Modern Warehouse
Modern Warehouse is a modern battlemap with cartography by Simon Powell and published by DramaScape.
By Aaron T. Huss
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Modern Warehouse depicts a small warehouse within what appears to be an urban landscape (suggested by the lack of vegetation). The warehouse includes the building itself and the surrounding yard with no shortage of goods piled high on the shelves and various things in the yard. The depiction goes into further detail by including a loading and unloading dock with the warehouse being raised (depicted by the stairs leading to the doors). This is a great representation of a modern warehouse considering loading truck are always lower than the loading dock. This is not a large warehouse and would only support small trucks, but the generic design means you can easily store anything imaginable, luring the PCs within.
The warehouse is compact, great for an urban landscape. However, being inside warehouses and comparing this one isn’t exactly the same. Most warehouses are fairly packed inside using as much space as possible to rows of shelves or stacks of crates. Additionally, the office is much bigger than I would expect to see within a warehouse. While these are obviously details that can further enhance the warehouse, they are by no means show-stoppers to its use nor do they prevent you from creating memorable encounters.
OVERALL
Maps such as this are generally hard to come by. Not many publishers design modern maps and those that do seem to really capture the look and feel of what a modern encounter map would look like. It’s much different than fantasy maps as so many more details can exist due to modern technology and conveniences. The Modern Warehouse follows suit and definitely does not let down. The warehouse is full of goods and the yard has all the markings you would expect to see such as lanes for loading and unloading, areas marked off to be kept clear, and even a forklift ready to be operated. This would make a great place to house a weapons cache!
RATINGS
Publication Quality: 7 out of 10
Modern Warehouse is a well put-together battlemap. The warehouse looks great and its yard has no shortage of detail. The only issue I see is the amount of open space within the warehouse, which you would mostly likely not see in an actual warehouse. More shelves could be added and the office can definitely be made smaller. What’s there looks fantastic, but a few tweaks can be made to clean-up some of that open space. Additionally, I’m not sure where the employees would park as the warehouse’s yard doesn’t show any parking spaces.
Visual Appeal: 10 out of 10
Modern Warehouse is all about details. If you removed all the detail, you would have a boring empty shell. Instead, much attention has been paid to how the different aspects of the battlemap are depicted such as the groupings of boxes on the different shelves, the crates in the corner, the lines painted on the floor, the lanes painted in the yard, and a bunch more. This is one of those battlemaps where the shell does nothing without all those added details, creating an excellent looking map.
Desire to Use: 10 out of 10
One thing about this map that truly stands out is that it’s not empty. Some modern battlemaps you find depict the building, surrounding areas, and walls, but they neglect to fill that building with all the meaningful items you would find. In other words, you can print this map, slap it down on the table, and it’s ready for a firefight (or whatever you want to use it for). This warehouse can be virtually anything and could make a great scene in a modern action game pinning the characters against a heavily armed band of criminals.
Overall: 9 out of 10
Modern Warehouse is definitely a good map. It has little things that could be tweaked to make it more realistic according to what a real-life warehouse looks like, but otherwise it’s still completely usable as-is and offers a great modern building to add to your urban environment.
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