"Paper buildings at a convention game" Topic

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Here's one I did earlier

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I'm big fan of paper buildings. I've run a number of games set in built up areas and it's a relatively affordable way to fill the table. Also, I'm not a stickler for mixing mediums. Here's some pictures from a convention game I ran set in Elizabethan London:

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I used mostly Dave Graffam paper with with several Sarissa MDF buildings included as well as the scratch-built foam board theatre

1 I use paper buildings for all my games

Here's a gamer who uses nearly all paper buildings for his 1/72 scale figures (WW2). Some of the boats are also paper models!

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And here's another game with the entire city of Rotterdam portrayed in wargame scale!

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Though definitely take the time to color the edges and otherwise pretty things up!

At the very least, you may want to tape the building down to the mat to avoid a 'terrain re-adjustment phase'. A small loop of blue painter's tape is your friend for this!

Of course there is a great tradition in card buildings Donald featherstones War Games featured a picture of Stalingrad done by Lional Tarr. Our buldings are somewhat of a homarge to his buildings while being ultra compact to boot.

We of course use card buildings for 1/144

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But they fit on a simple flat base with a fild up location point which also serves as a first floor to save record keeping. Its then not reall neccessary to secure this base to the table. We always use self coloured card to eliminate edges being visible. Excessive detail is uneccessary on our 1/172 and 1/144 as we place them close together to look like an urban area. That way mostly you just see roofs as you do in the real world inless right next to it.

To be honest I would have had the thread why would you ever use anything but fold flat buildings, but I am biased and not a painter or modeler except as the minimum neccessary to play with plausible terrain.

To be honest I would have had the thread why would you ever use anything but fold flat buildings, but I am biased and not a painter or modeler except as the minimum neccessary to play with plausible terrain.

Well-designed fold-flat buildings, like those for Dropzone Commander, are totally worth buying and using. They look really good!

I'm not sure I could build fold-flats myself to anywhere near the quality of the DZC buildings.

Lately (2018) I have played in some fine-looking paper terrain (Renaissance city pieces--splendid). No problems with them, just ask the Flying Wasileskis!

It is interesting I provably have a contrary view to most. While excellence looking games are OK at conventions, they are to me not representative of what wargamers play on week in week out. We always put on something that is a reasonable aspiration for a weekly game. Most certainly and deliberately noy the Huge 1/72 castle that takes up half a board and even me an obssessive wargamer would never aspire too. Conventions are for getting people interested. Having the terrain to a standard not really practical for most in terms of time, money and storage space to me seems off putting. Great spectacle but lacking in reality if overdone. So perhaps judging on purely artistic grounds is actually a bad starting position.
Paper even if less than perfect but cheap needs to be present. Mixing it, I may have to be that, getting a bridge in card like you need may not be possible so take what you can get.

one thing that always scared me…How durable is paper terrain?

Seems like it couldn't handle the clumsy oafs of the wargaming world …

I use paper miniatures at convention games. The response is always positive. Anyone who doesn't like the game, the rules or the miniatures is free to find something else that might be more to their liking.

1. All of my buildings are paper (actually card), mostly from the excellent Paper Terrain but some from other sources. I have recently bought the Paperboys European Buildings book and will make some of those as well.

Rod

Corzin,
to answere your questi0n I am disgusted to say that after "only" 18 years some are looking a bit frayed round the corners and are being replaced. However as these were Dot matrix printer standards, the newer ones do look a bit better.
When I say paper my buildings because they fold flat, use about 300 gsm card. We quickly learned not to let the hamfisted assemble or fold them flat. However as this is very quick, its not an issue. Storage is 100% safe, its in a file. I can't recall lossing one to a hamfited individual playing. I do refuse as a point of honour to have papers/beer/rulers etc on the table so no threat there.
Obviously you have to watch kids on the hills as they can't be leaned on but otherwise I have had no issues.

one thing that always scared me…How durable is paper terrain?

Seems like it couldn't handle the clumsy oafs of the wargaming world …

Printed on heavy cardstock like Paper Terrain (and some of those old "build your own Crusader Castle" things or the terrain included in the various Operation: whatever sets from Infinity), it's not particularly fragile. It's even less fragile if you make permanent buildings using foamcore or foamed PVC.

Fold-flats can be easier to damage, due to their extra handling. But if storage space is a problem, I think they're worth the extra care. The Dropzone Commander buildings are fold-flats, and look really good. Just need to be gentle when tucking the rooftop in place to avoid tearing the corners. Those buildings are impressively solid once their roofs are in place!

I wouldn't say paper hills would be significantly more fragile than foam hills, since you can crush or break foam hills by leaning on them (if you're a big fat lug like me).

UshCha – I keep telling you, oldest CD back-up is '98, and we were on floppies and LS120 before that, so it's not 18, it's more like 21-23 years…

OK so 23 years is proably good enough.

None of our trees are that old. We started out with fold flat trees but they were a bit crude. If I had an artist I would go back to printed colour trees but so far not had the time to search for an artist.

The hills are suffering in some cases as we used a white card for cliff faces and that seems to deteriorate at the creases. However repairs on the inside using PVC tape seems to have fixed the problem and we have yet to throw a hill away.

LONG LIVE CARD TERRAIN. There are some excelent card vehicels, like planes printed on thin plastic and Starwars fighters made the same way. Shame nobody does that for more basic vehicles.

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I'm not a paper-card building guy (although sometimes I think I should have started there, would have been easier on the wallet). The paper buildings, cranes, boats, etc… employed by Krause (Grumble posted links to some of his stuff above) as part of his games are outstanding and everytime I see one of his AARs I think "how cool".

As long as you do a good job of assembling and mounting them and they don't look like complete schlock you'll be fine.