My First Order from Mad Mecha Guy

By Chris

I would like to share the best-kept secret in 15mm terrain - Mad Mecha Guy. Here is what $55 worth of terrain looks like on a 2' x 2' table:

Not a bad way to fill a table! Everything is thoughtfully designed (he simply refuses to waste material when cutting his sheets!) and features nice detailing. The cuts are nice and clean - most pieces just needed a few seconds with a sanding sponge before they were ready to glue. My initial order from him was for these five packs:

• Hardened Mini Mecha Shelters
• Containers (Mixed Pack)
• 1-storey Shops with Green Roofs
• 2-Storey Shops
• Garages with Flat Roofs

Here's a quick look at each pack...

Hardened Mini Mecha Shelter

These come in a two pack - the shelters themselves are four walls, a three-part roof, four four-part buttresses, a two-piece hangar door, and two human-size doors. They are completely hollow on the inside. The door is large enough to accommodate all but the largest 15mm mecha. A pair of Rebel Minis HAMR suits are exiting one of the hangars in the above picture, while the below picture featuers a Ground Zero Games Charger.

The Charger certainly is a great fit for that door. It's almost like the two items were designed by the same person... I'm going to paint one using just the parts it came with, while I'll find some plasticard and resin bits to "upgrade" the second. I thought about including some catwalks and access ramps on the interior of the second, similar to the Bandai Macross Armored Factory.

Containers

The containers are an excellent value, and have many potential uses. You could fill a table with nothing but these containers - everyone remember the final scene from the A-Team film? Out of the box, they look great in a starport or other major shipping hub. They could also sit in alleys behind commercial buildings for long-term storage. But I'm wondering what they will look like with some extra bits added on... There are plenty of pictures online of buildings made from converted storage containers. A pewter door here, a couple windows there, some kind of A/C unit on top, and you have instant shelters or field offices. I also like the way they are offered - you can get packs of a single size or choose from variety packs.  

One-Storey Shops

Mad Mecha Guy actually made this green roof variant after my suggestion on TMP, and I'm eager to get these finished. The pack includes enough floors and roofs for six buildings, and there are some extra walls in the pack. You could build dozens of these without repeating the same design twice. They have a good variety of single entrances, double entrances, low windows, high windows, and everything else you need. Originally I wanted to make these into single houses... but realized that very few skirmishes happen in the suburbs. So I'm more interested in making these into commercial buildings. The window punch-outs will actually be useful in making exterior signs for the businesses. 

Two-Storey Shops

These larger structures are ideal for the larger "commercial" buildings needed in a settlement or futuristic city. Banks, medical clinics, even police or fire stations could be made from these buildings. Like the single-storey buildings, these can be built in numerous wall combinations, with some leftover bits. The large roof has some simple lines etched into it - I'm going to try painting them as solar collection panels. 

Garages

A very impressive little pack! I haven't decided exactly how to use them yet. I could paint them individually to match the shops/houses from the other packs - these would simply be detached storage buildings. But it's also tempting to paint them in matching colors. I could see a few skirmishes being fought in one of those rental storage facilities... Storage Wars taken to the next level! There are two different roof/floor options - one has the solar panel/textured gridwork, and another just has a single rectangle inside the roof outline. The two-car garages also include options for both single- and double-width doors.

While building them, the first thing I wondered was how well they would work with some of the light vehicles in my collection. Turns out - they are perfectly scaled for everything I own! From left to right: a Khurasan Rockjumper, Ravenstar Studios Grav Jeep (my personal favorite for "standard" civilian vehicles), an Antenociti's Workshop Zebu patrol car, a Ground Zero Games light civilian hovertruck, Old Crow Gecko, Goanna, and Hammer's Slammers Jeep, and a Ground Zero Games Mini Mule.

What's Next?

Well, obviously, some paint, and a few experiments with translucent plastic for the window openings. I'll share the results as I get them finished. For my next order, I definitely want more commercial buildings - both the multi-story shops and some of the condos. There is just enough here to start building a real city - the kind of urban battlefield I've wanted since switching to 15mm science fiction gaming.