Apocalyptic Manhattan 50-building terrain for Warhammer

"oimorrigan," an avid gamer, has built this incredible "Apocalyptic Manhattan" terrain for Warhammer 40,000 -- a tabletop strategy game. The construction is "UltraCal (construction plaster) + foamboard," and comprises some 50 buildings. Link (via JWZ)

[#1 posted by Tony Moore , November 14, 2007 5:55 PM]

I couldn't be in the same room with that for more than 30 seconds without turning into some kinda Kaiju monster.

-T

[#2 posted by the_boy , November 14, 2007 7:30 PM]

that's incredible. It'd take the better part of a weekend to play through, but...wow.

[#3 posted by help i cant comfirm my username themelonbread , November 14, 2007 9:34 PM]

That's so amazing... too bad Games Workshop's stuff costs so damn much... I tried collecting Sisters of Battle but back then they only came in pewter.

I wonder how such tall buildings would exactly play out in strategy.

[#4 posted by Marshall , November 14, 2007 10:16 PM]

This calls for full scale Titans and ruined Titan parts. Love that rollercoaster, too.

[#5 posted by luvtosurf , November 15, 2007 2:22 AM]

The tall buildings scare me but I'd like to give it a try. lol

[#6 posted by primalchaos , November 15, 2007 5:24 AM]

Funnily enough, this hits on another favorite BoingBoing topic - fear of violating intellectual property rights hampering development.

The artists who created these buildings cannot discuss how they made them on their forums, because it involves plaster casting, a technique which can either be used to make models like these, or unauthorized copies of official terrain or pieces. They even go so far to refer to plaster casting as "the forbidden art". So they don't allow the technique to be discussed.

Why is it forbidden? Because even though it can be used legitimately and beautifully, it might somehow someway by someone be used for illicit purposes. That's almost RIAA logic there.

[#7 posted by the_boy , November 15, 2007 6:05 AM]

@ PrimalChaos - it's pretty smart fearing RIAA-like action here, as after all Games Workshop is the company that threatened to sue a fan-made movie out of existence, after they had already given it the okay and free advertising.

They are not the best of companies, simply put

[#8 posted by primalchaos , November 15, 2007 7:02 AM]

@ The Boy - If self-censorship is the smart move, that only goes to prove the point, doesn't it?

[#9 posted by Dave X , November 15, 2007 7:15 AM]

From the comments at the site, I think they're leery of discussing casting because some folks want to cast replicas of existing game pieces to either play with or sell. I don't think this "censorship" applies to original models like this amazing setup of buildings.

[#10 posted by Brian Carnell , November 15, 2007 7:52 AM]

"From the comments at the site, I think they're leery of discussing casting because some folks want to cast replicas of existing game pieces to either play with or sell. I don't think this "censorship" applies to original models like this amazing setup of buildings."

Which made no sense. That'd be like saying, well we'd like to tell you how we took the picture, but you could use your digicam to infringe other people's artwork.

[#11 posted by Teresa Nielsen Hayden / Moderator , November 15, 2007 8:29 AM]

LuvToSurf, that makes at least a dozen times now that you've posted a superficial comment containing an irrelevant link to your own website. I've just gone through, removed all the links, and suspended your account through November 29th.

[#12 posted by JohnnyWeird , November 15, 2007 10:09 AM]

#3: Tabletopping isn't my normal style of gaming, but I'd imagine that kind of height advantage would make for excellent sniping possibilities, and the streets make herding enemy forces into barricades a breeze. Looking at these buildings, some of which I walk past to on my way to work every day, I'm reminded of xkcd's point about choreographing battles with strangers in one's head.

[#13 posted by Dave X , November 15, 2007 10:54 AM]

Brian-- If you read the thread at that site, you'll see what I mean. They obviously get a lot of noobs dropping in, just wanting to know how to make replicas of game pieces so they don't have to buy them. It probably gets old, and certainly doesn't advance the art aspects of what the folks at that gaming site are trying to do.

[#14 posted by biztheclown , November 15, 2007 11:07 AM]

Obviously this is awesome.

Just to respond to the comment thread a bit, as I am an avid 40K gamer, caster, and forum participant.

Cost of 40K models--While the costs are high, Games Workshop's model quality has improved constantly through the company's history, both in terms of materials and artistic achievement. This is really undeniable.

GW and IP enforcement--GW has made some strange decisions, but they are in no way a RIAA-type enterprise. Their explanation for the fan film thing is that the German copyright law that would apply does not allow creators to wholly assign their rights and so it might put the company's rights to the 40K universe as a whole in peril. I happen to think that this stance is over-conservative, but I am not a European IP lawyer. They did handle the situation badly, but probably not with malice. They also made a funny deal with the Lord of the Rings rights holders that means that they will not publish pictures of fan made 40K models that use parts from the Lord of the Rings line of models. Still, they are just a normal company in terms of IP law--not the visionaries Boing Boing readers might prefer them to be, but not huge villains either.

On casting and forums--One can use casting to duplicate GW figures, but this is enormously time consuming, and almost certainly not profitable. Nor will the quality be nearly as good. It is more akin to taping the radio with a hand held tape recorder held up to the speakers than it is to "pirating" digital music.

A strange thing about 40K fan sites though is the mixture of people who like the GW games. Some are Boing Boing readers with the BB attitude. Others are almost absurd copyright maximalists. This leads to arguments when it comes to the subject of casting that have raged on nearly every board, with few minds changed. So the "forbidden art" thing is more a way of avoiding the subject than an attempt at censorship of the information, which is widely available.

Two great websites on molding/casting:

http://www.hirstarts.com/index.html

http://www.tapplastics.com/info/video.php

[#15 posted by eustace , November 15, 2007 6:33 PM]

If I were a stop-motion filmmaker, I would be trying to talk to these guys about renting their apartment.

[#16 posted by Mats , November 19, 2007 5:12 PM]

Hi good people!
I´m glad you noticed our setdesign!
It was a setdesign and had nothing to do with warhammar models. We were a team of 7 people and
Oimorgan was one of them. did alot of neat stuff to put on rooftops.

I´m was productiondesigner on the project and let me tell you it was a lot of work ! 16 hours a day
for a month.

It´s for a musicvideo and in fact the goal was to create a city that was´nt manhattan or detroit but a mix of diffrent kind of cities, europian too...

The band is called Strata and the song is "Stay Young"

The Productioncompany is popcore (www.popcorefilm)

Your kindly
Mats Sahlström
Production designer
[e-mail]