"French buildings for Indochina" Topic

Would either of these pass for a French baroque style church out in the countryside:

link

Also, I came across the following cardstock model:

link

with a bit of kit-bashing, might it do as a plantation house?

Alan

No to either I'm afraid. But considering that gamers just love to put up giant Buddhas on the table, I doubt many will notice…

A quick Google image search says otherwise – with a bit of imagination…
link

This would do for Mexico as well -too many churches on wargame tables.I remember reading somewhere that the only solid structures generally encountered by French troops were Buddist shrines

There are some images in Mishima's link that look very similar to several of the buildings (casa del RICO ) in the card stock range from above……go for it! Throw around some tropical plants , trees and some Frenchies et voila!

I'm liking the idea of the Church, i'm guessing any self respecting colony enclave of plantation residences would want some form of church/ chapel etc. Even in the 50's the the influence of the Church would be a strong prescence as part of the Colonial French culture. So yeah go with it,

Three brief youtube clips from Indochina of some relevance

YouTube link
YouTube link
YouTube link

I'd probably go with a rendered finish to the walls, which seems pretty characteristic of French Colonial architecture, in Indochina & elsewhere. Timber buildings tend not to last so well in tropical climates. Masonry implies permanence….

You might also find these newsreels of some interest.
link

There's a thread full of photos of Vietnamese churches over on this forum: link

As you can see, anything goes…

Many thanks for the helpful comments. The Finger & Toe models are very reasonably priced so I will give some of them a try and post some pics in due course.

Those are certainly some bad a*s churches over there! Looks like I will have another use for my Chicago gangster era Church from TVAG: link Block Section 11.

Alan

My God -there are aren't there. I can see now where the whole of GW's 'Battle Fleet Gothic' idea came from now!!!

As someone born, raised, and living in the region, I can only say I'm simply appalled at the above comments – none of the paper offerings look close to anything I've seen throughout my travels. But hey, if you've got skills, or don't mind using eastern front buildings in a Normandy game, go for it!

Depends obviously on your choice of scale ( I'm opting for Pendraken's 10mm range) but personally, I really like this Ngauge model available on ebay. Perhaps not totally accurate, it does to my eyes look as though it captures that colonial look quite well. Painting it with chipped and peeling stucco render and slightly overgrown with creepers etc it should capture the mood of a fading Empire that I want the terrain to show.

Tomytec A2 Church N gauge

Mad Monarchist aren't you painting with a very wide brush ?

There are as many church styles in Vietnam as there are churches, some look like a GW gothic w*t dream, some look like pagodas with crosses, some look like they have been plucked from Normandy.

Case in point:

This is a church built in the early 1900s in Tam Dao hill station and frankly it wouldn't look out of place in the French countryside. The reason for that is that the mountain resort was aimed at the French population of Hanoi and all of the place was large colonial style hotels.

It would look out of place in a tribal village but you can't say it doesn't fit in indochina…

My take on the period and culture as in India with the British was in creating a little bit of France onto Vietnam, perhaps even exagerating slightly to compensate for the feeling of being the minority in power.

Here is another N gauge building i'm using from Faller, It's their Victorian Mansion, but in this case looks suitably grand and French, i'm thinking major Plantation or Casino.

Funnily enough, I had noticed both the Tomytec church and the Faller mansion but had a fear they would totally dominate the 10mm figures I will be using. Sometimes N guage is more suited to 15mm figures. However, I would be interested to see figures and buildings side by side if anyone could oblige.

Mad Monarchist, I am sure you didn't mean your comments to come over as some might take them. However, "simply appalled" does seem a tad harsh. After all, most of us (I am sure) have no personal experience of SE Asia except for what we can glean from movies and the internet (both taken with a considerable pinch of salt). Any suggestions as to suitable churches and plantation buildings from your personal knowledge would, no doubt, be much appreciated.

Alan

In Pets at Home, there is a haunted house model:

With a bit of a paint job, it might well pass for a dilapidated Plantation House in 10mm. It might need the base trimmed down a bit to bring it down to ground level but that should not be difficult.

Whilst on the subject of buildings, Indochina Bhuddist temples, would i get way with these do you think…..

They are overtly Japanese in style but are way in excess of anything I couls scratchbuild, there are some pagodas in the Indochine region, but the temple structire is different with a blurring of indian and chinese influences as far as I can tell. Sadly there does'nt appear to be any Ngauge vietnam structures, would the two models above pass as stand ins?

Just received the Tomytec church and mansion as well as other models from their traditional japanese buildings range, in particular their Bus station and Taxi building and can vouch that they fit in perfectly with the Pendtaken figs being absolutely spot on terms of overall scale against the figs.

Price wise a lot of the kits are excellent quality at around the 8 pound mark, comparing well with Timecast in terms of scale, quality and price.

Highly recommended.

I'm using oxford diecast models as well for bus's etc to bring the scene to life, 10mm for Indochina does seem to have a loy going for it.

Thanks for the link!

Johny Boy,

Thanks for the update:some pics of figures beside buildings would be very much appreciated.

Alan