Product The Modern warehouse is a stunning map suitable for use with minitures to create a vivid battle scene. The entire map covers 48″ x 30″ and was more than enough realestate to encompass a battle with 30+ participants. There is plenty of detail on the map that players can use for strategic fighting and plenty of wide open spaces to get caught out in the open. I purchased the physical cards along with the PDF and received the product in about a week.

Quality The map is printed on 8″ x 10″ semi-glossy sheets of cardstock quality. The map showed no wear for the night of gaming that we put it through, and the tape we used on it came off without damaging the map. The durability seems good enough for extended use, as long as you properly stored the map after use. Storing should be easy as the sheets will fit in anything you can store standard letter sized sheets in. The original shipping container can be used to store it if nothing else.

Usability & Re-usability If you have need of a warehouse for a pipe construction business, this is perfect for you. Of course if you have specific needs, this might not ‘seem‘ to fit in your game. It definitely did not seem right for ours; it was suppose to be an abandoned warehouse. But, all the detail inspired a backstory as to why the items were still there. We concocted a story of a business that caught fire during a gang turf war, and the building came in dispute after the owners death, to disuse, to eventual abandonment. All the item had reasonable explanations. In game, the detail of the maps proved useful as things like the dumpster would probably have been forgotten on our home drawn maps.

Re-using a map is often difficult in a contemporary game as you are always looking for new places to have interesting encounters. We managed to work this map into focal point of the game so there are many oppurtunities for reuse. It could be revenge of the original inhabitants, in our case gangers, to raids by government agencies. There can also be a follow-up mission where the group may have to break in again. A well planned campaign can make this a reoccuring location.

Set-up and Breakdown The product gives you two ideas on how to set up the map. Consisting of 12 pieces, they have tendency to shift when in use. The two methods are gluing it to a backing board and taping the pieces together. I opted to tape the pieces as I wanted to be able to easily store it afterwards. Taping the pieces together took maybe 10 minutes total. I used a small section of tape on each connecting side and a piece on the corners to prevent them from catching on the miniatures being slid across the map. Break down took a bit longer 15-20 minutes. This was due to slowly removing the tape to reduce the risk of accidentally tearing the map. Not a single piece of tape resulting in the tearing of the map.

Price I think the price is acceptable for what it is. It seems a tad bit high for a one time use and would like to see it under $10.00. But we plan on using the map at least 3 times and would roughly estimate $4.33 per use. You can buy the pdf and print it the map out if you have the time to trim the edges. The value of the produce would depend on your personal needs, finances, and time constraints.

Problems The only real issues we had with the map is that we had a hard time determining doors and windows. The building wall looks like a solid piece all the way around. It took us a minute or two to determine where the doors were as well as the windows. Also the office room looks like it is suppose to be on the second floor according the picture, but the map doesn’t show a staircase going up to. This did not cause a problem in our game, as the fight did not use the office, but I could see the office as a key defensible position in a real warehouse that can overlook the warehouse floor.

Overall If asked whether I would recommend this for purchase, I would definitely say by the pre-printed cards if you can work in multiple uses. If you are only going to use this as a one-shot fight, printing the map from the PDF may be more cost effective for you.

Original review: http://arcanegamelore.com/2014/01/30/modern-warehou-
se-review/