"Interested in 1/100 & 1/144 German Cardstock Buildings?" Topic

Just curious to know if there is any interest in German, cardstock houses and village/town buildings in 1/100th and 1/144th scales, for WWII and the Cold War period?

I've created some for myself, and thought while I'm at it, I'd offer some to others who might want them too, as well.

You can see some of the small, factory-produced, houses that were very popular, and built in large numbers, for the 1930s – 1950s (and possibly the 1960s?), here:

TMP link

They're low cost, compared to those produced in metal, resin, plaster, and MDF or wood, and in some ways look superior to these. They're easy to assemble, and very lightweight. With a little effort, you can add cardboard or foam core reinforcement, if desired, but it really isn't necessary for most structures, excepting perhaps for the largest ones, or if you want to make the walls look a little thicker, when making damaged ones for your gaming table.

For the price of one to three buildings, you can have enough for a whole neighborhood.

The smaller houses that I currently have listed for sale were typically arrayed in neighborhoods with identical designs, like are commonly referred to as American tract homes build after WWII, here. I've also seen some arrayed singly, in the countryside, scattered about, or on small farms.

I have some other, slightly different, and larger home designs too, I've been working on, with various layouts, window treatments, etc.. The plain, open windows shown seem to be fairly common for these, especially as some are remodeled and rebuilt, to bring them up to 1980s and later standards.

I'm also working on creating some larger, two and three story multi-family residences, duplexes, apartment buildings, and shops for villages/towns too, if people are interested in those as well. Some are just plain, stucco'd buildings, but others will have the half-timber detailing common in older structures as well.

Right now, I have the orange-tile roof, and a brown roof available, as you can see in the photo, but will also be offering a gray, slate, and/or shake roof too, as an option also.

So, let me know if you'd be interested in any of these, in the two scales, and what other types of buildings you'd like to see as well.

I've added some surplus 1/100th scale armor to go with the buildings, if you're interested in those too:

TMP link

Free 1/100th scale, cardstock buildings, if you purchase a platoon of 5 x Leopard 1A3/1A4s, and/or 5 x Jagdpanzer Kanones. These are plastic models, produced by Roskopf, and are ready for paint, and battle, right out of the box, since they come fully assembled.

$30 USD seems quite expensive for card for 10 1/144 buildings to me but good luck with your venture. Always nice to see more buildings on the market

Sorry, I should have added context to the pricing point. I recently bought 4 mdf Russian buildings for £20.00 GBP in 1/72 scale, so paper 6 in 15mm caught my attention, and 10 for 1/144 as well. Of course, yours are ready coloured, so that helps, against which is the "flatness" of paper which I am not 100% sold on. I have tried some very high quality card buildings from Germany but they lack "depth" to me. So paper, for me, would need to be dirt cheap to score

Got it, Marc.

Thank you for your feedback. I appreciate it.

I guess it depends upon the scale, and what you want out of them. With a little more work, they can be made to look more impressive, and 3-D, but I'm not sure a lot of people are willing to put in that effort.

For example, I can provide separate, and/or duplicate windows and window-frames, so people can glue those to the outside, to give a more 3-D appearance. The white edging can be painted, and/or colored with a magic marker to eliminate the paper look – this little step goes a long way to making the assembled buildings look a lot more realistic.

Cutting out the windows, and putting clear transparency film underneath, and/or behind the window-frames or walls would help considerably too, but it increases the workload.

A work around would be to just apply the thin transparency film directly to the windows, and they'd reflect in the light. Window frames are rather thin, so that might not be an issue with them being a bit glossy – chalk it up to sunlight reflecting off the just-cleaned, glossy white paint on them if someone comments on that. Some homeowners are rather fastidious.

Not sure too many people would want to do either of those, but perhaps I am wrong. It would probably be a more worthwhile pursuit in 1/100th scale.

In doing a bit of on-line research (actually, a lot of it), many "modern" German buildings are a bit plain (especially the larger, multi-family dwellings, and apartments), so I've produced some buildings to represent those.

Of course, some of the much older, and/or colorful buildings are half-timbered, and look superb, so I'm in the process of creating a number of those too. When printed in 1/144th scale, I find that they look rather 3-D, but perhaps that's just my eyes deceiving me.

All look great, in my opinion, at the normal, table-top, gaming, distance, and they even look very good close up as well. I'll post more pics with some 1/144th scale armor in the shots, to show them off, when time permits.

They could be modified by adding strips of styrene or balsa/bass wood to the outsides of them (for the half-timbered buildings, and/or window frames), but doing that for all but the simplest designs would get rather tedious, quickly, I suspect. Still, perhaps some people enjoy doing stuff like that, so they might find it therapeutic and rewarding. Just a little glue, patience, and time is required.

I'm just looking to get some decent decent quality, wargaming structures on the tabletop quickly, for a reasonable cost for myself, and don't have the money to drop on buying and building 1/144th and larger plastic kits, which can run between $10 USD – $50 USD+ each, depending upon the scale, and manufacturer of them.

I think $30 USD is reasonable for 10 x 1/144th scale buildings (which works out the $3 USD each), when a single one of this size runs $10 USD or more, with shipping. 1/100th scale homes and buildings typically run $12 USD – $15 USD or more each, depending upon their size (MDF, and/or resin), and need to be cleaned up, assembled, and painted, so $5 USD each is just a fraction of that.

As mentioned, I've got some other, multi-family buildings and shops completed too, so will post those sometime next week, when I have a bit more free time.

At the very least, I can now fill out the tabletop with several German villages, and residential settlements for my Cold War, and WWII games nicely, which works for me.

They'll all fit in one lightweight box, so are easy to transport and store too, which is a real plus.