The most original urban table you'll ever see- on Kickstarter!

     Here's one I've been waiting on for a long time now.  Almost a year.  I even scrapped my own urban table build because I knew it was coming.  Why?  Because this is going to be the coolest, most original looking urban warfare table you've ever seen. Original, durable, incredibly modular, and reasonably priced.  If you play anything modern or futuristic, you really need to check out the T5 Table from FireBucket Games.

     I've talked about the gentleman at Firebucket before- reviewing some of their terrain pieces and bases in past articles, and even putting a lighting rig in one of them.  Their stuff is incredibly well constructed and some of the highest quality add ons for game play it's ever been my good fortune to get my hands on.  They have had this dream... a dream of a completely modular, completely original looking gaming table, that would be producible and able to be shipped to the masses.   T5 is the culmination of that dream.  Now they just need some Kickstarter help to make it a reality. Which is convenient, because you need this terrain!

     The first thing you'll notice that makes T5 stand out from the rest of the gaming world is that the buildings aren't ruins.  Surprise surprise, some people like to actually live and work in buildings, not just blow them up. Who knew, right?  These building kits, dubbed "Modular Building Building Modules." Aside from being catchy, the name is accurate:  there's a fairly endless combination of building structures that can be made from a single MBBM kit.  This picture shows a single kit utilizing all pieces (and a still locked balcony addition). That second story can be placed as a separate building, on the other end of the riser above the street, next to the first floor connecting it in an "L" to it with the roof sections, or any number of possibilities.  All MBBM kits are designed to stack up as well, so five or six story superstructures are simple to achieve. (I feel a Mega-City One coming on...)  As they are octagonally indexing, you can connect hem on a variety of facings, allowing nearly limitless facing possibilities, and guaranteeing your terrain is never in a position where it is unable to fit due to incorrect "right angles."

     The MBBM isn't even the star of the show, even though it may well have been worthy of a Kickstarter of its own.  The big deal here is the T5- Tactical, Topographic Table-Top Terrain.  This is an urban table designed for 28-32mm figure games that allows you to build the City of Tomorrow and store it easily in the closets of today.  The T5 building tiles are 1 foot square, and made of HDF board. While they have layering to create the differences of street and sidewalk (hence the Topographical bit), they stack up cleanly and easily, storing an entire 4x4 table in only 4 inches of vertical space.  I gotta admit, I never thought I'd have a gaming table that I could store in an LP rack, but here it is.  

     The pieces all interlock using a connection sandwiched inside the board components to allow for concealment of your connectors, while not needing to get "under the table" to put them in place.  Did I mention the design aspects of this project are astounding? So, how is that possible you ask?  To my understanding, all those sidewalk and building plaza pieces aren't glued down to the road surface layer. They're independently removable layers, which means the connectors can be concealed in between them, and small plates that stand vertically (concealed in the grating in the sidewalks) lock the pieces vertically together as well.  The entire board interlocks to itself without any disruption of surface or anything visible to break that "fourth wall."  Oh, this also means that not only can you move your road tiles around anywhere you want, but you can organize your building plaza layers as you see fit as well.

     So we've got incredible table plates, as well as incredible buildings... what more can you ask for?  A simple thing that I've never seen, and didn't realize until now that every urban table I've ever played on has been lacking. Landscape planters.  Every city has them in one form or another, and these little babies allow you to have cover you could reasonably expect in a city, right at your fingertips.  Oh, and don't worry about it not coming with the plants themselves.  As soon as I get these bad boys, I'll put up a "how to make trees" tutorial for filling them- it really is incredibly easy.

     For those of you who prefer a more fabricated fare, there's the sickest looking shipping containers you've ever seen.  Now... these are the one piece that's a little more limited, but I don't care. You really can't use them in a modern setting, but I don't care. These are fancy-pants enough to make sense in a Heroic setting like Pulp City, and definitely futuristic enough for Dark Age or Warzone or Deadzone or any other Zones you might be playing. Now, the one showed here does include the acrylic windows option which is an as-yet still locked stretch goal, but even without that component (such as if you just had a wall
with that shape but not punched through to allow the window) this piece would be gorgeous. Additionally, there's a further stretch goal to allow multiple sizes of containers, as you see in this other shot.  The containers not only hold themselves together, they are also stackable in locking shapes, and the tops are removable to get to any action occurring inside.  Oh, and just because these guys are insane, the door hinges are operational as well.  Not at all shabby for a $10 piece of wood!

Now, the big question is, where's the sweet spot on this one?  Never fear, I've done the math for you.  In this case, it really depends on what kind of table you like- if you like'em petite at 3x3, if you're a 4x4 kinda gamer, a 4x6 bloke, or if you go all out with the 4x8. The "Small Town," "Medium Town," and Large Town" pledges cover the first three options, and if you're a big bad 4x8 kinda gamer, your choices are to add panels to the Large Town, or better yet get a buddy to pledge in and both of you go for 4x4's. The reason is the planned freebies: your choice of one unlocked special street tile per pledge, so it's better to keep'em small and numerous.  Additionally, whichever table you're pledging for, you want to add $69 to cover a building and a shipping container- these will net you additional freebies.  If for some reason you can't handle octagonal buildings, at the very least snag the shipping container, because at 7K (which this will blow past) that one container gets you a second one for free.  

     If you weren't looking to buy a table, there's a couple other really good choices for pledges.  There's a $55 "Stack'em High" pledge that gets you ten of the storage containers.  That's a savings of $35 off the add-on price! You're literally getting 4 for free, and then another freebie when the stretch goal unlocks.  Buy 6, get 5 free ain't a bad way to build a table.  If you're looking for just these buildings (and who in their right mind wouldn't want them!!!) there's a $60, $110, and $200 pledge for one, two, and four building kits.  Not as deep a savings on these as the storage units, but considering the amount of building you're getting, how modular it is, and the amount of possible options to be unlocked involving them (not to mention what other gaming companies are charging for their fixed position terrain these days).  If you just want the bare bones to help support a really solid company get what they need to make the tables of nelgected gamers everywhere better (read: mine), then either jump in ten road horse barricades for $5, or a single shipping crate for $8. Every little bit helps in a grass roots kickstarter like this. 

     Remember guys, projects like this is what Kickstarter is all about:  helping a small company realize their dreams of making my gaming experience better.  Er, I mean, getting their business off the ground.  All joking aside (which is really painful for me!) this is the real deal. This isn't a company launching a Kickstarter following on the heels of it's already successful half million dollar kickstarter of last quarter, and this isn't some fly-by-night that's going to take your money and not deliver.  From everything I've seen of Firebucket, I'll stake my reputation on them delivering on time- maybe even a little ahead of schedule.  This is a quality product at a more than reasonable price, and I really feel that anyone who picks this one up is going to be very pleased with their purchase.  So open up your wallets (I'm looking at you, Captain and Big Jim!) and let's help these guys knock this one out of the park.

See ya all on the other side of a brand new gaming table.
The Second Class Elitist