Brutal Cities & interconnected high buildings

When I was doing my own terrain project, I ran a poll among some Infinity gamers.

General conclusion was - more than 3 playable levels of a building (which, in my case, meant ground floor, 1st floor, playable roof, and assumed each level was about as high as you needed to accomodate models inside - 6-7cm tall) is an overkill. As in, not really playable.
Because you're not going to have the Orders to waste on models to go up there. Or go down from there.

After all - keep in mind - you are going to have about 15 Orders maximum (Tactical Window rules), maybe just 10 (Limited Insertion rules) per turn (some lists are going to try and expand on this with Strategos, NCO, Tactical Awareness or Impetous Orders, other will be limited due to taking an Irregular model, or having Orders in Hidden Deployment / Aerial Deployment, but this is the general guideline. Even with the extra Orders, it might be not possible to use them on the model that can / needs to go up / down that tall building). And that's before you start taking losses.
For a maximum game length of 3 turns, if you're playing under standard rules. So we're talking 45 Orders tops, and it is going to be affected by the losses.
Once you count out lateral movement, Attacking, attempting to achieve Objectives, and a number of other actions you need to spend your precious Orders on, there aren't that many left to be spent on vertical movement.

7cm is close enough to 3" to require a typical model's Entire Order's-worth of Climb up the wall. Or at least one Move Short skill (assuming typical MOV of 4-4) if there's a ladder available. And about as much if there's a staircase at 45 degrees or so. And we're still talking about moving from the ground level to 1st floor etc. Depending on the exact design of the staircase, getting to the flight of the stairs leading further up (or down) may take an entire Move Short Skill's-worth (that's what it goes with my home table...). And that's assuming you don't have to fight your way through the floor in-between. Or the flights of stairs aren't located on the opposite corners of the building in question.

So, form my experience:

• 2 playable levels (which usually means ground floor and the roof) works OK, although you may find it a little flat. Especially if there's no height variety on the table.
• 3 levels is fine: getting up or down from there is not a breeze, but manageable.
• 4 levels is stretching it.
• 5 levels (which is the maximum we can do with the pieces we have) is an instant sniper tower: no-one is going to willingly waste that many Orders to just get ot the top from ground level. Or the other way around. Back in the old days, there were also Shadow Zone rules to mind, but these are no longer applicable in N4.

Now, this might be potentially mitigated by installing lifts / elevators that could transport a model to any given floor with 1 Short Skill / Entire Order Skill, but current rules, if memory serves me, don't provide guidelines for these.

Having walkways connecting structures on a given level does help a bit, but also tends to keep models on a given level. They still climb up or down, which still costs you the movement distance.

The practical problems I could expect you to face would be:

• Regarding walkways, keep in mind the table needs to be practical for gaming. As in, there absolutely has to be enough space to reach in with your hands to move the miniatures. To check a Line of Sight - preferably with one's own eyes, or at least a laser pointer. Ro determine distance with a ruler. Too many walkways, and you are going to have a problem.
• At the moment, there are quite a few large models. Both width-of-base and actual height. Are they going to be able to operate on these walkways? Inside of these buildings? Looking at the CB's offcial terrain (the cardboard stuff included in the starter sets) it seems they haven't intended the tables to be as restricted. One could claim it is realistic - large REMs, bikes, TAGs and the like aren't suited to operae in an indoor environment. But this is a game, and it is about fun, not realistic simulation.
• Very dense terrain is going to favour troops geared for short-ranged combat. Have you ever heard the term "chainrifle paradise"? Now, with a Limited Insertion or Tactical Window list, there's not really a way to spam 5-6pt Chainrifle models like in the old days, but it is still a potential problem.
• A Hacker, some Repeaters and a Smart Missile Launcher list is going to be a master of life and death on such a table: very difficult to draw LOF on them, very easy to get into ZoC by them. Spotlight (especially in ARO) through the wall, Guided Missile attack. Boom.

...I guess that's as much as I could get off the top of my head.

I'll be happy to watch where this project carries you :D

 

I love vertical builds: first started playing N2 with skyscraper terrain, 5-6 levels on the taller buildings. Universally a good time.

Infinity rules are actually great for dealing with high terrain, it’s just that most players don’t have the experience yet. We’ve gotten lazy, with all those little box-huts from the core boxes.

Elevators were key to making tall building blocks worth entering, as Errhile says. Build them in, rule it as a short Movement order to move to any floor. The great thing about special terrain rules is that you can make them up per table, and even the RAW crowd can’t really protest their legitimacy.

Agreed that -some- consolations for large-based models are a good idea to keep things playable for those units. The picture you posted is a good example: wide raised walkways that can fit a 55mm base, if only barely. But maybe just a few of those. Anyone who brings motorbikes or full sized TAGs to fight in a tower block should expect to deal with some Stalingrad-style limitations on their movement.

Leaving major interior thoroughfares open to 40mm bases seems like a decent compromise at least. Having a few large balconies to offer cover to TAGs that have climbed up there etc. would also be good. Worth the work to tack on the the Brutal buildings IMO.

And ditto the care about Chain Rifle Paradise, but placing your major tower blocks at least 16” apart will leave lots of nice open spaces to shoot through.

Really looking forward to seeing what you put together!

 

I wonder what software is used to create terrain in Tabletop Simulator. You could have there a way to design and playtest (with quite a player base) the terrain you intend to build here.

Won't be a perfect representation, but in the long run it should save you quite some work.

 

To me, having as few moving pieces as possible is good. I wouldn't want to keep lifting off a level and have walls fall for instance.

 

My personal preference is if you want interior play with buildings of more than 2 storeys, to access the buildings via the sides. I found that in games it was just a bit fiddly removing levels, forgetting where minis were etc.

Many of the Brutal Cities designs attempt to address this problem to streamline gameplay.

Copy pasted from my website -
EASY ACCESS KITS
Brutal Cities signature easy access kits allow you to easily place your miniatures within the building - without having to fiddle with stacking vertical modules! Simply remove the side wall! Some kits don't have rear walls at all, and are section models.



I think the Vantann Buildings and the 305 Sunshine Alley kit fulfill this design approach perfectly. They have lifts for vertical movement too,
and the windows of the vantann are large enough o make it easy to get in there.

 

Myself, I'm definitely a fan of stackable floors.

I mean, I can stack them as high as I need for a given game. I can remove them to get to the models inside, at the same time not moving the models that are on the removed floors (yeah, needs to be done a little carefully, but isn't a problem.

I have given some thought to the idea of a removable rear wall, but I figured these wouldn't work for my group. Because you still need to reach inside, and it is going to be tricky if there's another building in the way. You still need that "rear wall" to know where windows are, and therefore where a mofel can be in partial or total cover. Missing wall could work only in the case of a building located at the table's edge.... and it is kinda corner case for me.
Removeing a rear wall? Only if there's nothing on the ground, touching it (or close enough to it).

Not a snipe at @IAGO242 and their work - these are some beautiful terrain pieces - but from a practical standpoint, they wouldn't work for me.

 

TLDR: High level buildings and interconnections can work

just my own personal experiences:


Sniper lanes are obviously a potential problem on high built up boards but I find the majority of issues here are sorted by higher level blocking terrain at ground level this board for example has 4 playable levels (which all get used) and many of the buildings are connected by berms or walkways (one of the images you can walk from one DZ to the other.

Being able to squeeze in N4 has also made movement easier, having super jumped umbra into 2nd floor windows etc. Superjump and climbing plus make vertical boards a playground.

Equally the stepping off on this board makes it more fun, for example S7/8 models can mantle the red detailed buildings if kept single story. otherwise it just uses ladders (basically everywhere)


This is another board where I have a very high building, this obviously is not generally put in a DZ and is usually straddling the centerline. This building was very problematic but has been much more fun since I decided to ruin the board, basically cutting holes in each floor for units to jump/climbed through (there is also a lift but honestly nobody ever uses it) the shadows of buildings generally protect from it being sniper central as well as how absolutely obvious it is being a trap :

"well, well, well: if it isn't the consequences of my own actions"

Anyway also after a certain height you can end up with less LoF due to the height of the building itself not giving a great defensive angle.

Having played on the brutal cites stuff the removable rears on buildings have been really good as well.

 

Do you have a terrain building technique already chosen?

 

Hmm, that's not a bad call...

I just recalled I did a few texts on making terrain out of cardboard a couple years ago. You might, perhaps, find some use for the ideas there: http://www.data-sphere.net/tag/diy-terrain/ altohugh, I must say, I never solved the elevator problem. In my meta, with the tables we play, it simply wasn't important enough.

 

Fair enough, It's a personal thing. But yes for that reason I didn't add windows on the rear wall, just ducting and details for that very reason.