Monday 16 January 2017

Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain part 2

This is the second of my two Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain sets reviews that originally appeared in the defunct The Gamers Cupboard blog. I am reposting it here for the benefit of my followers who missed it when I first posted it. The text has been modified to bring it more up to date. With this post I want to show you the add-on sets to use with the Urban Apocalypse Cityscape sets.
This is the new city block I came up with and as before it fits on a single mat measuring about 2 feet square (60cm by 60cm).
On one side of the street I made a Fire Station and a small Police Station.
On the opposite side of the street is a large Art Deco building consisting of a casino and a mansion. In the centre of the roofs of the Fire Station and Police Station are spider vents, an alternative to the air conditioning units on the roofs of the casino and mansion.
Here is a front view of the Fire Station. My 28mm scale Copplestone Casting's figure of Vampifan appears in most of these photos to help give a sense of scale.
Here we see the front and one side of the Fire Station. The double height walls surrounding the large front doors have been glued together. The sign above the doors has also been glued in place. The fancy topping at the front of the building has also been glued together. It is unlikely I would ever want to disassemble them.
Here is a front view of the Police Station. Unlike the Fire Station, the Police Station does not come with any exterior walls. I chose these walls for no other reason than I liked the look of them.
The Police Station comes with lots of cool extras like these concrete barriers and the wooden saw-horse. The barriers are reversible with a police sign on one side and no signage on the reverse side. Both sides are shown here.
Here is Vampifan standing outside the Casino Royale. The casino utilises the exterior walls from the Art Deco set. It contains furniture items for both a casino and a restaurant.
The Art Deco set is filled with exterior walls, interior walls, gantries and staircases. It is a great add-on that adds variety to the other three types of exterior walls. I have made a large mansion as well as the casino with the sets I own.
I have included a cool-looking mailbox from my Street Items set. Note that I have cut off the extruding tabs and painted the edges. Yes, it is the American design. The designers have gone for an American setting for their apocalypse despite being a UK-based company. Personally speaking, I don't have a problem with that decision. I will mainly be using these sets in my ATZ-FFO and Judge Dredd campaigns, both of which are set in the USA.
Moving inside, Vampifan starts his tour with a look at the Fire Station. Against the far wall are a set of lockers. The one item I love the most from this set is the coat rack with four bulky firemen's coats hanging from it. What a great addition!
 The metal stairs lead up to a metal walkway that overlooks the ground floor.
On the upper floor are the offices and rest room. Obviously they need more furniture adding to them.  Here, I have included two shelf units and an office desk.
This is the ground floor of the Police Station. Once again, it should have a lot more furniture in it. I added a couple of desks to the two offices. On one I added a computer keyboard and monitor. It is these little touches that helps bring a building to life. Also, please note that all of my furniture items have been edged with paint. The stairs are part of a sheet called "Really Useful Items."
Moving up a floor, Vampifan comes to the prison cells. In addition to the bed, each cell should also contain a toilet but I hadn't made them when this photo was taken.
Crossing the street, Vampifan enters the casino. Here I have added a large bar. Note the beer pumps. The three gaming tables feature options for blackjack, poker or roulette. This set also contains items for use in a restaurant. The tables all come with reversible tops. The rectangular table has a snooker top on its reverse side and the two circular tables show dining table tops on their reverse sides.
The upper floor of the casino shows a large dining room, which Vampifan is checking out. A side door leads to the mansion next door.
In the mansion, Vampifan stands at the top of a set of stairs leading up to a brightly carpeted balcony that overlooks the entrance hall. A less ornate set of stairs at the far end of the balcony leads up to the top floor.
This is the ground floor room at the far side of the mansion with broken windows. You can leave them unbroken if you wish. I have gone for a roughly 50/50 split between broken and unbroken windows.
Finally, Vampifan makes his way to the top floor, which I have left unfurnished. Doors at either side lead off to the lower roof of the mansion and the roof of the casino.
These are all great add-on sets that give you lots of extra options and variety as well as many cool items. They may well be optional extras but for me they were a necessary purchase.

26 comments:

  1. Very cool! Everyone in my blogosphere seems to being terrain. I'm torn whether to by some of these lovely pieces I've seen, or have some more of my scifi-western buildings built. I'm leaning towards the scifi-western. I'm really just wanting more of a backdrop to make the town look bigger.

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    1. Much as I absolutely love my Battle Systems terrain sets, for you, Tom, I'd recommend getting more of your sci-fi/Wild west buildings made. What you have is unique as far as I can tell and fits in with your style of play so well. Now if Battle systems bring out a Wild West terrain set I'd be on it like a shot. I can but dream.

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  2. Another cool set of terrain Bryan, with as much care and attention shown as in the previous set

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    1. Cheers, Dave. Whilst the Fire Station and Police Station are pretty much one-off purchases, the Art Deco sets add loads of variety so I invested in a few of them to expand my choices of buildings.

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  3. I must say they do look fab. But for me card terrain is too fragile to either transport to the club or Leave at the club. It is a shame but nothing is perfect. (the other hall users definitely are not!)

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    1. Thanks, Clint. It is such a shame that others can be so disrespectful of a person's property. Such is the world we live in.

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  4. It really is a lovely set Bryan, well worth investing in I think

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    1. Thanks, Andy. I definitely felt it was money well spent.

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  5. Lovely to see the Fire Station Bryan, I'm sure I added that to my pledge, but haven't got around to putting it together, but this might be just the inspiration I need.

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    1. Thanks, Michael. As you can see, once assembled, the Fire Station is an impressive building.

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  6. More lovely stuff, old Vampifan gets about doesn't he.

    Cheers Roger.

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    1. Thanks, Roger. Vampifan loves having his photograph taken. He certainly does get about.

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  7. Horridperson doesn't get a mini because Horridcat won't let him have one until her's is painted. The second installment actually looks quite good. Even if I never buy them looking at your photos was very helpful because the paper construction gave me some insights into how I could better build counters and risers for my stairs.

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    1. I can see who's the boss in your family, HP! I'm glad you found my article useful.

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  8. This stuff looks good, but I wonder just how much value there is in having it modular? I imagine that it takes a lot of time to construct (or take apart) a building; is this something you would do on a regular basis? Or would the model just be kept built up, in which case it might be better off glued together (or indeed replaced with an MDF purpuse-built model).

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    1. That's a fair question, Hugh. The big plus is that these sets take very little time to put together or disassemble. You can make a simple building in minutes. You can leave the buildings intact, if you want. I have for some of mine. The other plus is that these are pre-coloured. Most MDF models come unpainted.

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  9. The modularity of the Battle Systems pieces seems to be their biggest benefit (do I admit my age when I admit to remembering when they just sold PDFs?) and they look like a fine addition to the game board. But I'll admit I kind of miss your customization when putting together Carl's models or what consider the capstone - the World Works Police Station.

    But the old cardstock scenery took more time to build than to play on I believe?

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    1. You got it in one with that last sentence, Russ. The WWG and Stoelzel's buildings are great but some of them (the WWG police station you mentioned) took months to build! That said, just because I have fallen so much in love with the Battle Systems terrain sets does not mean that I won't be making any more Stoelzel's or WWG buildings in the future. I still have a huge backlog of stuff I want to make from both companies. Plus there is a good chance I will be mixing some of my old card buildings in with this new stuff in future batreps.

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  10. This is really fantastic stuff, Bryan. You must have worked very hard to finish all this. Must be great to have some new terrain.

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    1. Many thanks, Roger. Yes, there is a lot of hard work that has gone into making these buildings but it is so much fun and so much easier to put together than my previous card buildings. What you see is just a fraction of what I have! I couldn't be happier.

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  11. Wish shipping wasn't so pricey to the US (14 quid!) else I'd jump on that 70 pound 2x2 set.

    Very nice review though. I'll be back.

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    1. Dai, that's a fair point that I hadn't considered. Thanks for commenting. I hope to see you soon.

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  12. This new Battle Systems terrain looks so complete straight out of the box. Thanks for bringing it to my attention. DEW

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    1. Thanks for the comment, DEW. These urban terrain sets are really incredible.

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