"3mm Napoleonic Buildings" Topic

I've been experimenting with making laser-cut 3mm Napoleonic buildings. Here's the beginnings of a La Haye Sainte:

Cheers, Michael

Wow!!! Sign me up!! Where do I start sending checks? Or in your case, "cheques"

David

Are you collecting 3mm Napoleonics?

Cheers, Michael

(That's just a green out-of-focus cutting mat.)

Indeed I am. And I lived for many years in Scotland, as an aside

Very cool. Please keep us updated with your progress. I purchased a pack of 3mm buildings from paper terrain at cold wars. I need to try and build them. I figured 60 builds for $10 USD, you can't go wrong.

The reason I ask is that I haven't got any 3mm miniatures. I'll pick some up at the next local show. The small door is 3mm high, that's the scale I'm working with. Does that sound about right?

Dale

I'm trying to keep these as simple in construction as possible, given that they are made from sheet materials. Most should be solid rather than hollow to make it easier to press together when gluing.

Cheers, Michael

Whoa!!!
A great idea. There is definitely a need for 3mm Napoleonic buildings out there. Pico Armor carries a line but it's really a WWII line I feel, so there are few things missing that I'd like to see. I'm excited to see where you go with this!

3mm miniatures actually vary between 3 and 4mm, but I would say that your door will look perfectly in scale. There's a screaming need for 3mm buildings from any time period, not just Napoleonic!

3mm buildings are great for 6mm napoleonic figs.
Buildings must be smaller than figures.

3mm miniatures actually vary between 3 and 4mm

Aha, the dreaded scale-creep already!

I'll stick with something like 0.5mm to the foot and keep doors 6' (3mm) high. This should keep them on the slightly smaller rather than slightly bigger size.

Are you happy with the compromises?

Roofs are solid. This means four-sided shapes have to be represented as 'flattened' (see the roof of the gateway). The alternative is to provide card roofs, which is possible but fiddly to assemble.

The stables of La Haye Sainte will have to have a card roof because of the corner where the eaves come together. Either that or customers are happy to fill the gaps in the corner of a solid roof with filler (not provided).

I'm planning a footprint for La Haye Sainte of 60 x 40mm.

I'm working on a Plancenoit village with a footprint of 60 x 60mm.

Cheers, Michael

If there were buildings like that available, I'd have to reconsider not buying Pico 3mm Napoleonics. Very cool.

Your compromise works well

I'm already in for 3mm Naps and would be in for these too.

Splendid!

Another 3mm Waterloo example. This time, the church at Placenoit. It would be part of a village set and I will also include a 'rise' for the church to stand on and a rounded cemetery wall.

Cheers, Michael

You do fantastic work! I hope you will do quite a few buildings that are not geared towards Waterloo as well

Thanks! It's early days for me. Waterloo would make a good start for my fledgling business and especially in this particular year! After that, I'm open to designing for any and all theatres/periods.

Anyone who's visited my Blog will know where my own Napoleonic collecting is concentrated!

link

I look forward to giving you masses of money

I've designed a building intended to be Decoster's house, a small inn that stood on the roadside between La Belle Alliance and Rossomme Farm. After hostilities, Decoster himself claimed to have been Napoleon's guide during the battle, which earned him much, perhaps unmerited, praise from visitors to the battlefield.

My model of Decoster's House stands on a 20mm square base. It marks the latest redesign of my 3mm Waterloo buildings.

I contemplated raising all the models by 1mm at their base to accommodate a 1mm layer of texture paste. This is still possible if it is preferred. Decoster's House in the photographs does not have this and it wasn't a problem swirling paste around the glued-down model – but care had to be taken at doorways.

The plan is to sell this house as part of a set with Rossomme Farm and Planceloit Church and Village.

Cheers, Michael

as Sho Boki, I like the idea 3mm for 6mm figures …and that`s a great-looking blog – all 158 pages !

If anything, make them smaller rather than larger. Smaller scale looks better with minis, anyhow. If you up it by a mm, I would be worried that things would get too big.

Thanks, Frank. I was thinking for ease of adding texture to a base. At this scale, a grain of sand can look like a boulder blocking a doorway!

A new range of 3mm buildings would definitely be welcomed.

Rossomme Farm is done now. It has a base size of 30 x 30mm.

@forwardmarch: I can add some 'German' buildings to the design list. For villages on the Marchfeld, you should be able to use some of the North European buildings I'm already doing.

Rossomme Farm in 3mm on a 30 x 30mm base.

Here's a pic of my 1:600 La Haye Sainte. Because of the corner where the eaves come together, the stables have to have either a card roof or the gap in the corner of the solid roof has to be finished off with filler. To maintain the roof design and because the model's so small, I've gone with the filler option. The holes in the base are there for cocktail-stick orchard trees.

The terrain bases with the wavy edges will be available to order on my new website soon.

Cheers, Michael

Looking good!

Wow, very nice miniature buildings!

Thanks! They'll be on sale here very soon:

supremelittleness.co.uk

Cheers, Michael

What happened with these buildings? Can't find them on the site ~

These look very nice. Just a note, the building scale can match the ground scale, so 3mm building are suitable for 6mm figures, as well as for 3mm figures. One benefit of small buildings is you can place your elements on-top of them, thus there is no need to remove them when occupied by troops, which is the biggest issue with build-up areas.

I normally use 1:1000 scale building from Brigade, which i think is even smaller than 3mm, and they work great with 6mm figures. I use 6mm building for my 15mm and that works well as well.

Of course if you are creating a diorama rather than playing a game, the ground scale is the same as the figure scale thus the building scale must match the figure scale.

I will keep my eyes out for these when they come out.

Thanks for reviving this, Repaint.

If Michael can now follow through on the plans he announced in 2015, he's guaranteed an order from me. I did order almost all his other 3mm buildings while waiting for the Waterloo stuff to appear. In fact I'm still waiting, but he appeared long ago to lose interest in a project that should have been a winner. I seem to remember sending an inquiring email, but never getting an answer. An immense shame, since these would fill a precise need in my case.

Precisely as PFM explains, I use 3mm terrain with 6mm troops on Grand-Tac battlefields. As the focus on the troop miniatures decreases, that on the terrain increases. To anyone who hasn't seen them, check out Bruce Weigle's wargame tables.

I just noticed the early posting, you are correct, it looks like a loss of interest. I hope he changes his mind, but its a hard business. Brigade offer some nice 1:1000 building, but perhaps not as nice as the ones shown here. The Video link in my last post shows a lot more of the range, but in that case the video is focused on WW2. I am thinking of getting some ancient 1:1000 buildings for my ancients 6mm force and will look the brigade for napoleonic buildings as well, as I am also thinking about a 6mm nap army. I have lots of 6mm buildings for my 15mm napoleonic army and they really add to a game. I really feel a nice playing area really makes a game more fun.

I designed the models in the pictures here six years ago as test pieces before I got hold of any figures. The designs turned out to be more 2mm than 3mm next to the figures when I did get hold of some sample figures. As a result, I did not put these designs up for sale but produced new designs specifically for 3mm figures. The North European farm is designed specifically for Belgium.

link

The problem with designs based on some actual buildings and highlighted by these Waterloo designs is that they would need 3D printed parts to complete their design. Unfortunately, I'm not a 3D designer. The alternative is small card parts.

All the 3mm designs I have up for sale are based on historical buildings but I have limited the designs to ones that can be achieved by laser flat-bed technology alone – plus in some cases the addition of easily available metal parts.

Well, Michael, I think I'd probably given up on you already when all reference to the Waterloo stuff came off your website. I don't think it being on the small side would have deterred me – although I am very choosy about which of Brigade's castings I purchase (their buildings being small still, I judge).

I am afraid I can offer no answers to your technical challenge. I dare say I'd have settled happily for small card parts if that's what you provided.

I think I already have your full range in this scale, and a few doubles. Sure, I can put down houses, farms .. But they're a poor substitute for what I really want: actual scale minatures of Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, Pappelotte, Plancenoit, Belle Alliance, Quatre Bras, St-Amand … And which for a while you seemed to promise. Too bad.