Well, it’s finally upon us! The updated version of City Fight with a bunch of nifty new plastic buildings. Unfortunately the kits themselves are fairly expensive imho. So expensive in fact I was tempted to do a little cost breakdown versus Hirst Arts molds.
To me the ‘basic’ Cities of Death boxed kit is an ‘Imperial Sector’, which allows you to create four buildings (although corners is probably a more accurate description), including one large one. Locally this retails for $150 Australia, or $180nz.
Now Hirst Arts molds generally cost $34us each, or roughly $55nz at the moment, and with the Gothic Church and Gothic Belltower you could cast equivalent buildings for a City of Death. Of course you’d need some casting material. A 22kg pail of Ultracal 30 from TopMark in Auckland costs around $65nz. In my experience a 22kg pail will be sufficient to cover a 4′ x 4′ table with ruined buildings.
So for $180nz you could buy Games Workshop’s fixed plastic sprues and use them to cover maybe half your table, or you could take that $180nz and order two Hirst Arts molds and a pail of Ultracal and completely cover your table with your own unique and totally custom ruined buildings.
Of course the Hirst Arts route will take you more time because of the casting it requires. However trust me when I say if you like building terrain, you’ll enjoy yourself a lot more with Mr Hirst’s molds and experience a considerably larger sense of satisfaction when you sit back and contemplate the finished table…
Well it also requires that you know what you’re doing as well :-)
I’m just starting to get into casting plaster and its a lot more difficult than I first though it would be.
Plastic has the benefit of being molded already :-)
Hey Zac, what in particular are you having difficulties with? Two things helped me a lot when dealing with plaster:
The ‘wet water’ method (search the Hirst Arts site).
Casting using smoothed on CD Jewel cases rather that scraping…
I don’t think I’m having any more difficulty than anyone else new to casting. Its just that there is a learning curve (as with all things) and I’ve already gotten quite goo at painting plastic building terrain
Your painting skills still apply, you’ve just got to make sure you seal the plaster with a primer first. Enamel sprays and/or latex/acrylic interior house paints work best for me.
What are you making? Got any photos :)
I know Zac’s pain. I recently convinced my gaming group to purchase three Hirst Arts molds, and have been set the task of “becoming an expert so I can teach everyone else”.
My biggest issue is mixing the plaster to a good consistency, I got paper think blocks from my first cast because I mixed it too thin and I’ve had trouble with subsequent mixes being almost too thick right up to “toothpaste” so that’s my main pain right now…
Christopher, what kind of plaster are you using? I’m inordinately lazy and mix by ‘eyeball’ these days. But I’m using Ultracal 30 which seems to have a fair amount of leeway either way. I’ve also mixed so much plaster I guess I know what consistency works as well. I just manually mix until it feels right. Adding water and more plaster if req’d.
I assembled one of the cities of death buildings with Mark at vagabond (NS) They look nice, however a lot of work is required to make more advanced features like balconies. Another thing thats hirst arts has over these plastics id that hirst models have real depth, thick walls and true build what you want abbilities. The plastics are 2 or 3 mm away from being 2 dimensional. If they were cheaper it would be worth it (I heard the price was going to be more like 300 for the box set). So until I spring for some molding supplies I will make do with scratch building
$300nz for the 10 building box would be more acceptable. Since it’s $350aus though is it $400nz?
Sorry but that’s way out of my price range for 10 buildings!
I do wonder how well the sprue panels would mix with Hirst Arts buildings though because I could see you could add some interesting surface detail to say a HA Gothic ruin with them.
So I may end up buying the smallest possible box and trying them out anyway :)
Stu, I think the plaster is part of the issue. It’s a local Hobby shop’s “house brand” so I don’t have much faith in it. I have a local supplier who sells USG’s UltraCal 30 and HydroCal White in 50lb bags so I think I’m going to be picking up a bag of each and get used to them. Thanks for all your inspiration over the years!
Ah yes, definitely invest in Ultracal 30 or Hydrostone from USG. There is a noticeable difference between these two btw.
Ultracal 30 sets in about 45 minutes after pouring and it’s final set is a little harder than Hydrostone and is a greyer stone too. I suspect Ultracal 30 contains more Portland Cement than Hydrostone.
Hydrostone however sets in about half the time of Ultracal 30 and is whiter. Hydrostone actually gets surprisingly warm when setting too.
Really the only reason I use Ultracal 30 these days rather than Hydrostone is it’s slightly cheaper locally.
I just got like 12 of these from trade me cant wait for them to arrive
What the? Twelve sprues you mean? Surely not twelve buildings :)
yeah twelve buildings though 2 of them are flooring sprues so you can add levels to them so 10 buildings in reality(he said he was the distributor)
here’s a link he has tonnes of them i got all 12 including postage and a pair of clippers for $220(and he offered to do the new roughcoat underspray for me..)
http://www.trademe.co.nz/Members/0202-3377-3380-/auction-58856269.htm
get in quick less than $20 a piece