The ground underfoot was broken and uneven. The buildings pressed in on either side. Above, a bridge spanned across the alleyway. The sergeant gestured upwards, and to the doorways on either side of the narrow street. An ambush, maybe. But we were prepared...
Today I want to talk about walkways - specifically, the standard walkway kit, and the straight walkway kit, both from Mad Gaming Terrain. Like the rest of the range, these are simple-to-build MDF pieces, which are magnetisable, and which fit really well with the other stuff from the company. You can see in the picture above that they make really effective bridges between Hab Blocks, for example. The bridge you're looking at is actually made of three parts (a straight and two small sets of steps), which are held together with magnets and the network of holes and pegs which are part of the system. It's incredibly modular, and adds a great dimension to your wargaming table.
You get a decent amount of bits in each kit. This is a picture of the standard set, which includes various straight bits, end pieces, and steps which can be attached.
I added the straights set to this too, which gives you more walkways and end pieces. The full range (with both sets completed) can be seen below.
It's pretty easy to build all this, although adding the side railings is a little fiddly (especially on the standard set, where they are short to allow you to put the stairs anywhere you like). They pop out of the sprues well, but some of the bits are very small, so you will need to take your time on this if you don't want to lose or damage anything. Once built, they are sturdy and robust, and I have no doubt will provide hours of play. You can see how well engineered everything is in the following photo, which shows the underside of one of the walkways. You'll notice that all the parts slot and glue together in ways which provide support and strength - it's very well designed.
The instructions are clear too, and it's worth paying close attention to them as these would be easy to build wrongly. There's one part where it shows you the exact way in which the walkway platform connects to the end pieces - this is straightforward but it would be easy to put it in the wrong position.
Once you've built it all, there are a lot of things you can do - not just bridges! For example, you can use the walkways to provide entrance ramps and platforms for the hab blocks:
Bridges are particularly effective, though, and give a lot of scope for playing. You can mix and match things, as always. In the next image you can see walkways used as a bridge between buildings, as well as to link ruins, and to provide entrances for ground-level access.
I thought it'd be good to combine these new sets with the things I've already built, and to show you what a 40k table setup might look like.
Lots of cover, lots of buildings and ruins to hide and fight in, lots of open spaces, and lots of high ground - a perfect setup, in fact.
Although they're a bit fiddlier to build than some of the stuff from Mad Gaming Terrain, the walkways are such a worthwhile addition to the collection, and create scope for play which is fantastic.
Next week's main blog will hopefully be a battle report from a game I played just last night using this very terrain. I don't want to give too much away, but it was a great game with back and forth action, and the scenery helped! See you next time.