There's little doubt in my mind these days of the importance terrain plays in a miniature wargame. As I've written previously, I feel terrain is an essential element in the creation of a universe which allows players to maximise their enjoyment of the game and lose themselves for an hour or three (if not longer!!). After spending a considerable amount of money on miniatures recently, I came to the realisation the desire to forego allocating funding for terrain and choosing to rely on the collection of 40K terrain at my disposal wasn't going to butter the parsnips for much longer. While it gave us a varied and quasi-flexible board, it just wasn't Gotham. I knew that I'd be buying a large collection of MDF terrain, but that wouldn't be for a while so I needed something to stand in for the meantime. What the hell was I going to use???
The answer came as a suggestion from one of the Kingaroy Wargamers whose getting heavily into the game, possibly even more than I am (which I feel is a noteworthy achievement in itself really). He suggested checking out the range produced by a company called World Works Games. The company produces a wide range of printable terrain. The designs are made to be modular, allowing you to alter the size, shape and at time overall design of the building to suit your needs. So far I've picked up the Office Blocks and the Mayhem Corporate Building and have been pleasantly surprised at just how generous the packages are though the inclusion of additional extras to help make your buildings stand out from one-another and the ease of customisation.
After attempting to complete the build using cardboard, I quickly came to the conclusion that the buildings, while impressive were a bit small and delicate for the rough and tumble of my gaming area. To address this issue, I decided to change the construction material from cardboard to foamcore; printing an enlarged copy of the plans onto A4 adhesive labels and sticking them directly onto the foamcore before cutting them out for assembly.
After many nights of cutting and framing foamcore, it was eventually complete. In the space of a week and a half I'd managed to assemble enough buildings to recreate a Gotham City street with the help of some additional terrain pieces and the appropriate urban furniture. It was an impressive start to be sure, and one that I have no doubt will serve me well until I can begin purchasing MDF kits to create a proper cityscape.
Catch you all later,
Trev
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