Cities Untold - City Builder and Dressing Sets
Lots of expensive things in one place!
I wasn’t sure exactly where to put either the City Builder sets or the Dressing sets. I could have put City Builder in the floors and walls post but that was already really long. So I decided to stick these two weirdos here.
This should be the last basic add on write I write up during the KS, until the elven facades come out at $3M. If you’ve found my reviews saved you hundreds of dollars you could share a little of that back with me. I’ll just end up spending it on more dwarvenite too.
City Builder Basics
Wood Starter Set
This is a pretty typical dungeon starter set with 6 corners, 8 walls, 2 doors, and 4 floors. It’s also worth noting that this comes with a whopping 30 biscuit pegs. This is most similar to the Starter Dungeon as far as overall piece count, but it comes with a few extra corners. At 20 2x2 pieces to the starter dungeon’s 16 you get a bit more overall reach and the extra corners help in giving you flexibility. Much more useful than those starter pledges seen in wildlands.
I want to be able to tell people this is a good pledge level… and it is a good set. But it is really, really expensive. These come in at double the price of the similar sized starter in caverns or dungeons. I get that we have biscuits but I have a really hard time justifying the price on these. I was planning to get one or two of these sets but I was expecting them to be at least 25% lower price than they are. Currently in my pledge plans, I’m passing over them. This goes for both basic and mega sets.
Wood Starter Mega
When compared to the smaller starter set you’re up 6 walls and 4 floors. It also adds on some extra dressing in the form of a trap door, stairs, a couple of pillars, and a couple of free standing curtains (which can work as makeshift walls). While the overall piece count is almost double, only half of that is meaningful coverage. If you don’t have any dressing at all and want to expand a little I’d consider this pack, but I’d probably advise getting the wood starter set in multiples before jumping into this. Neither of these starter sets come with the free standing wooden walls so that is something else to consider. I’d also advise taking a look at the Speakeasy Murderbar if you’re getting far enough in to look at multiple of these. That uses the 4x4 system and would likely have some more general flexibility for adapting into other city terrain.
I have to say I love these pieces but I feel they’re kind of a bust for me at the current price level. If I was paying $60-70 UP for the basic starter and $90-100 UP for the Mega, I’d probably get a mega and two starters, but at the current prices that isn’t running me 220, it’s running me 350 and I don’t know that I could justify this over other things I want at this price range like an unpainted Erinthor.
Dressing
Before I dive in here I’d just like to point out that I’m not the biggest fan of Dwarven Forge’s Dressing sets. Not that they’re not good sets, but they tend to be expensive compared to equivalent pieces from other manufacturers, and I’m less concerned with my bed or dresser breaking than chipping my or bending my terrain pieces. As such I’m a huge fan of dwarvenite for terrain but I’m just as happy with ABS plastic for some of the kinds of pieces in this section. Plus the markup for painted on these tends to be around 100% which makes it difficult to compare with some of the cheaper options
Lowtown Basic Dressing
This has a wooden stair pillar which is a pretty useful piece, and the square cabinet window insert which makes it a decent place to pick up those two pieces outside of their more expensive counterparts. It’s a pretty good deal UP at 15 but feels less impressive at $30 painted. These pieces end up $5 each painted which feels steep but it’s better than paying extra from all the walls you may not need to get the cabinet.
Lowtown Street Dressing Pack
I have a hard time being willing to pay this for this pack and its inclusion in so many of the landmarks is making it hard for me to recommend them. Not that there’s anything wrong with this pack, it’s fine. But I just don’t feel anything here is necessary so the inclusion of this pack isn’t something I want in the pledges. If you want this you’re welcome to it but it is one I’m pretty happy to overlook. There are cheaper options for similar stuff.
Lowtown Tavern Dressing
If you’re looking to make a tavern you probably want one of these sets, however they aren’t particularly useful in your typical farm house. I know this sounds weird but I almost never set up my DF for a tavern. Since it tends to be a RP/tavern brawl only area, I never feel that it is totally necessary to make use of my terrain for what is likely to be a quick brawl or a very fast escape encounter. That said, if you’re going to make a tavern, you probably want one of these if you don’t buy WarLock’s Tavern set. WarLock is $30 and this is $72.
Lowtown Kitchen Dressing
Generally kitchen dressing is among the most useful because pretty much every house has a kitchen, unlike the very few that have a bar. This is really all about the LED kitchen piece and if you want to add some LED glow to your set, you can do that here. One issue I see is that this costs more than the Warlock kitchen set which doesn’t have the LEDs but is a pretty nice set. Again, if you want the LED kitchen, you get this, if you don’t… you don’t. At least we’re seeing some things here that don’t have a stark ABS comparison because of the LEDs. You’re paying $17 more for the LED which doesn’t seem way off.
Lowtown Cottage Dressing
This is similar to the kitchen but it has a LED fireplace instead of an LED kitchen. Pick one or the other depending on which LED you’re looking for but I think I’d pick this one over the kitchen as it fills out the basic hovel pretty well with a bed and a rug. THis only has four pieces which makes it feel light for the cost but you do get a cool LED. Considering we’ve seen LEDs closer to $10 each, and the fireplace has a nice design, this doesn’t seem like an crazy pickup. Now I don’ think I’m going to want one in every house I have through.
Lowtown Manorhouse Dressing
This is a particularly interesting set as it contains the wooden corner post fillers and is the only set that does so. It also has a secret door bookcase, picture frame, and a few tapestries and rugs. This may be one of the most interesting dressing sets because it does add some utility and the corner post fillers are particularly nice. Portraits can go pretty much everywhere and rugs are always a nice addition. It is expensive but who doesn’t want one of those bookcases. Because of that alone you want to get one of these. It’s just still pretty pricey.
Lowtown Market Dressing
I’m frequently more interested in filling in the outside areas than the inside areas of my city builds because the insides already feel pretty crowded once you fit a party of 4 plus a dozen orcs. This adds a lot to the outside which is always welcome. Several of these pieces can be used pretty much anywhere as little food stands or just sitting outside of a big manor. There will be an automatic comparison to the Warlock Marketplace set which this comes in significantly above. But it is still a decent set that will have a number of good applications. At almost $90 I have a hard time suggesting anyone buy this, even though all the pieces are really cool. You just get so much more from three WarLock Markets sets.Â
LED Lowtown Lamppost
These are non-hot swappable lights which makes them less flexible than previous LED lanterns. While I love the character in the design of them, I feel like I’d stick with the original LED stone lanterns and save myself some money. For those who have the stone LED and ruins LED and boulder LED light sets, you go wild. But I don’t feel like these are necessarily the most generally applicable LED lampposts out there. They do look pretty sweet though. You’re paying $10.50 per lamppost which doesn’t seem crazy but doesn’t seem like a deal either. It’s actually the same price you’re paying for the Stone LED Lampposts in the store right no so it is comparable there, though the LED isn’t swappable. This is one of the things that didn’t really take a huge price jump in this KS so I’d consider them a good pickup.
Lowtown Biscuit Hole Filler
This has 20 biscuit hole fillers. Some people are going to want a ton of these, some people won’t care. One issue I see is that if you start filling biscuit holes, the ones that aren’t filled become more visible. I’m incredibly glad this pack is here because there’s a good solid variety of pretty basic options here. One thing to realize is that if you’re dealing with filling every biscuit hole, that’s 8 per 4x4 floor. But once you put two together, you save 4 holes and only need 12. The 20 in this pack is more than you need if you’re making a 8x8 house. I also think you probably won’t need them at the ground level as much as at the second floor. At a maximum I think you’d buy one pack per 4x4 floor pack but I feel like you could probably get away with closer to one pack per two to four 4x4 floor packs if you’re creative and flexible.
On the other side, this has the highest priced painted markup in the entire set, 112%. Considering there’s a biscuit hole treasure chest, you may be better off looking there to fill your biscuit holes once everything gets unlocked.
Ivy Facades Pack
Get one of these. Maybe get two. If you really want to make it happen, get more. This is a really good set that adds character quickly. Just be aware you need Cities Untold buildings for them to work unless you’re going to pull out your drill. As a note this is only in a couple of landmarks and districts so I would be concerned with it getting restocked. I think this is a FOMO piece you should consider jumping on during this KS. as each of the pledges only have one ivy pack. The UP price is fantastic at $17 and remember you can always just swap one of your CBS wooden pillars out with a CULT pillar and stick the ivy onto it. It may not match but it won’t matter because it’ll be covered in ivy.
Lowtown Townsfolk
While I know miniatures technically aren’t dressing, these are basically designed to be flexible miniatures that could serve as dressing or opponents. Generally speaking these aren’t characters I’d want to be my PC, though the orator or dragonling could both serve in that capacity fairly well. They also come in at around $7 each. When compared with Icons of the realms minis, that’s about double their regular price. While the other prepainted minis out there don’t tend to be ABS plastic, they aren’t dwarvenite either. These are good minis but I don’t think they’re significantly better than the other options in the space that come in around half the price.
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