Urban terrain in a pinch...

Just thought I might share an anecdote with the list.

My wife and I have recently begun playing Dirtside (we've
had Full Thrust for years now) and, since we're a little short
on scads of money and time to build or purchase minatures
and terrain pieces, we've sort of had to make do.

When we needed to make a city setting to fight in as part of
our ongoing multi-scenario ad lib campaign, we found that our
three year old daughter's wooden blocks make fairly good
buildings.  Nothing fancy... a cylinder on a couple of upended
window archways becomes a fuel tank.  A pair of short 2x4ish
blocks put together becomes a moderately tall building.  A
two inch thick, 3x3 square becomes a warehouse.  Several long,
thin rectangular blocks set end to end can be an airport runway,
or set a little apart to create more length you can make a passable
imitation of a highway.  2x4 blocks with arches cut in them make
bridges or overpasses.	Thinner square-cut long blocks make
taller and thinner buildings.  Small cylinders on larger blocks can
make smokestacks on an industrial building of whatever sort.
And so on.

We were able to set up a decent sized urban area that covered
most of our living room floor in this fashion, and on top of that,
our daughter not only didn't mind our use of them, but was quite
overjoyed to learn that our living room now had a city sitting on the
floor made out of her blocks.  (Although much of the city, I'm afraid,
was destroyed by a rampaging stuffed wolf earlier this evening.)

Don't know how many people would find this interesting, but it's
sort of a testament to the ease of playing GZG games... Micro
Machines make excellent space miniatures, and just a few markers
perhaps out of an Axis and Allies game and some children's blocks
can make a convincing army setup in an urban scenario.

Stilts