"ACW Buildings & Fences for 28mm" Topic

So I've made my decision to game the ACW in 28mm. Three reasons:

#1 – I don't enjoy painting anything smaller
#2 – Perry plastics make for a low-price intro
#3 – I can use my collection of hills and trees

However, as I check out the various scenario books on ACW battles I have picked up, two things stand out.

A – I need a small handful of buildings, and
B – I need miles and miles of snake/split-rail fencing

So … who sells either in an appropriate scale?

Now, some of the more enterprising of you will probably tell me to make my own fencing. I might give that a go, but only if it's easy to do. So those offering up that bit of advice, please point me to some blog somewhere that explains how it's done. Or offer up a PDF or some other document that explains it all.

I'm not averse to terrain modeling projects, but would much rather just buy it done (for example, my stone walls are Pegasus, they are plastic, you get 36" for $10 USD from The War Store, and they are already painted and ready to go).

Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

Steve

Snake rail fences are actually really easy to make from strip balsa or match sticks. Failing that, look at BattlefieldTerrain.com Doug's finished stuff is great (though not as cheap as Pegasus).

The "some assembly required – instructions provided" kit makes 5 feet for $15…

"A – I need a small handful of buildings, and"

Steve,

You can buy very nice resin bulding from JR Miniatures. The Warstore sells them at a discount. I have them and like them a lot.

"B – I need miles and miles of snake/split-rail fencing"

I bought the Pegasus split rail from Warstore also. While not very accurate they are painted and will work for now. I must have bought about 20 packs of them. I repainted the base a bit but otherwise… I overlook the faults. Someday I'll make my own. You know what you _want_ them to look like but… oh well.

Snake rail fences… *sigh* I bought some of the Battlefield Terrain stuff. I bought all the kinds them make. Be prepared that they are too expensive and you need a lot. Their snake rail fences are expensive so I won't be buying more. Their picket fences are okay but still expensive. Their post and rail are again okay but too damn expensive in the amounts we need them.

The Perry's came out with plastic fencing. Again they are not too accurate but at least the post & rail and picket fensing is good. They are cheapish so this is an option.

"Now, some of the more enterprising of you will probably tell me to make my own fencing."

You'll have to. There are no good options for snake fencing.

"I might give that a go, but only if it's easy to do. So those offering up that bit of advice, please point me to some blog somewhere that explains how it's done. Or offer up a PDF or some other document that explains it all."

Yup… make them. I have no PDF's or anuthing. I have used balsa wood and cut the rails. I layed them down and glued with Elmer's. Pretty simple. Go to most any site that has REAL photos of them (like the Gettysburg Park) and get going.

"I'm not averse to terrain modeling projects, but would much rather just buy it done (for example, my stone walls are Pegasus, they are plastic, you get 36" for $10 USD USD from The War Store, and they are already painted and ready to go)."

I wish this was easy but it's not. Sorry. There was an article in WI and year or so ago I think that shows you how to make snake rail fences. The problem was that they are just plain WRONG! They guy didn't know what he was doing. All you need to do is look at real photos to see they were wrong.

Good luck. I feel your pain.

Steve,

Miniature building Authority has a few buildings prepainted for the period.

Tony

I use a mixture of twigs (that are then split), basswood and bamboo skewers for my ACW fences and scratch build my houses, otherwise lots of resin, and injected buildings around, Hovels and Perry buildings come to mind.

some examples here

sorry here

bonnieblueflag.livejournal.com

Redoubt has excellent fences: link

Hello Seattle

We carry a line of 28mm straight fences and stone walls from Pegasus which you can use for the ACW.

They are good, they are affordable, they are painted and ready to go.

You might also check O scale Model Railroad buildings as a few companies make "Americana" style buildings & churches that will work.They as well come built & painted.

If you need any additional questions answered let me know.

Regards,

Skip
legends-in-time.com
847-487-3996

I have made many and purchased more then I care to admit. BTC Fences cost some but are worth the effort. Buildings you can not go wrong with JR Miniatures 25mm ACW line which is the old Arch Heritage line done in a different resin. I have them all (original from AH) and several smaller ones from Hovel as well. Look also at Miniature Building Authority. They have some very nice buildings for ACW but they are not cheap.
VR
James Mattes

Note that the roofs don't come off the JR buildings. There's an appalling lack of 28mm ACW buildings with removable roofs if you want those. MBA if you can afford them or the 1 new Perry plastic building.

Steve

I use buildings from Hovels. I have been looking for affordable fences but cannot help you with that. I like my Hovels buildings cost versus benefit, they are fine.

Anyone know of a 25-28mm Dunkers church? Need one bad.

FULLB35,

I would suggest that you make one. It is by dar one of the most simple and easy to construct buildings for a novice to start with.

Try here for good images:

link

I would use foam core for the walls, and cardboard sheet from old cereal boxes for the roof, shingles, and trim. The windows may be easily made from clear plastic off of blisters of minis. Otherwise, just leave them out, or use a piece of thin cardboard painted black behind the window frames.

The only tools you will need are a metal ruler, an X-Acto knife, some scissors, a pencil and white glue.

give it a go!

respects,

Although they are specifically designed for the Old West, many of the Arnica Real Estate buildings would be very suitable for use in an ACW game. They are well built, can have removable roofs (that's up to you), and are for use with 25mm/28mm minis.

I'm currently working on the Website and shopping cart and will probably have it online before the weekend. We'll start accepting pre-release orders after that (the Website will explain what we mean by that).

Mike Mitchell
Hawgleg Publishing
Arnica Real Estate
hawgleg.com
arnicarealestate.com

Thanks everyone for your advice.

Looks like I need to bulk up on more Pegasus wooden and stone fencing, just to start with.

I always had the impression that the JR ACW buildings were more 25mm and less 28mm, but perhaps I am wrong. Several of you recommended them.

I will check out MBA and Hovels, although I suspect the prices (for this Yank) to get anything shipped over here will probably halt any plans in that direction.

I will certainly pick up several of the Perry plastic houses, but FIRST they need to be back in stock at The War Store.

Mike, old buddy … I purchased (I think) one of everything from Arnica back when Scrapwelder ran the show (except for any adobe buildings – I had already committed to a wooden town). So I am well stocked up. I even have dups of several. I have been waiting patiently for their return, as there are more I would like to get.

However, I'm not sure any of them (other than sheds and the barn) would work. They are all false-fronted stores, and just don't look like a house.

Which, is something I would poke and prod Scrappy about from time to time. I have a western town … but it sure would be nice to have a ranch house or two, (one rather deluxe perhaps, the other quite modest), a miners shack and/or a line shack, a log cabin, a bunkhouse, etc. Sometimes a rancher or miner needs to protect his family or ranch or claim from varmits!

But my current plan is to use my Arnica buildings as substitutes until I can replace them with something more in tune to the times.

Again, thanks everyone.
Steve

SeattleGamer 28 Jul 2009 5:47 p.m. PST wrote:
Thanks everyone for your advice.

I always had the impression that the JR ACW buildings were more 25mm and less 28mm, but perhaps I am wrong. Several of you recommended them.

I use the JR miniatures building with Sash & Saber 40mm figures. See the S&S website for images of some of these buildings.
VR
James Mattes

Tkindred,
Thanks for the inspiration..just might go that route. Sorry SeattleGamer didnt mean to highjack your thread.

MBA is in the US, unless Kirk moved recently.

You really don't need many, especially in 28mm. Usually we just put a house, maybe two, on the table. Maybe a barn to suggest a farm. They are more for scenic effect than actual use.

@FullB35 … no problem, I don't consider that a hijack. When I went looking for threads about ACW buildings in 28mm I found a few, and those were several years old. All you did was ask about a particular building : D

@fw … ah, yes, my comment was poorly written, my reference to the shipping was directed to Hovels, but I can see how it looks like I meant to apply that to both.

And yeah, I can see that normally just a few buildings are needed. But my idea of a "few" is two or three. And then I started flipping through one of the Scott Mingus ACW scenario books. Guess what I found?

Those bloody soldiers were constantly going to war on somebody's farm! The Nerve! And (interesting tie-in to FullB35) the book I was looking at was Antietam.

p76, a map 3' x 3' had 6 houses and 1 barn.
P81, a map 4' x 2' had 4 houses, a church (Dunkers), and a barn.

And those are the small scenarios. P62 has a map 4' x 5' and could use about 15 houses, a church and a barn.

Of course, I'll be playing in 28mm, and probably won't be using the full scenario map. Still, It was then that I realized that every single map had buildings on it. I just never really paid attention to that before.

So I figure I need to build up a good half dozen buildings, including a barn or two and perhaps a church, to be able to capture the right feel of the landscape.

And the FENCING! Once I realized all those nifty little jagged lines were fences, I figured that for every square foot of tabletop, I would probably need to be able to totally fence each one in, and that would be just to start.

Those loons back then put fences everywhere, including on both sides of most roads. Didn't they realize how tough that would make it on future gamers?

And yes, I also have the Brothers Divided scenario from Scott as well. Most scenarios need 3-4 buildings. Two could use a train station and water tower to go with the railroad tracks and train. And another requires 11 buildings.

All I can say is, there is quite a bit of terrain acquisition in my future!

I have a suggestion for making fences yourself that is both cheap and quick. I used it for the Antietam game my buddy and I ran at Historicon and Cold Wars this year.

Pictures here: link

See the 7th, 9th, and 10th pictures showing the post-and-rail fence close up.

You'll need to get yourself a bag or two of 500 mini craft sticks link for $2.19 USD each. That and a bottle of white glue.

For zig-zag fences, just alternate them gluing one level at a time. For post and rail fences, lay them out on their "sides", gluing a half stick vertically wherever they overlap. Let it dry, flip it over, and glue a second vertical stick on the other side. A two-foot section can be built in around 15 minutes, and most of that is drying time, so you can do more than one at a time to speed it up.

I stain mine with brown ink, then dry brush them in a light yellow. I attached them to metal strips with holes drilled in every other set of vertical posts, but you can use wood or masonite also. Just use ballast or flocking, and maybe add some foliage clusters or long grass here and there, and you're done!

I did 20+ feet of this in a few nights, so it can be done REALLY quick, and really cheap.

SeattleGamer…thats the exact book Im planning from, also for 28mm. I think that church is the only ACW 28mm building not produced by anyone;^)
firstvarty1979…great tip! That will come in very handy..and thanks for the link.

I have about 30 feet of Lemax worm fence with the top rail I use for both 25mm and 40mm. I have a line on another 50-75 boxes but they are $10.00 USD each! But it is a lot of fences. I am looking to do Longstreet's assault in 25/40 mm and figured worm fences from Scott Migus' two scenario books and came to over 130 feet of worm fence, and a little over 100 feet of stone fences! Rail fences were something like 80 or more feet.
VR
James Mattes

JM … thanks for doing the math for me. I keep looking at those wonderful maps, and all the fencing, and wanted to figure up a reasonable amount of fencing to have/get/make, but the thought of trying to scope them out to get to the max numbers was just too daunting.

Lemax … I'll have to look into that. How many feet of worm fencing do you get for your $10 USD bucks?

Okay … so in a brief moment of weakness, I decided to give building snake rail fencing in 28mm a shot. I picked up some long fireplace matches (they have a nice rough-hewn look to them). And I went forth and found some nice photos of actual fencing. But I have three questions for those in the know …

#1 – How long is a "zig" before it "zags"? Or put another way, how many 28mm figures (on bases) should be able to stand in front of a single section?

I was thinking of cutting my rails to be 5.25" long, and then allowing about .5" overlap, making the troop width about 4" or so. It looks right when I place some figures I have next to it. But when I check out some of the gaming photos it looks like other folks make their fences zig-zag a bit more often.

(these matchsticks have about 10.5" of usable stick, once you cut off the match heads. So cutting them in half has no wastage. I could cut them into thirds, but 3.5" sectio0ns, with a .5 overhang, means only two soldiers can stand in front of a section and that seems way to short).

#2 – I was thinking that a nice size would be chest high. Is that to low? I'm not going to build anything with those teepee-style corner braces.

(with these matchsticks, that would be 4 rails for some sections and 3 for the others, which looks pretty good. I could see going to 5 and 4 rails, but the 5 is so high it's at eye level to some of my 28mm figures (and those are mounted on 25mm round bases – not ACW figures btw).

#3 – I've got a bunch of rule sets, I'm building up my terrain, I figured out my scale (28mm) and now it's time to get some actual troops (but the War Store is out of Perry plastic infantry). Is there any other store in the US that has the Perry Plastics in stock?

Thanks.
Steve
(who recently moved AWAY from the Kennesaw Battlefield in Georgia, a place I frequently visited, and never once gave a thought to checking out in person the many sections of snake fencing they had there. Not even a photo. DRAT!)

First of all the Dunker church models have been out from various places. Second I use 10-15 mm buildings with 25-28 figures which helps keep the battlefield scaled down. I've been surprised at the size of some 10mms. My Granary at Essling is huge! But it won't appear in the Civil War. Or will it?

voLoudon,

I have seen several folks who use smaller scale structures. If it works for you, that's great. However, I would rather have buildings scaled with my figures. I;m not overly worried about ground scale anyway. I use ranges that "look right" for the figure scales, and usually play in a brigade to division level anyway.

respects,

SeattleGamer,

I think 5 1/2 inches is WAY too long. When I see the reconstructed fences built at Manassas Battlefield, the generally run around, by my estimate, 10-12 feet. If you're using them for 25mm figures, that's right around an inch or so equals just under 6 feet (average height), so a two plus inch rail should be right.

Here's a link to some fences with 4 rails: link You can see that those are not that long.

Nice little link on Answers.com: link

Thanks FV … great links.

I did poke around a bit on the web, and found a company that supposedly builds to historic specs. And that site said the fences were all made with standard 11' poles. If you figure 1' of overlap on each end, that leaves you with a 9' frontage at best.

My final question would be, how far from the baseline is each point? If you turned a fence section on it's side, so it looked like you were building rafters for a house, how tall is the point from the base?

In the photos, it doesn't look all that far. Could it be as much as 6' (thus 1" more or less at this scale)? Or is that too far?

I would caution against using exact measurements with your fencing. As with other items such as trees, roads, outbuildings, etc, you want to "look" compatible with your minis. Model railroaders for years have used variable compression techniques to appease the eye of the viewer. But it also works for "expansion" of the scene. Sometimes, making the fence lines longer than they were in reality will enhance the believability of the scene more so than an accurate scale model.

Just sayin'… :)

TK … I couldn't agree with you more. I'm a gamer first, fueled by a love for military history. I want things to "look" right, but I'm not a rivet counter.

If I were making a diorama, it would be more important to make everything to a set scale. And if real period snake fencing had 4 rails, then by gosh, so would my scale fence.

These particular matchsticks look good at three rails. Places the top rail at chest height to a figure mounted to a 25mm round base. And it looks right. I have no intention of trying to split these matchsticks so I can build "proper" four rail fencing.

I just snipped four sticks into 3.5" sections and positioned them to make a small section of a fence. Only two figures can really stand in front of each section. It may be right "to scale" but it doesn't look right. Part of the problem is the 25mm base, which would be 6' of fence. No way a warrior would take up 6 feet. Someone will probably chime in with the regulation drill manual and say it's 18" or 24" or whatever, but not 6 feet.

So a real snake fence, made from 11' poles, with 1' overhang on each end would give us 8-9 feet of fence to line up against, and at 2' per soldier, that would mean 4 should fit.

I think I will now try cutting the sticks in half, and building a small section, and seeing if that looks better.

In case anyone bothers to read this I bought a bunch of Pegasus rail fence. I also got a ton of K line horse farm type fence that could be used as regular fence. I happen to have a split rail corral from Michael's from the Christmas village. None of these looks like snake rail fence but okay by me.
For 40m figures I am going to use 28mm JR and Hovels buildings and plasticville here and there. For 28mm figures I am going to use 15mm JR, Hovels, AH and various Old Glory shipyard buildings otherwise the buildings are way bigger than they are supposed to represent in my opinion. Have fun with it.