Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain part 1

This post originally appeared in The Gamer's Cupboard blog, which has now died and is lying in the morgue awaiting either burial or cremation. I used to be an editor of that blog and whilst I'm not that bothered that most of my posts for it will be lost forever, there were two, featuring my reviews of the Battle Systems Urban Apocalypse Terrain sets that I wanted to keep, hence my decision to repost them here. The text has been slightly modified to bring it more up to date. I know that some of you will have already seen this post before. Please bear with me. But most of you won't have seen this post before, as the Gamer's Cupboard only had a very small following.
As soon as I saw the notice that Battle Systems were planning to launch an Urban Apocalypse Terrain set project on Kickstarter in September 2015 I knew I had to back it. Of all of the Kickstarter projects I have backed, this was the one that excited me the most. As each new stretch goal and add-on was announced I knew that a) I wanted it, and b) this was going to cost me a fortune. In short, I wanted everything that Battle Systems produced for this project. At first, it was just the city scenery, but one pack would never satisfy my needs. So I ended up ordering four full sets. It was cheaper buying the four together than four sets separately. This was enough to cover an area 4 feet square. Then the Shanty Town sets were announced and I saw even more possibilities. I ordered two full Shanty Town sets.  Just as the project was drawing to a close, Battle Systems added suburban houses and of course, I wanted them. Combined with other add-ons like the fire station, police station, art deco buildings, diner/casino and loads of other scenery items I ended up ordering a whole load of goods. This was something I REALLY, REALLY wanted. I could see my gaming hobby being transformed by these amazing sets.
Building card terrain and buildings is something I have always been interested in. Indeed it first started in the late 1970's when I began scratch-building 54mm scale Wild West buildings. I learned a lot from making them and that experience stood me in good stead when it came to making 28mm scale buildings and scenery for my zombie apocalypse games. I began making 28mm buildings in the early 2000's and started off by making contemporary buildings and scenery produced by World Work Games. I then moved on to the catalogue of card models from Stoelzel's Structures. I made loads of card buildings for my zombie apocalypse games but in recent years I have slowed down considerably. These new sets by Battle Systems were like a breath of fresh air to me. They had everything I loved about card terrain - interior details, detachable floors and roofs, made of thick card for strength and durability, incredibly detailed textures and of course, furniture and other scenery items to help bring a gaming board to life. Plus, these had the added bonus of being quick to assemble with no gluing required (although I do glue small items like furniture and street items). And when you've finished your game you can un-clip them and store everything away flat. Absolutely perfect!

Shown in the photo above is one of the boxes that the Urban Apocalypse Terrain sets came in. The Shanty Town sets have a different cover.

Inside the box are some of the items you get with this set. Shown here are the floors, roofs, ruined walls and hidden under those walls are the rooftop railings. I'm using the boxes to store all of my large flat items.

In this box are all of the undamaged walls from this set. This box, like the one above, contains the pieces from four boxed sets. It includes three types of exterior walls. All of the interior walls are identically coloured. The doors that come with the walls are kept in a separate box, which I haven't shown.

This plastic compartment box of mine (I have loads of these, which I buy online from Amazon UK, and they are very versatile) contains all of the grey plastic pegs (shown in the top two rows) used to clip the parts together. You will need a lot of them and although you get enough in each boxed set to make all of the contents of that box I ordered some extras just to be on the safe side, in case I ever make a massive town set. The other two rows contain counters to show the placement of stairs, manhole covers, lots of signs, computer monitors, wooden pallets and an assortment of scatter items.

 So, let me show you what I came up with for my very first build. First of all, this set up uses one of the gaming mats, which I must say are superb. The colours on them are so rich and vibrant but more importantly, very realistic. The mats are made up of strong neoprene plastic that can be folded up after use but still retains its shape when laid out flat. I love them!

Here is a different wide angle shot. Note, that with these sets, you need not be limited by the space you have on your gaming table. One obvious solution if you're strapped for space is to build upwards. I have tried to show this by showing what a five-storey apartment can look like. Oh, and how cool are those fire escapes? I have placed my 28mm scale figure of Vampifan in all of these photos to give you a sense of scale. That apartment is 600mm wide (approximately two feet).

From the front, the apartment looks like one big building but it is actually made up of three separate buildings. To be fair, by placing internal walls with doors there is nothing stopping you from making it one big building or even numerous smaller buildings all combined into one block.

Here is a closer view of Vampifan on the roof of the fifth storey. In case you're wondering, it took me just under three hours to build this cityscape.

 Here we have an overhead view of this set-up.

Finally, here is a shot showing the main street from closer to ground level. You get two types of awnings for your buildings - wide (shown to the right) and narrow (shown to the left) in red or blue. I have made loads of street furniture and interior furniture but I have only shown a few of them. In the foreground you can see a dumpster. The lid comes off but if you prefer you can glue it in place. I have glued the sides of it but left the lid detachable. I wonder if the BS-Mart sign stands for Bryan Scott's Mart? Probably not, but it's nice to think so.

Let us have a closer look at the three buildings starting with the ruined store. Actually, the lowest two floors are intact but the top floor has suffered major damage. This explains why this city set is called Urban Apocalypse Terrain. It is specifically designed for a post-apocalypse setting. You don't have to make every building a ruin. Check out the supermarket shown in greater detail below.

Here, Vampifan has dropped down a level. I have added a few internal walls to these buildings but I have not added any back walls. Normally, I would include back walls. They are useful for photography purposes if they'd be seen in a photo but for gaming purposes they can be left off to make it easier to place figures inside. Of course, all of the floors and roofs are detachable. They are just lightly clipped in place, making it easier to remove a floor or roof to gain access to the interior.

This is the two-storey supermarket. The walls are meant to represent glass and metal. They do work but I am used to making all of my windows for my card buildings out of transparent plastic. Given the restraints of the designs I know this would not be a feasible option. Still, I do miss my transparent windows, but hey, this only a very minor complaint, so it's no big deal. The billboard on the roof is one of two designs you can use, but I guess you could always use your own poster, suitably cut to size to use instead. It's something I'm planning on doing. In the centre of the roof is an air-conditioning unit.

Here I show the ground floor of the supermarket with the upper floor removed. Note the door to the small room Vampifan is in comes with a small stand. It is up to you whether you want your doors open or closed. This one is partially open. The double doors at the front of the store are closed.  Once I add my furniture items these buildings will really come to life.

Vampifan has moved across the road to the large apartment building. The Stop barrier is one of the many street furniture items I have made. One thing to point out about it is that I painted the edges of it. This is very important. Trust me on this ! You can use felt-tip pens if you want. I have a thick black magic marker that I use on the edges of any items that are black, like the fire escapes. The beauty of edging is that it brings an item to life and makes it look like it should and not an obvious cardboard cut-out with jarring light grey edges. I prefer edging with paints because I can get a much closer match to the surrounding colours but my god, it is slow and tedious work. Still, just look at that Stop sign and appreciate how realistic it looks.

Vampifan is now moving up the fire escapes. I have to admit, these are one of my favourite building accessory items. They really bring this building to life. Plus, just imagine the fun you can have on them in a game. So many possibilities!

Moving inside, Vampifan wonders what happened to all of the furniture and all of the people? Is he the "Last Man on Earth"? And where's that mournful wailing sound coming from?
This is just meant as a small insight into what can be done with a few of these boxed sets. There were far more walls and floors that I didn't use than those I did use. Plus you can combine these sets with any of the other sets in this range. I have just concentrated on a few pieces from one of the Urban Apocalypse sets. Still to come will be reviews of the Shanty Town sets, the fire station, police station, art deco mansion, suburban houses and lots more, including mixing and matching sets.
My god, I am in gaming heaven! My mind is filled with ideas of what I can do with these sets in future games. Yes, I will be starting up a new All Things Zombie campaign, starring Vampifan once again, but most likely with new supporting characters. But before then, I will begin my long awaited (well, for me anyway) Judge Dredd Miniatures Game campaign. I have played many games of Judge Dredd using various rules sets including a couple I designed myself. But they all used flat 2-D maps for gaming on. It was always a dream of mine to play Judge Dredd using 3D terrain. Now that dream can come true. Recently, Mega City one suffered catastrophic damage, so much of it lies in ruins. This makes these sets ideal for gaming in the "Big Meg". Even better, Battle Systems recently announced that their next Kickstarter project will be sci-fi terrain. It's due to start later in 2016. Oh joy! By combining the urban terrain sets with the sci-fi terrain sets I can make a superb looking Mega city One. I can't wait.
But, just think of what else you can do with these sets. Just off the top of my head I'm thinking Heroclix and/or Horrorclix, World War 2 city fighting, pulp fiction, 7TV2e style games, cyberpunk gaming, like Shadowrun, for example. So many choices, so many ideas. You'll be seeing a lot more of these sets on my blog, particularly in upcoming batreps.
Good news for those of you who missed out on the Kickstarter project, Battle Systems now have all of the Urban Apocalypse Terrain sets up for sale on their webstore. Here's the link to it - http://shop.battlesystems.co.uk/urban-apocalypse-terrain-8-c.asp