Assembling Multi-Level Buildings with Removable Floors

A tall building on the tabletop looks impressive right up until a firefight moves inside it — and then everyone at the table is craning their necks, knocking over miniatures, and arguing about who can actually see whom through a second-storey window. Multi-level buildings with removable floors solve this the elegant way: lift the top level off, place your models on the exposed floor below, and drop the level back on when the action moves. This guide walks through how these kits go together, the assembly mistakes that ruin the lift-off fit, and how to get clean, wobble-free levels that survive years of game nights.

Why Removable Floors Are Worth It

In skirmish games like Cyberpunk RED, Infinity, Stargrave, Necromunda, and Warhammer 40k, buildings aren't decoration — they're objectives, sniper nests, and ambush sites. A sealed building is effectively a big line-of-sight blocker. A building you can open up becomes playable interior space: rooms to clear, stairwells to contest, rooftops to hold.

Removable floors also make a huge practical difference for painting and storage. You can paint each level as a separate sub-assembly, reach interior details you'd never get a brush into otherwise, and pack the building flat-ish in a transport case instead of hauling a fragile tower.

A great example of the format is the Cyberpunk Chatsubo Bar Building, a multi-level neon dive bar printed in your choice of 28mm, 32mm, or 40mm heroic scale. Each floor lifts off cleanly, so a bar brawl on the ground level and a rooftop shootout can play out on the same piece of terrain without anyone reaching blindly into a closed box.

How Removable Floors Actually Work

On a physical printed kit, removable levels rely on registration: each storey has a lip, recess, or set of locating pins that seats it onto the level below. When you unbox your kit, identify these mating surfaces before you glue anything. The golden rule of multi-level assembly is simple: glue within a level, never between levels. Walls, floors, railings, and details that belong to one storey get bonded together permanently. The joint between storeys stays dry — that's your lift-off point.

Assembly, Step by Step

1. Dry-Fit Everything First

Before any adhesive comes out, stack the full building dry. Check that each level sits flat, that the walls line up vertically, and that nothing rocks. If a level wobbles, find the high spot now — a few strokes of a sanding stick on a mating edge is a thirty-second fix before glue and a real headache after.

2. Prep the Mating Surfaces

Printed parts sometimes carry a little texture on their contact edges. Lightly sand the top rim of each level and the underside of the level that sits on it. You're not reshaping anything — just knocking down high points so the storeys seat with full contact. A flat sheet of sandpaper on your desk, part moved in circles on top, keeps edges true.

3. Glue Each Level as Its Own Unit

Work from the ground floor up, completing one storey at a time. Cyanoacrylate (super glue) works well for small contact points; a quality plastic-safe epoxy or gap-filling CA gives stronger bonds on big wall joins. Clamp or rubber-band walls square while curing, and check corners with a small machinist square or even a credit card. A storey glued 2 degrees out of square will telegraph the error to every level above it.

4. Test the Stack After Every Level

Each time a storey's glue cures, stack the building again. Catching an alignment drift at level two is recoverable; discovering it at level four is not. If a joint has gotten tight from paint or glue squeeze-out, scrape the mating lip clean before moving on.

Painting for Playability

Removable floors mean your interiors will actually be seen, so give them at least a fast pass: a dark base coat, a contrasting drybrush, and floor grime around doorways read beautifully at arm's length. Keep paint off the registration lips — a few coats of primer and paint on a mating surface is enough to turn a smooth fit into a stubborn one. Mask the lips or scrape them clean after painting.

For a full walkthrough of exterior colour schemes that suit these kits, the same neon-and-grime approach we use across our cyberpunk range applies here. If you're building out a whole table, the Cyberpunk City Terrain Bundle pairs five buildings with vehicles and street scatter so your multi-level centerpiece sits in a believable city block instead of an empty table.

Using Levels in Play

Once your building opens up, establish table conventions early. Most groups treat each storey as its own zone: models on a floor are placed on that floor's deck, and the upper levels sit off to the side of the table edge while an interior fight plays out. When the action leaves the building, restack it and play on. In objective-driven games, an accessible interior makes brilliant scenario material — a data terminal on the second floor of the Chatsubo forces attackers to fight through the bar, up the stairs, and out again.

Grimdark players get the same benefit from industrial kits. The 28mm UnderNidus Sci-Fi Terrain Bundle fills a board with ten multi-storey hab structures — ideal for Necromunda and Kill Team boards where vertical fights and interior sweeps are the whole point.

Care and Transport

Removable levels are the easiest terrain to transport safely: separate the storeys, wrap each in foam or bubble wrap, and nothing load-bearing travels under stress. At home, store buildings assembled so the registration lips stay dust-free and true. With a clean assembly and unglued joints, a multi-level kit will still lift apart smoothly hundreds of games from now.

Multi-level terrain rewards a little patience at the build stage with years of better games — fights that climb stairwells, snipers that actually occupy windows, and a table that looks like a city instead of a diorama. Square your levels, keep the joints dry, and let the building open up.