"Cityscape permanent or moveable?" Topic

I'm working on a city board for Mad Dogs with Guns. Should I make the road network permanent and have the buildings set out on bases on it or have everything set so buildings can be rearranged ?

Also what size table? At the moment I have 40 x 29 (two foam core boards) but that seems a little tight.

I keep my buildings free standing. The sidewalks (if any) are hollow squares that resemble picture frames. I simply put the building inside the 'sidewalk' and that takes care of that element. It also greatly reduces the foot print of the buildings for storage.

As to the street, you mentioned foam core boards. You could modify terrain tiles to form geo-morphic street tiles as well as parking lots or areas to place buildings. Since most built up areas generally fall into a grid pattern, it shouldn't be too difficult.

I could go on forever about this but for most 'pulp era' urban games, you don't need much of a foot print. Trading shots across the street doesn't need a 'Gettysburg' size layout.

have everything set so buildings can be rearranged

Check out Matakishi's tea house city link . The front sidewalk is attached to the building and additional sidewalk pieces can be placed on the ends of blocks of buildings, for added detail place on black fabric and add a chalk line down the middle of the roads.

Robert

I'm in favor of rearrangement. My experience with gaming firefights in cities is that you don't need a lot of game table to have fun.

I agree with those that favour flexibility.

"Mean Streets" has a short PDF with some schematics showing how to lay out the 10" square block sections in full length blocks. The thrust here is to allow whatever block sections one wishes to use to be fit into the network of streets, sidewalks, and alleys for maximum variability.

This PDF is free to all buyers of "Mean Streets" items, and may be requested for E-mail delivery by writing TVAG@att.net and asking for it.

To see examples, as well as the 26 available block sections, streets, etc, please follow this link

TVAG

Thanks all for the advice. I have about 8 buildings of varying foot prints mostly old Plasicville but some 4 Ground.

Yesterday I found a sheet of plywood in the garage that's 3'x4'. I thinking painting it black with chaulkboard paint and using that. The otherside will be green with a grid for the Portable Wargame.