Dust Tenements + Mantic Battlezones = Cyberpunk City

After building a set of seven urban buildings based on the Dust Tactics Warzone Tenements, I felt that I had nearly exhausted the possibilities of this kit. But once I got my hands on a batch of Mantic Battlezone sprues -- which are packed with nice detail, but can often result in modular, samey-looking structures -- I decided to put the two batches together and see what I could come up with.

The result was a pair of buildings with a striking near-future cyberpunk look blending early 20th century architecture with futuristic elements. These buildings used Dust Tenement pieces for the main structure, with a few Mantic Battlezone panels and parts mixed in. The Battlezone panels are just a bit shorter than the Dust Tenement walls, but a piece of Plastruct I-Beam fills the gap nicely.

The medium-sized hatches are Pegasus Platformer and Hexagon pieces. I used a wide variety of other smaller bits as well. This first building is a bit residential in character.
 

Battlezone pieces provide some nice street level detail. The door piece easily scores and snaps apart. I then glued it in to imply a door that's only partially up.

On the back, I used some the Battlezone panels for a balcony. I created a double-doorway section for the balcony by cutting the bottom out of the double-window battlezone panel while retaining the center beam. It's a simple and very useful modification, since Battlezone sets only seem to come with few doorways.

The roof is a piece of adhesive floor tile with some food pouch caps and a few other details.

For the second building, I wanted to give the appearance of some kind of business The front has another modified Battlezone double-window panel for an entrance.

On the sides I've used medical specimen cases to screen the lower windows, plus guardrails from the Pegasus Hobbies Hexagon kit to bar the upper windows.

Note that this building doesn't use any tenement corner pieces -- I ran out of them. However, by clipping away the tab side of the small wall and part of the inner section of the large wall, I was able to make the two wall sections mate nicely to form a corner.

The roof is a Dust Tactics Quonset Hut adorned with various Battlezone bits. The sign is bottom-side-out standard Battlezone half-panel with some of the detailing picked out in neon yellow/green paint.

A balcony made from Battlezone pieces allows one to use the Dust Quonset Hut door panel, which actually opens and closes.

The rear is very similar to the front, but I set back one of the Deadzone panels to suggest a garage entrance.

So there you have it, some cyberpunk structures to adorn a gritty futuristic city. Who knows -- there might be a replicant hiding behind those bulkheads?!

These turned out even better than I had expected, but I probably won't be making more. I don't have many Tenement parts left and with nine buildings based on Warzone Tenement parts finished already, I've got more than enough. Keep watching the blog, though, as I've got two more terrain posts coming soon packed with grimy industrial goodness!

-- Karl, Chicago Skirmish Wargames club member