Last month, one of the gaming stores in the Boise area purchased...well...EVERYTHING Worldworks has to offer. A HUGE shout-out to Magic Dragon Games of Boise for the big purchase.

However, I'm not just here to thank them (I'd do that in a different forum). Instead, I'm here because I'd like to help them out. Heroclix is fairly big there, for one thing, and they need to get rolling on building a big Heroclix display to play their games on.


So I thought...what if I put together a step-by-step plan for building up a big, easily usable set of Heroclix terrain. Something he could tackle one bit at a time, starting easy and building up to more difficult things as it went on.

Then I thought...wouldn't it be even better if I posted this to the forum, instead of just emailing him with it, so that others could make use of it as well (if it suited their needs), and even add their own thoughts and suggestions?

So here I am...writing up my suggestions for a Heroclix build where you, and everyone else, can see.


First and foremost...some assumptions. This is being done from the very specific point of view of a set of suggestions for Hawk, the owner of Magic Dragon Games, and as such not all of these assumptions may apply to all builders, but at least it gives you a frame of reference for where I'm coming from. I am assuming:

1) It needs to compromise well between being modular, and able to be set up quickly and easily.

2) It needs to be replaceable (Game stores have a lot of wear and tear on models)

3) It needs to start with very basic level of build instructions, and work its way upwards from there to get progressively more difficult over time.

4) It needs to be as cheap as readily possible, while still looking good and working properly.

5) It is free to make use of ALL modern sets currently available.

The master plan:

Rather than designing this setup around single 7.5" tiles, the concept I'm working on goes with some bigger elements to allow for less pieces, more quickly set out, set up, and put into play.

Thus, the master plan starts with what I call my "Street Corner Board".

For this, I utilize not foamcore, but 1/2" R-factor polystyrene insulation.



Why this stuff? Cost.

The Street Corner Board is 37 1/2" by 37 1/2" square. To create one of these from Foamcore would require a standard 40" x 60" sheet, which around here sells for $11.75. To make two, you're pushing $25 in materials.

One 4' x 8' sheet of 1/2" Polystyrene insulation foam is around $6.

There's other benefits as well. They're lightweight, and thus easy to haul around and store (if a bit bulky...which is why this works for a gaming store, but may not at home). They're not as prone to warpage due to greater thickness. And they're thick enough that you can "tack" down corner sections (more about them later) and props with straight pins.

Ok...so you've got your big sheet of Polystyrene Foam. For the purpose of these diagrams, we'll use a pink sheet of foam (color may vary depending on availability and brand in your area).



As mentioned before, chop yourself out two 37 1/2" squares. Save the rest...always save scraps. They'll come in useful later when you're least expecting them to. Be PRECISE when you do this, as the quality of the end result depends a lot on how well you do the earlier steps.

Now measure in 15" along the side from each corner, and draw a line across the board. You should have four lines criss-crossing each other like this:



Print out one 1.5" scale Street Intersection tile, and 8 1.5" scale straight street tiles.

Mount the intersection in the very center of the tile, aligned as squarely as possible with the lines you drew.

Then mount the straight streets radiating outwards from that central tile, lined up evenly along each side and between the lines. You should end up with something like this:



In the basic version of what we're working on, you're done. That's all that *needs* to happen to make this into a workable Street Corner Board.

However, if you want to, here's some other things you can do to expand on it (Hawk, I'm usually talking to the more advanced model crowd on this stuff, so you can ignore these tips and just stay on-target for the basic build):

1) If you want to cover up the rough (and possably pink) sides of the board, you can print out a few sheets of the Concrete Slab 1.5" tile from Bits of Mayhem, chop 'em up into 1 1/2" wide strips, score them at the 1/2" and 1" marks, and fold them over the edge (you'll have to make a couple angled cuts where the corners meet). Gluing these down all along the edges will make for a more "finished" looking result.

2) If desired, you can also flip the sheet over and do the same thing on the back, only doing something a little different with the central street layouts (a road and rail crossing, for example).


What you DON'T want to do is put anything in the four bright-pink blank corners of the board. Trust me...they're there for a reason and it will all work out when we're done.

The Modular Corners:

The concept revolves around the idea of taking a Street Corner Board and plunking down onto it four 15" square corners. By making these corners modular, it is extremely quick and easy to build up a gameboard, then tear it down and put it away. Storage is a bit more demanding than the 7.5" tiles, but it's easily made up for with ease of gameplay, and it allows for some of the larger and more involved projects to be built up with relative ease.

Now is where the foamcore comes into play. Each modular 15" square tile is mounted on regular foamcore (black core if you have it, white if you must).

You can get two such 15x15 squares out of a standard 20" x 30" board, so in order to cover up your first full board, you'll need two sheets of foamcore. As before, you want to SAVE THOSE SCRAPS, and on occasion, you'll want to borrow bits from one side to modify the street outlook as well.

So here we go. We'll start with the most basic of concepts, and work our way upwards from there.

#1: The Parking Lot.

For this one, there's only one tricky part, and that comes with cutting out the board itself. Starting off with a regular sheet of foamcore, cut out a 15" x 15" board, with an extra 1 1.2" by 7 1/2" notch along one edge. Remember to use a sharp blade to cut foamcore. Something like this:



Mirror this on the other side as well, as we'll use another odd-shaped tile later on for Modular Tile #4:



It's easy from here.

Print out 3 Streets of Mayhem parking lot tiles and 1 Streets of Mayhem parking entrance (the 1.5" grid tiles, of course). Also print 1 more Street Intersection...you're going to use a bit of this, and save others for later.

Mount the entrance tile next to the leftover tab, and the other three tiles (oriented in a way that makes sense) on the rest of the board. Now cut off one 1x5 square (1 1/2" x 7 1/2") strip off of the side of the Street Intersection tile you printed out, and paste it on your extra tab. The end result should look something like...



If you used white foamcore, you'll want to edge the foam itself in a black sharpie. IMPORTANT TIP: You need to be using a SHARP blade to cut your foamcore sheets...if you're using a dull one, you'll be edging chunks at this point and getting frustrated.

Now simply toss this down on one corner of your Street Corner Board (SCB), and voila! 1/4 of the board's corners now has something substantial and usable.

Want to lock it into place for gameplay? Try running a straight pin through the four corners of the tile into the SCB below. This should lock it into place fairly solidly.

Note that the extra tab provides a street-level access point into and out of the parking lot.

Advanced Tip:

1) If you want to go all-out, and expense isn't an issue for you, you can take it to that extra level. Instead of a 15x15 board, use a full 16 1/2" x 16 1/2" board, and mount the sidewalk elements from the street onto the edges of this tile as well. In that way, you'll have a "raised" sidewalk and a lower street level.

2) If you REALLY want to put it over the top, try to fit the curbside itself into position and fold it over the edge so that the 3D curbside is covering up the edges of the foamcore. You'll need to bash or patch the extra 1/4" that you'll lose from the other edges to align this right.

The downside to this approach...it locks the tile into one orientation instead of being able to turn it different ways.

#2: The Vacant Lot.

We're starting off with a standard 15" x 15" tile for this one:




For this build, we're going to get into Bits of Mayhem a bit more heavily. Print out 4 1.5" Grass and Mud tiles, 4 1.5" Chain Link Fences (your preference for Black or White variety) and 4 1" Chain Link Fences. Yes, we're using the 7" ones for a very specific purpose.

Now it's time to introduce a few new tricks that aren't in the standard build instructions. When you go to cut out your fence segments, do it a little bit differently. On the side where the four metal tabs (for gluing to the base) are located, I want you to instead leave a nice, big tetrahedral tab, like this:



I've found that, as a general rule, the tabs that WWG put on their models are quite sufficient, but that if there's cardstock available for a bigger tab, and it doesn't get in the way of something else, it never hurts to add a little extra.

Build up all eight of your fence pieces in this manner. Go ahead and assemble them, cut out the extra white bits, etc.

Now to the first tricky part. Assemble four of them in a row...7", 7.5", 7.5" and 7", like this:



Use the extra tab of fence material to glue each fence segment to the next one over. The two 7.5" segments should remain straight and flat, while the two 7" segments should be able to fold 90 inwards. Cut off the tab from the left-most 7" segment of fence.

Repeat this with the other four fence segments.

Now comes the fun. We start by mounting the two long fences to either side of the foamcore board. Glue the extra-big tabs you created to the foamcore base so that the fences run [bold]right along the outside edges[/bold] of the foamcore board.

This technique (for reference) is similar to how you place the walls of Mayhem Industrial, if you need a reference point to consult for how this all goes together.




Once you've mounted the fence segments on both sides (and because you used the 7" fences as I told you, there's an intentional gap in the fence on both sides letting you into your fenced area), it's time to move on to adding the ground tiles.

Glue your four grass and mud tiles over the tops of the tabs. Keep the tiles oriented the same direction, as that is how the design matches up from tile to tile and looks like continuous grounds.



To dress it up further, you could add a couple of trees growing on the vacant lot. There's a modest-sized evergreen tree in the module Dinas Ffordd 1: The Seeds of War.

Alternately, a more overgrown lot can be made using the thick grass of Encounter Set, Shellendrak, Mayhem PD, or Hinterlands (the last choice, by the way, includes an assortment of trees as well).

#3: The Playground

This one also uses a standard 15" x 15" tile



While the work on this one is still involved, the instructions are really easy. Start off with 4 1.5" Concrete Slab tiles from Bits of Mayhem, 4 1.5" Chain Link Fences (your preference for Black or White variety) and 4 1" Chain Link Fences. Sound familiar so far? Good. We're doing another fenced-around lot.

For this one, though, we're adding one other step. Four of the Bits of Mayhem Basketball Hoops.

Build just like you did Tile #2, only this time add the four hoops to the layout. Urban playground, ready to roll.



If you would like to, a few of the benches from Bits of Mayhem would make a good addition to this layout. Further, you can use other bits FROM the basketball hoop pages to dress up your Street Corner Board with fire hydrants and vandalized snack machines.

Another option, if you want to really go all-out on this, would be to hunt down the Bleachers and Basketball Court kitbashes in the Sports kitbash section, and do a single basketball court with actual stripes and bleachers.

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/in ... ucts_id=54

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/in ... ucts_id=55

#4: Apartment Complex

Remember that other 15" x 15" tile with the "extra notch" and the extra bit of an Intersection tile that you saved from building #1? We're going to use them now.



You'll also need to print out a few more things. 1 Parking Lot Entrance from Streets of Mayhem, 8 "Hollywood Flat" style building sides from Bits of Mayhem, 3 of the 7.5" "adjustment templates" from Bits of Mayhem (designed to take a 7" square building and fit it to a 7.5" square base), and 3 1.5" Grid Roof pages and 2 pages of "Roof Edges".

The 1.5" "adjustment template" is your best friend for taking 7" square buildings and fitting them to 7.5" tiles. You'll find one in Bits of Mayhem, and another in Mayhem Industrial, and they look something like this:



Start off by cutting out and mounting onto the base another "extra strip" of street to the extra tab, the parking lot to its accorded spot, and the three 1.5" template tiles, with their strips all aligned to the outside, away from the parking lot.



Now cut out all 8 of your building sides (remember...bigger tabs are better, so go ahead and leave everything all the way out to the edge of the page). Glue them together in a nice, long, continumous row:



The central two pairs of walls are not to be folded..they're kept together as a single, solid wall. Fold after the first, second, 4th, 6th and 7th tab (always between separate pages, never elsewhere), and Reverse-fold the leftover tab.



Now bend those folds 90, and match up that leftover tab with the far end of the wall. You should now have a nice, big L-shaped building.

Glue the heck out of all those base tabs, line it up carefully with the adjustment templates on the base board, and glue it all down. Just like that, you have a big apartment building that is now only awaiting a roof.

However, before you move on to that roof, here's another tip. Those 14" long walls are going to be prone to warpage and sliding about. Fix that by making use of those extra bits of either foamcore or polystyrene board you've been saving (like I told you to). Cut a section about 2" wide and just a hair under 14" long, and glue it to the base of one of the 14" walls on the inside. Cut another short enough to fit (the first one will block the way, so it has to be a bit shorter) and glue it along the base as well. Repeat this for the top 2" on either side. This should make your building nice and sturdy.

By the way, the rest of the hollow interior isn't game-usable, but it makes for a GREAT place to store all your loose props. You can fit a ton of street signs, mailboxes, cars, stoplights, and so forth into just this one building...others will give you even more room to play with.

Now on to the roof. Cut out two of the roof blocks normally, but for the third one, leave all of the remaining cardstock out to two sides of the roof, like this:



Glue the other two roof segments to these two tabs, to form your L-shaped roof. You can flip it over and reinforce it with scraps of foamcore or polystyrene, or even just an extra thickness of cardstock, if you want a sturdier roof.



Add the rooftop tabs on all sides of the roof, fold them over, and join them as per the directions in Bits of Mayhem. Just like that, and you have a roof that should fit neatly over the top of your apartment building.



Astute viewers will notice there's a discrepancy between the squares on the roof. Specifically, the places where two roof segments join creates a row of 1" x 1.5" squares. If this is a big issue for your Clix play, and a huge annoyance to you personally, I recommend using the rooftops provided in Mayhem Industrial, Mayhem PD, or Shellendrak Manor, as these three rooftops "play nice" with areas larger than one single 7x7 roof.


Ok...congratulate yourself, pat yourself on the back. You've completed a full set of four tiles, enough to fill a single Street Corner Board all the way up with terrain! From here, it's just a matter of adding more options, or eventually, enough to fill a second board.

I'll keep these coming as I have a chance to expand on the concept.

Perfect Andorax.

This is almost exactly how I make my scaled down versions of SOM. As everything is scaled down to roughly 40% it allows me to make larger shapes. The only difference is the roads which I had two exits/entrances on each side (four roads, two vertical, two horizontal).

I look forward to seeing more!

This is awesome.

Arabin has some cool ideas, I'm hoping he'll pop in here and make some suggestions that haven't been touched on.

Look forward to seeing more and more.

CCotD'

The problem with a double road in full scale (rather than Highland's shrunken-down scale) is that in order to create a viable tile, you either have to have room for only tiny buildings (1 tile sized), or you have a HUGE board.

The goal is to keep the individual boards managable (a hair over a square yard). Ideally, there would eventually be 4 such boards, and at least 16 different possible "corner tiles", that could then be set up as modular bits throughout to create a big central block, the street that ran 'round it, and all the stuff around it on the various streets.


I'm glad you guys are enjoying this, and I've got another serving to dish up:

#5: Building Cluster

Ok...back to it then. Our next stop will be a cluster of different buildings with different rooftop heights, which should prove to be visually interesting as well as tactically.

Start with a regular 15x15 tile, and this time simply mount four "Adjustment tiles" on it...your preference between the Bits of Mayhem one or the Industrial one.

We'll use this base a lot from here going forward, so I'm going to refer to it as a "Standard Building Base". Essentially, it's any time we're putting four 7"x7" buildings on one tile.



Now we're going to be doing a little bit of bashery and "coloring outside the lines" here, so bear with me. It's not really all that complicated, but you do have to be sure you follow where I'm going with the directions, even if they sound a bit odd. It's all for a solid reason.

We're going to be making heavy use of Mayhem Downtown for this one, which gives us several different styles of flats.

The print list for this project is: 2X Beige Brick flat walls, 2X Office Building flat (with door), 3X Office Building Flat (without door), 1 Skyscraper Base (with door), 2X Skyscraper Base (without door), and 4x Skyscraper top. You'll also want 2x the 1.5" grid "dirty" roof and 2x the 1.5" "pipe" roof, 3x the "roof edge" page, and a page of doors (the Beige Brick walls don't have doors in them).

First, we want to build an L-shaped building, just like we did for the Apartment Complex, using the office building and ground-floor skyscraper elements. Your flat layout should look like this:



Assembled as a L-shaped building (with the end tab as the inside corner), this forms the base for the office building cluster. Go ahead and glue this down to the base now.

Now we'll add the shorter beige brick section. For this one, you will want to cut out both pages a little differently. Speficially, both need to be cut off at the "2nd floor" level, cutting off the 3rd floor entirely (though you'll want to save it, of course...that's part of another 1-storey building elsewhere). Also be sure that for one of the two, you leave a tab on the left-hand side as well...just leave the rest of the page on there.



This, then, fills out the fourth corner of our square of buildings. The two beige walls are joined together, and then the two tabs glue over the faces of the inside walls of your L-shaped building.

Now we build the skyscraper up higher still. When you cut out the four "skyscraper top" sections, go ahead and leave an extra-big tab at the bottoms, all the way down to the bottom of the page. Join 'em together into a simple box (just like buliding a stand-alone flat), then use your extra-big tabs to glue the top half of the skyscraper into the bottom half.

You should be left with a (still roofless) cluster of buildings, one 6-storeys high, one three (twice as wide), and one 2-storeys high.

The roof for the Skyscraper is easy. Just assemble a perfectly normal "dirty" roof and clap it on there.

The roof for the Office Building is similar to how you did the one for the Apartment. Cut out both Pipes roofs, leaving a long tab on one side for one of them. Glue the two roofs together, and run an edge around five of the six sides, leaving one where the roof would meet the skyscraper. That roof, too, should just sit in place without a problem.

The roof for the beige building, though, is trickier. Nothing is there to hold up the "inside" corner. So what you need to do with the last "dirty" roof is to cut it out leaving an extra tab in one corner.



Attach the rooftop edges to the two sides opposite that tab. Then ever-so-carefully use a sharp blade to cut a notch into the inside-corner sides of the office and skyscraper buildings, right where the tab you left on this roof should go. You should be able to just slide the tab into the slot you cut and have the roof sit perfectly on that corner.

And...you're done. A complex roofline ready to roll for your game.

#6: Interior Construction

Ok, the next couple are getting more complicated in terms of actual construction requirements, but are actually easier for instructions...they're simple "do what the instructions in the sets say" builds.

Delving now into the area of internal-compatible sets, we're going to a combined Bits/Armory build.

Start off with a 15 x 16 1/2" board. It's like the "extra tab" boards from #1 and #4, but this time you're leaving both extra tabs on the end.

Print off another extra Street Intersection, and chop both side-strips off to cover up the extra tabs. You want two street entrances into the tile this time 'round.

Now print off 3 Adjustment Tiles, and one 1.5" "Gas Station Base" from Bits of Mayhem, like this:



IMPORTANT NOTE: The upper-left adjustment tile leaves a gutter in between it and the next building over...the white part of the tile meets up with the street inlet!

From here, all you need do is go into Bits of Mayhem and Mayhem Armory, and follow the regular directions to build:

1) A Garage, to mount facing out onto the street (upper left).

2) A gas station (your favorite brand of the two, upper right).

3) An Apartment (lower-left)

4) A gun shop (lower-right).

If you feel so-inclined you can expand any or all of these upwards into second storey levels, but for right now I'm just putting forward the basic setup.

This will get you your first busy small-building-cluster tile, with full interior support.

#7: Industrial Complex #1

Harder to build, easier to explain.

Take a simple 15x15 tile, and build the default as-per-the-instructions Industrial Warehouse...just put together exactly what's pictured in the instructions.

You can either stick to a standard 15x15 tile here, or if you desire, you can do a "notched" tile with a street-entrance as per #1 and #4, and use a loading dock for one of your outside walls.

What's more, by utilizing the omnifloor system from this set, your rooftop will properly match up and work the way it should.

#8: Mayhem PD

And just when things were getting easier on me, I go and complicate them. To round out your second board's worth of pieces, I would recommend using Mayhem PD. I've saved this for last because the construction techniques are the most involved and complex, but by now this should be well within your grasp.

Luckily, despite being a bit more complicated with the footprint method, it's still easily adapted to our tiles. Start off with a 15x15 tile as normal, and cover it with the 1 1/2" layout grid" from Mayhem PD:



I'm going to block out different "areas" by different floor types, though how you handle it is of course up to you. For this setup, we'll do a simple single-floor building with a few basic areas, though you can certainly make things more complicated if you prefer.



The pale blue 4x6 square section in the upper left is the "main lobby", and the actual entrance is the wall along the top entering this section.

The dark blue section (6x6 squares) is actually divided into a 4x6 "office area" with various cubicles and their regular occupants and contents, and three 2x2 walled-in offices along the right-hand side.

The holding area is the concrete slab in the lower-left...room for a couple of cells and a watch station.

The smaller pale blue section (4x4) in the bottom center is set up to be a conference room, while the stone-floor slab in the lower-right (2x4) is for storage.

Add exterior doors where you feel they are appropriate, slap a full roof on top, and you're good to go. Or, if you're feeling adventurous, build upwards onto a second storey.

#9: Manorhouse

Now that you've mastered the "footprint" technique with Mayhem PD, it's time to apply it once again, with the fanciest digs in town, Shellendrak Manor.

If this doesn't impress the 'folks, I don't know what will. Start off with a standard 15x15 tile with the 1.5" planning grid on it.



You'll want to run a two-square strip across the front (one grassy tile will suffice), but don't glue it down just yet. Myself, I would recommend printing out the wrought-iron fencing (one gate page and one regular wall page should do) and use the same technique we did for the chain link (back in #2 and #3) to fence in this grassy front area...keep the rabble off the lawn.

If you don't have (or want to spring for) transparency sheets, the wrought iron fence *can* still be done by printing them 2x and very carefully aligning and mounting them back to back, but it is inordinately tricky and you might be better off with stone fencing in this case.



For those of you familiar with the Manor and its instructions...yes, I'm using the exact same layout as depicted in the instructions and beauty pics. It's easier to follow a pre-existing game plan, and it happens to be exactly 15" wide (without the grounds), so it's a perfect fit for a max-use-of-space old building in a downtown area.

Lower Floor


Upper Floor


Grand Gallery and protruding bay-style front halls, dining hall and study in the large back rooms, and a bath in the back center.

Upstairs, the two blue and pink tiled rooms can easily be bedchambers.

However you want to set it up, this grand display is sure to impress the players and really get them excited about whatever might be inside.



Once again, though, I am going to recommend one of my kitbashes. Shellendrak does not come with gridded rooftops, and there's doubtless going to be opportunities for action in a big-city clix-game building.

http://www.worldworksgames.com/store/in ... cts_id=182

#10: Think Big: Hotel Imperious.

So far, we've put together some basic corner arrangements, and it's all gone fairly smoothly. For our next trick, we're going to expand a little further on the concept and do it BIGGER.

Specifically, we're moving to a "modular" section that instead of filling one corner, or sticking out a bit with a tab, it's going to fill up a full side. Obviously, this is going to have to be thought out ahead of time for storage and usage issues, but the end result could be well worth it.

To do this, though, we're going to have to use a larger sheet of foamcore than normal. The overall piece has to be 37" wide, so we'll have to get ahold of a larger sheet of foamcore to work with. The next-larger standard size, so far as I've seen, is 32x40...and since you only need 15" worth, you can get another BIG tile out of the other half of the board...which is good, because that's where we're going next.

Ok...onwards and forwards. Cut a 15" x 37 1/2" section of foamcore, enough to cover up a full side of your Street Corner Board.

Now we get set up to base it...but it's going to get a little tricky, and we're going to have to bend a couple of the normal rules. You see, there's a bit of a problem for structures more than 2 tiles square when you're placing 7" walls on 7.5" tiles. That third tile in the middle can't be spanned by the 7" wall, so something gets out of skew on one side or the other.

The trick is that we're adding a full set of 3 such out-of-skew by 1/2" tiles..which adds up to a single square. So the end result works out. Here's how it goes together:

Start by printing out 10 of the "Adjustment templates". Begin at one side, and mount them one next to the other to cover the outside rectangular space...but when you get to the last pair, shorten them by 1 square first!



Now print off a strip to cover up the last square on the end. Bits of Mayhem Concrete or Mayhem PD Concrete or Stone might fit well here.



Ok, now get ready...it gets crazy from here.

Print 13x Skyscraper Base hollywood flats (Downtown) without a door, and 1 Skyscraper Base with door, from Mayhem Downtown. If you want more doors facing other sides, feel free to adjust this to suit that need.

Line 'em up end to end and glue 'em together. Then fold to make a 2-side-wide wall by 5-side-wide wall rectangle, with the doors in the center of one of the 5-wide walls.

Now (this is important), you MUST reinforce this wall severely! It's a massive bout of buckling waiting to happen. If you have saved large (35" long) strips of the polystyrene this long, then now is its time. If possible, reinforce the entire height of the two long walls...it'll be much more usable, and far less likely to buckle terribly, if supported in this manner.

We're not done yet, so hang onto your seats. For our next trick, you'll need 10X Skyscraper MIDDLE hollywood flats (with extra-big bottom tabs). Line 'em up all in a row, and score/reverse score the walls (leaving 3 of them together in a solid wall) until you have a "T", similar to the "L" shaped structures you've done before.

The T then sits on top of the first level of the structure, with the 3-wide back centered on the back (away from the door) wall of the hotel. Once again, you'll want to reinforce this wall to within an inch of its life...solid polystyrene is recommended for its' full length.

You might also want to look at adding internal reinforcement to the structure to give the upper section you just added something more to hang onto.

You can now cap the remaining lower-level sections with two L-shaped roofs. Go back to the Apartments (#4) to review how this is done, though I'd recommend actually using one of the tile-friendly rooftops (Industrial, Mayhem PD, or my Shellendrak kitbash).

Next up? You guessed right...print out 4x Skyscraper Top hollywood flats...the same ones you used to build the top of the Skyscraper section of tile #5 (and that buildng seemed so big at the time, didn't it?)

This sits right at the center of the T, reaching for the sky in truly impressive fashon. A standard roof tops it, and a similar roof (minus one of the four edges) tops each of the wings of the T.

It's amazing...it's stupendous...it's the Hotel Imperious! And it'll impress the heck out of anyone who walks into your game store or basement.

#11: Think Big again: Industrial Complex.

Same principle as the last, but a very different theme. Time to get big and impressive, WITH playable interiors. Yes, this will be dang impressive when all is said and done.

We start with a base similar to the one from the Hotel Imperious, but this time you need 9x Adjustment Templates, 1 of whatever filler you prefer (I'm using PD Concrete), and 1 of the Mayhem Industrial Loading Zone tiles, thusly:



Two things to note on this layout.

1) The adjustment bases consist of two full-squares (as if you were doing a standard base for a 15x15 tile). The "slack" shorter base is in the center this time, not on one of the ends.

2) The Loading Zone tile is NOT centered! It is offset to the left by 1 square (aligned with the 4-square adjustment tile to the right).

Ok...so now it begins. The massive industrial complex OF DOOM! 15 standard outer walls of your preference (including a few with doors) and one loading bay outer wall.

Follow the standard instructions and rules for building the interior and exterior walls, being sure to align the "loading bay" dock wall with the text on the loading zone tile. For this, I'd at least consider skipping the corner-office setup alltogether and have a huge manufacturing-intensive setup.

The roof, I would recommend doing in three separate sections...a four-square (just like you put on your earlier #7) Industrial roof to cover either wing, and a 1-tile sized roof for the central section.

As for what to put IN the factory? I'd seriously consider looking at the more industrial-looking elements of Platform Command (Operation Nightwatch AND Red Sector), particularly Red Sector's conveyor belts and control tower.

And now a word from our sponsor:

One thing I haven't addressed through all of this, though it is a VITAL part of any WorldWorks build, is props. In order to really make a display shine, you need to include a host of different props, not only on the street level itself, but likewise inside and/or on top of the various buildings. I haven't addressed this both to focus on the structure to build itself, and because props are so very much a personal preference and style thing.

The one thing I do NOT want to do is leave you with the impression that going props-free is in any way the thing to do! If you haven't done so by now, you really need to take a break from all this mass-tile production and go through all these phenominal Modern modelsets to produce a host of different props to fill in.

Put stoplights around those intersections, street lights over those parking lots. Put up signs and billboards (kitbash one with your own store logo!) Build cars, trucks, vans, police vehicles. Add the host of little details that make the WWG sets so very amazing visually.

I didn't want you to think that you could just skip this step...that would be a grave disservice, and a misuse of these marvelous sets.


Oh, and one other thing. So far, a great modern set hasn't seen any love in these instructions. That would be Mayhem Rail. Truly a shame, really, since it is a wonderful set, but it doesn't fit into this scheme until you get down to the prop level. I would strongly recommend building at least one (or the back of one) of your Street Corner Boards with a rail intersection criss-crossing it instead of roads going both ways. The Industrial Complex would look great on the "other side of the tracks", and you could easily fit a Rail Station on the board in between the corner-tiles, complete with railcars going back and forth.

These railcars, by the way, are well detailed top AND bottom...perfect for your stronger Heroclix villans (or even heroes) to go throwing around.

Hmm, this seems like an easy SketchUp build. I'm pretty familiar with SketchUp. Check out my gallery with the link below. I'm going to start working on it as soon as I get home from work. This build appears to be straight forward. I had a question: With the HorroClix genre, it is preferred that there are tight quarters (i.e. rooms, hallways...etc.). Is there a way to make the interiors of the hotels and apartments playable? I know I can make them without the roofs and just slap in the floor tiles, but some of those building look fairly large and I am afraid that the walls will get wobbly. Any suggestions, cause my fourteen year old daughter want to start the build right away.

The way I avoided wobbly walls on my warehouse was to reinforce the walls. I would put the outer wall, then the cardboard from a cereal box, or better yet some a thicker cracker box, then the inside wall. You have to make sure to leave space for the tabs at the end, and any windows, doors, etc. but it really made for a firm wall with no warpage.

I hope that helps.

Arabin

If you can Sketchup these modular sections, that would be GREAT...particularly if you can reference them by # as they were used earlier in the thread.

I'll be adding more semi-soon.

Sure thing. I will get started on them when I get home. I am going to purchase Mayhem PD, Downtown and Industrial so that I can get the textures for some of the other sets. But, yeah I can label them as such. And if you like, I can make the sets available to they guy that you initially made this build for.

I'd say just post the pictures here, so there's a visual reference. I might even take the pics you post and edit them back into the original descriptions (or do a new thread to consolodate this after you get some sketchups done and I get some more pieces out).