Gale Force 9 and Thunderhead Studios, makers of HEXTECH, have once again expanded their offerings with a third wave of products. This wave is yet more Trinity City buildings, including the Trinity City Megablock, the Trinity City Tri-Towers, and the Trinity City Binary Towers.
For those who missed my last review, HEXTECH is a series of terrain products for BattleTech and Alpha Strike that come fully painted and ready to play straight out of the box, hence the tagline “a battlefield in a box.” The Trinity City products—as the name might suggest—are a full range of urban terrain options. That is to say, they’re ‘Mech-scale buildings that you can scatter over your playmat to offer realistic obstacles for your opponents. The whole idea came from Christopher Wailes who got tired of being destroyed by snipers and artillery on more open hex maps. Rather than complain, he decided to do something about it.
Flash forward a few years and HEXTECH is creating urban environments for your forces to face off at ranges where your MechWarriors can practically spit on each other. The last batch of buildings already provided phenomenal variety and roads that could be arranged to create any urban environment you pleased, from a suburban township to a dense metropolis. And now, Wave 3 brings three more buildings to add yet more options.
First up is the Trinity City Megablock. This is a chonker of a building measuring five hexes long (if you count the two half-hexes at the ends as a full hex). This structure could be your downtown shopping mall or a massive electronics factory with several floors and multiple air conditioning units on the roof. As with all HEXTECH’s products, it’s well-painted in three colors with no noticeable issues like drops or smudges.
One of the things I appreciated most about Wave 3 is how the felt bases are better notched to match the actual base of the building. I had no trouble fitting the building between the grooves so there was no wobbling or precarious tilts. Not that there were many issues in previous waves, but I do recall one of the older wave’s buildings that didn’t quite fit the grooves as well as I would’ve liked. The hexes also perfectly match up with official BattleTech playmats and HEXTECH’s own branded roads.
Next, we have the Trinity City Binary Towers. These are two towers that are connected by a sky bridge which is held by magnets. You’ll need to glue the two rare earth magnets into their cutouts, but make sure you don’t have the incorrect polarities before you do, otherwise getting the bridge to stick gets way harder—don’t ask me how I know that. There are also two options for the bridge: one long boy that’s the same three-hex width as HEXTECH’s roads, and a smaller bridge that lets you place these buildings right next to each other.
Skybridges are a pretty common sight in the downtown cores of most cities I’ve been to, so the Binary Towers bring a sense of realism to these futuristic cityscapes. It’s also pretty cool watching your ‘Mechs stomp underneath these bridges. Most ‘Mechs will fit underneath, but once you get into the colossal 100-ton assault ‘Mechs, you’ll find their heads might tear the bridge off.
And finally, we have the Trinity City Tri-Towers. Despite the name, there are only two of these somewhat smaller towers. They get the “tri” from their three-sided nature. They’re a little smaller than the individual Binary Towers, and they have neat little cutouts that don’t make any architectural sense but sure do look cool. Each is painted with a slightly different color scheme, and both occupy three hexagons on a playmat.
These buildings are similar to the offerings in HEXTECH’s previous waves, but variety is the spice of urban planning. Very few cities have two buildings that look exactly the same given the enormous cost of erecting these edifices, so the more variety you have in buildings, the better. These buildings also offer a lovely debate with your opponents as to whether those gaps represent partial cover for shooting through.
You may be wondering just where you can get these fantastic new buildings. For that, I direct you to the Gale Force 9 website or your local Gale Force 9 distributor. Prices are extremely reasonable, given the quality of the product, and are comparable to the previously released buildings.
- Trinity City Megablock – $30 USD
- Trinity City Tri-Tower – $35 USD
- Trinity City Binary Towers $35 USD
Huge thanks to Gale Force 9 and Thunderhead Studios, who were kind enough to send me samples of the Wave 3 buildings for this review.
And as always, MechWarriors: Stay Syrupy.
I really like my stuff from wave 1 – while I 3D print a lot of 6mm terrain so I can also use it for modern microarmor, the binary towers with the skybridge looks like something I’ll probably pick up, and will definitely add more interest to the battlefield!
I hope there will be some more hills or fortifications “out of the box”. I’m trying to make BattleTech as tactile as possible for my blind wife and the Atlean Steppes box is a fantastic, quick way to add both terrain and hex markings to any battlefield.
This warms my heart greatly, what a wonderful use!
There are more hills, walls and more coming!
Gotta have that binary tower. Normally I’m not the kind of person who sees something and must have shiny new but this would be a lot of fun and add some spice.
I’m glad to see products like this more options for urban combat, you haven’t lived till you’ve played double blind urban battles, it’s very submarine hunting like.. but with giant robots.