outlines!"

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    1. Fair comment about storage, Clint. Keeping my boards at home makes it a lot easier for storing them. Those crime scene tiles are simply wonderful, aren't they?

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  6. Fantastic! You definitely have shown the potential of Carl's ground tiles. I'm impressed.

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    1. On the whole, Jon, this has been a set that is simply a joy to make.

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  7. Very nice looking set. And excellent build tips. You've definitely been busy. And I like the idea of 15 inch squares, I'd love to see a photo of them stacked for storage.

    I hate to admit that after your printer adjustments, the pavements look VERY similar to my first generation run threw of them. I decided to add the brown tinting to offset them more from the roads, and to reflect a lot of the sidewalks around me. Well, at least you found a favorable solution for yourself.

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    1. Many thanks, Carl. The idea of using 15" square tiles seemed like a logical decision to make, especially as you use four tiles to make up your large curves, etc. Once I've finished my latest ATZ-FFO scenario, I'll take a photo of the boards stacked up.

      The brown tinting on the pavements has really grown on me after my initial scepticism. I now think that they work very well.

      By the way, this is only phase one of my URE boards. Next up are rural tiles and then dirty tiles. You certainly keep me busy, my friend!

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  8. They definitely look nice. Had I not already invested in printing so much WWG, I'd give them a better look.

    What do you like more about them over WWG?

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    1. Thanks, Adam. What do I like more about these than Streets of Legend?
      1. There is way more variety in Carl's sets.
      2. They are much easier to make. The connectors on the WWG set are a nice touch but they are time consuming to make and fiddly to put together, especially if you are making a big board. I ended up missing out a lot of the connecting tabs when setting up a big board, which rather defeated the point of them being there.
      3. The customer care you get from Carl is beyond reproach. Plus, he listens to suggestions. One of the tiles in this set is a road bridge over a river. I mentioned to Carl that the bridge really did need walls adding to the sides. A couple of days later, Carl added the bridge walls to the set. You never got that kind of service from WWG.

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  9. They look very good Bryan, looking forwardto seeing more, presumably there's a link tile between the single lane roads and the double lane roads ?

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    1. Yes, Joe, there are link tiles taking a double lane down to a single lane.

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  10. Very nice Bryan, Can't wait to see these gamed on! I want some Royster's now yum yum!

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    1. Oh, well spotted on the Roysters, Simon. Their T-Bone flavoured crisps are my favourite crisps.

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  11. Hmm, I was thinking of making 24" tiles for myself (and using 4x4 6" panels in each). However, 15" square seems kind of attractive too. I'm just concerned about the amount of waste material if the base material doesn't come in sheets this small.

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    1. Seeing as you're talking about using 6" square tiles, I'm presuming you're talking about WWG Streets of Legends set or Grekwood's street tiles. If you can find base material this size easily enough, I'd say go for it. If you do like Carl's URE set, you could make gaming boards measuring 22.5" square, made up of 9 tiles.

      I love Stefan's answer below regarding waste material!

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  12. Very nice, indeed, Bryan. I'm thinking of switching to these but perhaps with a sort of link between them to avoid shifting. We will see once my new printer arrives. Now, as all others, I cannot wait to see them in action.

    @Colgar: "Waste material" is just material you haven't found a purpose for YET ;)

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    1. There are a number of suggestions on the Stoelzel's forum for ideas regarding connecting the boards. I'm okay just leaving them flat on my table top, but if they do start warping (unlikely where I live due to our low humidity) I may connect them with cocktail sticks, which was one solution that was put forward.

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  13. Yes very nice Bryan, the set up looks very urban, all you need now are some buildings, trees survivors and of course.....Zeds!

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    1. And wouldn't you know I just have plenty of each (especially zeds!)

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  14. Very cool, i think four sheet per board is the right way to go

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  15. I am just starting zombie gaming. I read your blog requently. Keep up the great work!

    I made these ground tiles but used a PDF editor to lighten them twice. I wanted an "old" look about them.

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