"affordable, effective buildings?" Topic

I'm looking to see if I've missed any or if anyone has any suggestions that I've not seen.

I'm trying to build an urban board and running into very few building options.

I've ordered some of the fantastic new Proxie Model buildings, won a couple of HO scale buildings on Ebay, and have 2 small scratch-built buildings.

I need more but can't find any for a reasonable price to cover a 3x4 or 6x4 table. The Gamecraft stuff caught my eye but realized it would cost me $70 USD for 4 small buildings and a landing pad.

Khurasan's buildings look great but no idea when those will be out and if they will be expensive. I really like some of the Micropanzer custom electrical box buildings but can't seem to jump on those quick enough before they sell out.

I'm aware of the GZG and Blue Moon buildings but they're not the style I'm looking for. The non-domed Brigade building would fit in but I'd rather not place an overseas order for a single building.

Am I stuck with digging for appropriate HO buildings on ebay and hoping I luck onto nabbing some of the Micropanzer buildings?

If you're willing to do a bit of scratchbuilding and like the look of Micropanzers buildings, I suggest making your own. A bunch of electrical boxes (1-2 bucks each) and a couple of plastic "for sale" signs (2 bucks each) and you'll have all you need to make a bunch of buildings. If you want premade embelishments, check out the GZG doors/windows and vents
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If you're willing to print and build, I recommend
the free buildings from DP9 for Heavy Gear:
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or the Mechwarrior buildings (nominally 10mm, but works great for 15mm) here:
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You can see some of both of those in action here:
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The white/tan buildings are DP9 the Grey are Mechwarrior

Are you adverse to building more of your own? I built the shanty next to the AT-43 Firetoad in about an hour. I just built up foam core walls, then laid out a couple levels of surface detail in inkscape, printed and cut them out and stuck them on.

There are several threads about electrical box buildings on the forum that are good references as well. The gamecraft and proxie models you reference are otherwise about the most economical I can think of.

Not sure if this will be in the style you're looking for. But I've had pretty good luck making buildings from blister packs. and a few card details. Here's an example:

That's just a small one. But the same process works fine on larger blisters. :)

-Chris K.

I've started using mdf bases as walls for buildings. They're already precision cut and that's half the battle. Just get two 60mm x 40mm and two 40mm x 40mm and you've got a two storey building. Card for the roof and add some doors and windows from GZG or The Scene and it's done.
Obviously you can create pretty much any size and shape you want for next to nothing. Bases in the UK cost about £1.00 GBP for 10 (depending on size and manufacturer – I use Warbases mainly). That's a lot of buildings.

A few bits and bobs adde to an old board game board and some packaging. There are a few premade building parts in there, but card cutouts could stand in for most of those.

I realize this is more industrial terrain but it might work for a sprawling industrial zone in your city. Add an adjacent junk yard and you have some good areas that cover a large amount of table.

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Plaster buildings from blister pack and perfect urban buildings from collapsible crates:

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Combat Wombat has some well priced modular buildings.

I'd go the electrical box route. Easy, fun to do, cheap. I bought the boxes at Menards, and they are the same boxes Micropanzer uses. The ones I have purchased are dull blue and almost look like they have wood grain.

You will need access to some tools to do it right though – a good saw to remove the top floor (if desired) and a Dremel or similar to remove the wings with the nails. Also a BIG file (those little tiny hobby files aren't going to cut it, I got a set of BIG files at Wal-Mart for ten bucks) to file down the excess plastic you didn't Dremel off. The filing doesn't take very long, but you will need to put a little oomph into it.

Then some greeblies to stick on the top and sides. I bought various wooden bits at Hobby Lobby for the top, and used some GZG doors. Decorate to taste.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone.

Those crate buildings are fantastic. I may give that a shot and supplement with HO railroad warehouses/apartment buildings.

Check out ebay for "Child guidance" buildings. They are roughly 15mm scale modular plastic buildings made in the 1960s/70s. I was turned onto them from a thread here on TMP and picked up a huge set of them for cheap.

They are stackable and come in different building sizes.
Check out the following blog to see what they look like with 15mm stuff.

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Wow, perfect. Thanks for the tip!

I've been making some building using print outs created with the Evan model builder software pasted onto 1 and a half inch thick foam insulation. they're a bit short so you may want to use thicker foam but the results are pretty good.

Here are some buildings I made for my Star Wars game recently. Its all foamcore, cardboard, plastic bits, and lots of containers/packing material from a wide variety of products.

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Cost almost nothing and I built a whole city for a 5'x10' table in a short amount of time.

I'm working on an idea for really cheap buildings. I'm using my graphic design and graphic illustration skills, which are sadly underused at the moment, to draw up paper "flats" that can be printed and glued onto card boxes or containers.

The first ones I've set up will go around a cylindrical coffee tin. These should be really easy to produce and may just look good enough to get away with. I'll post here and on my blog when I have the chance to get something made up.

If these work out I'll probably offer a custom service for them.

-Colin

One last suggestion is to keep your eyes out for micro machine and matchbox buildings and playsets at resale shops.

Here's a pretty neat building I converted from a micro machines building.
Before

More pics and how-to
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Great suggestions and pics, everyone.

Charlest, you may want to check on ebay… a couple of lots of Child Guidance buildings just came up.

You may want to let us know if you plan on bidding… someone else here might inadvertantly get into a bidding war with you heh.

Thanks Ski!

Yes, I will definitely be bidding on both auctions with the building parts.

Haha that's what I get for rushing off to ebay before reading to the bottom of the thread, just retracted my bid XD, good luck, hope you get 'em!

The price and quality of those child guidance sets does open up more zombie-killing possibilities though. :D That's a great find!

Great ideas thanks!

I'm really impressed with the scratch-built stuff.

I'm going to try something new. I had to go fix a computer out in the machine shop today and found out they cut ABS and PVC plastic for whatever they're making out there. They also told me I could help myself to the scrap bin, which is chock full of rectangular shapes, round shapes, cylinder shapes…

All I have to do is sand them a bit, add some detail bits and paint. Or, if I get the right size, I can just wallpaper it with papercraft for the photo-realistic look.

Then it occurred to me that there's a place in my town called Plastics2000 where all they do is cut this stuff for people who don't have their own machine shops. Say you want to do a mess of papercraft shipping containers and don't want to pay $10 USD-20 on eBay for HO RR ones, you could give them the dimensions, paste the graphics on the side, and you'd have a bunch of cheap, realistic scenery that is so sturdy you could use them as weapons.