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A while back I was trying to figure out the best solution for creating the urban landscape for my ATZ campaign. There seems to be four schools of thought:
1. Professionally made 25/28mm terrain. While there are lots of fantasy and sci-fi ranges out there, modern ranges that are not Middle Eastern "adobe" are hard to come by, not to mention expensive.
2. HO or O Scale railroad terrain. HO is really too small for 28mm and looks better in 1:72 or 15mm. O Scale is also expensive, and really the terrain is made for static placement, not to be transported or moved.
3. Scratchbuilt. I can actually do a fair job of this, but it is will either be quick or attractive, but not both.
4. Cardstock. A lot of people go this route, including Vampifan from Vampifan's World of the Undead. I've used cardstock terrain in the past with fantasy, and there's lots available out there. With that in mind, I made my first piece today, "Stinky's Pizza" by Microtactix.
Microtactix's pieces are more cartoony than WorldWorksGames, but on the upside this particular piece is free and comes with separate signs so you can make up several buildings with different names on them. This particular piece is also free from DriveThruRPG, making it an even better deal. It isn't large, but I'm a believer in the "small terrain is better" school of thought. Four 3" buildings look better on a table than one 12" building. This set prints out on one page of cardstock, including both the signs and a dumpster (and a crummy looking cardstock delivery boy I won't be using). Microtactix actually has three free buildings, each with separate signs so one could really do a nice start to a layout without laying out any money beyond the $15 for 250 pages of cardstock that will last your forever and the ink cartridges (probably the one downside to cardstock terrain, aside from general flimsiness).
If you have any experience or tips with cardstock terrain, feel free to share them.
Vampifan is the king of cardstock and a helpful guy.
ReplyDeleteVery useful information. Wargame Vault also has a lot of free terrain.
ReplyDeleteI think you've made the right decision going with cardstock. There are actually some good sites out there where the products are free. Keep up the good work. You're off to a good start.
ReplyDeletenice work so far, keep it up fellow zombie fan.
ReplyDeleteEven though its not free, the WWG stuff is top notch. I have most the Urban Mayhem sets, just need to find the time and money to print everything out and build them. I will also get the Mayhem TLX stuff and build a couple pieces with it (along with the road tiles) to see how well I like it.
ReplyDeleteAs you also mentioned there is the scratch built route, I see this route as more for a showpiece, the piece you want to be a primary focus in a game, say a fort built out of scrap by a group of survivors, to defend themselves against gangers and the undead.
I think Vampifan's use of mounting board is the 'King' of techniques.
ReplyDeleteOne tip I have it upscaling the smaller Microtactix stuff by printing in 'fit to page' on A3. Can't recall which ones needed it exactly but I seem to think it was anything NOT in their 'Heroic' range - worth a try.