Operations in Built-Up Areas: The new City Ruins kit

Mark takes a look at the new City Fight ruins kit

Cast your mind back a couple of years and we were busy covering the release of the ‘Enemy at the Gates’ Mid War Soviet book*.  In it we saw some fantastic looking ruins and received the City Fight rules to utilize them.  Unfortunately there was an issue with the models and they did not meet Battlefronts standards.  Since then they have been waiting for a good time to release them and that time is now. 

With the Soviets pushing into the German Fortress Cities such as Budapest, it is time to load your SMG, grab a flame thrower and a bundle of grenades;  The City Fight is upon us!

The Kit

The set comes in at 36 GBP or 50 USD and is enough to make  a large building of multiple rooms.  Armed with 4 sets and an afternoon without child, I went about putting together my City Fight table.

Helpfully the set comes with an instruction set that gives you some examples.  I broadly followed these and then made a 4th myself.

Also rather helpfully all the parts come separately so no clipping required.

The Build

They are pretty quick to go together, I just used normal plasic glue and did one side at a time.  My top tip is, when you add the other side of a corner, put the floors and roof on at the same time.  This will help ensure the walls sit at 90 degrees.

• 

• 

The first building only took around 30 minutes.  As you can see it has a nice room divider as well as multiple corner floors.  

Within a couple of hours I had made these three.

The impatient part of me then wanted to see how they look for scale and effect on the table.  Luckily I have the BF Urban gaming mat which has been patiently waiting for this moment!

• 

• 

• 

• 

• 

In reality the City Fight Scenarios do not need a space bigger than 4×4 but, with four sets, it actually looks good on a larger board as well.  In fact, treat them as normal rules for buildings or just ruins and you could easily have a normal game as well.

Going forward

Now comes the painting.  I am still pondering how to do this however I am leaning towards a grey primer then brown spray.  Followed by applying the grey stone work, wash, and then drybrush lighter shades.  The next article in this series will cover that.

I also have a cunning plan involving kitty litter and several colour sprays to make rubble.  Alas, having made some great rubble, the cat got locked into the garage and I need to redo it…

*cast your mind even further back and you may recall plastic “berlin buildings” being an upcoming thing for the Berlin books!  Its taken some time but they have finally arrived! – Lee