Spoiler alert, this is a review of a non LEGO® product.
Today we’re reviewing baseplates produced by Brickyard Building Blocks. These are what many might consider a clone brand, but their baseplates are a little bit different than the LEGO style we’re all used to. That said, they have some unique advantages to offer builders and may be of use in your own train layout building. So let’s take a closer look.
This is not a paid review, and BMR has not received any compensation from Brickyard Building Blocks. This product was purchased by the author for personal use and for this review.
The Basics
First we’ll start off with the basics. I was first made aware of these by a fellow LEGO train builder who was already using them in their layout. And I even had some hand in helping my friend to build MILS bases with them. So I had some first hand hand experience with them before purchasing them on my own.
I purchased my Brickyard base plates through Amazon. You can find a link below. BMR gets no commission for the link by the way. The 8 Pack normally retails $24.99, the 6 Pack for $19.99 and the 4 Packs for $15.99. However these can some times be found for less than retail pricing. The lower cost compared to a genuine LEGO baseplates does make these enticing when you have a large area to cover.
The base plates are 32 studs by 32 studs in size, and are available in 5 colors, Green, Blue, Gray, Tan, and White. The 4 packs offer a choice each color, or a mix of Green, Blue, Tan, and Gray. The 6 pack comes with 2 each of Green, Gray, and Blue color plates. While the 8 pack comes with 2 plates each of Green, Gray, Tan, and Blue.
More Than Just A Normal Baseplate
The most obvious thing you will notice when you first grab these is that they are not like your normal LEGO brand baseplates. LEGO baseplates are only a half plate thick (1.6mm) not counting studs, and do not have anti studs on the bottom. These baseplates from Brickyard are a full pate in thickness (3.2mm) and have full anti studs molded in. This makes them much more akin to the 8×16 and 16×16 plates released by LEGO several years ago compared to normal baseplates. So not only can you attach parts to the top of the Brickyard plates, you can attach parts to anywhere on the underside as well.
This makes these plates useful for more than just the base for your models and layout. They can be used on top of your landscape and incorporated at any level in your model. For those of you building MILS (Modular Integrated Landscaping System) modules, this means they can be used as the top for a basic MILS module, instead of smaller plates.
But What About The Color Match?
This is where the Brickyard baseplates may fall short of expectations for some builders. I have not purchased any white Brickyard plates yet, but have sampled the green, gray, tan, and blue.
The green is not a good match for standard LEGO green. It falls somewhere in between bright green and regular green, skewing a bit more toward bright green, but not being a good match for either. This is not necessarily bad. If you are building landscape you could use the color variation to help add interest to your grass areas. I’ll get to more on that and how I used these plates in a minute.
The tan is a bit better in color match, but not perfect. The Brickyard plates have a slight peach tint to the tan. It’s evident up close, but from a distance they blend in a bit more. Again, this could be used to one’s advantage in adding subtle variation to landscapes.
Things start looking much better for color match when we get to the blue and gray colors. The blue is pretty spot on match for LEGO blue, and the gray is nearly indistinguishable from LEGO’s light bluish gray.
Do They Fit Properly?
The answer to how these Brickyard baseplates fit with genuine LEGO is surprisingly good.
The Brickyard plates are advertised as 10 inches x 10 inches nominally, but are actually a near perfect match to standard LEGO dimensions at just a bit over 10×10. This means that these 32×32 baseplates can be used with LEGO baseplates with minimal to no warping.
Th clutch power of the Brickyard plates is pretty consistent as well. Both stud and anti stud connections fall pretty close to that sweet spot that we all know and love with genuine LEGO elements. Not too tight and not too loose. Overall I’m very happy with the quality of the fit on these plates from Brickyard. Not something you can always say about a non LEGO made product like this.
Using These Baseplates In A Train Layout
As I said earlier, I purchased these Brickyard brand baseplates for use in my own train layout building. Earlier this year I converted my LGMS Wye Corner module over to a MILS style base and expanded it for use at the February Timonium train show.
My wye corner module uses green and tan primarily in the landscape surrounding the tracks. The tan is meant to represent wheat stubble from a recently harvested wheat field, while the green is for lawn and meadow areas.
My entire wye corner module is built from 32×32 MILS style sections consisting of a LEGO baseplate on the bottom, one layer of brick, and the Brickyard plate on top. From there I built up with more LEGO brick and plate in areas to create small elevation changes.
This MILS style base using the Brickyard plates results in a very strong and ridged starting point for building a layout on. For an application such as this where this module will see a lot of transport to and from LGMS layouts at shows, this is a huge benefit. With zero flex in the base, anything built on top has a much better chance to survive transport between shows.
We discussed earlier that the green and tan colors are not a perfect match for LEGO green and tan. I was able to use this to my advantage in my landscaping. For the tan representing the wheat field stubble, I mixed the two to create subtle variations in the color of the field. The Brickyard plates represented the lowest areas of the fields, and the LEGO tan built up around it represented higher elevation.
For the green lawn and meadow areas, I again used the color variation between the Brickyard plates and LEGO green to my advantage. This time I used the track as a border to separate the two colors with some patches mixing over. On the inside of the wye I stuck primarily to areas built up with standard LEGO green. These areas are mostly weedy growth between the track ballast and the wheat field. Outside the wye I kept mostly to the Brickyard baseplate green. This was to represent more of a maintained meadow than the weedy scrabble next to the tracks traversing the field areas. On the very edges of the outside I blended some patches of LEGO green in to help transition and add more interest.
Conclusion
So are these Brickyard Building Blocks baseplates right for you? I’ll leave that up to you to decide. Some may scoff at them as thy are not genuine LEGO brand, and that is their choice. Some like me may find them useful and have no issue with the off brand. Every one decides where they want to draw their own line on something like this. However I hope this review has been informative enough for you to draw your own conclusion.
For myself, I’m quite pleased with this product and will be using them in future train layout building. Sure the tan and green color variation is a bit annoying, but the fit and quality otherwise is surprisingly good. And I will take the color variation as just another challenge to overcome in building and work to use it to an advantage when I can. The lower cost and added versatility over LEGO brand baseplates make these Brickyard plates a viable option in my own train layout projects.