"Terrain innovations." Topic

To get the optimum number of houses in the minimum table space we have created backdrop houses effectively about a 1/2 house that sits next to the backdrop, a bigger village in a smaller table space, a key issue for us. Common in Model railways but as far as I am aware an innovation to use them on the wargames table.

The second is the trees. I have a love hate relationship with trees, great tactically but take up far to much storage for me. This is my latest attempt to reach an optimum solution, possibly even better than my 2D trees. They are scaled down trees form Paperboys on Facebook. Cruciform trees. Minimal space take up for storage, NO PAINTING, look better than my 2D trees, faster to set up and are quite good sight blockers adding to Fog of war. Could I have reached my Nirvana with these?

What do you think?

Nicely done! And those "half houses" are not all artifice. Sometimes called "flounder houses" in the US, but I feel sure I've seen similar in Germany and the UK.

Really nice idea to create the illusion of depth.

Cheers,
John

I am a huge fan of cardboard buildings. I started with 110# cardstock, but those were too fragile for me. Now, I print the PDF's on full sheet label paper, applying them to 2mm-thick chipboard, cut, and assemble with Hot Glue (PVA Glue was too tedious and fiddly). I use both Low Temperature, and High Temperature Hot Glue guns: the Low Temperature sets faster, won't run or drip easily; the High Temperature runs, which is best for gluing internal seams I can't reach with the tip of the Gun! It takes careful application, but even the High Temperature Glue hardens within a few minutes, as opposed to a few hours for PVA Glue. Here is my thread on my chipboard building techniques: TMP Thread.

The best part of paper/PDF buildings, is no painting… For the first buildings in that thread, I did color them with pencils, as they were B&W, but the others were all colored by the publisher. I do use acrylic paint pens to blacken the white edges, though, and they work superbly -- better, faster, easier coverage than a Sharpie marker achieves.

Best thing about my chipboard buildings: heft, Baby, heft; durability; strength; they look superb, with minimal touching up required with a paint pen!

Your work looks great. I'll play on anybody's table, but I prefer better terrain than colored felt, if you have it. Cheers!

Well it seemed a waste to not use the set-up so last night we had a small action to take the village. I can say that the half houses worked perfectly just big enough to put the troops in, so a great time was had by us and it has more than proved the concept is a step forward in scenario design.

Mine are 300gsm card stock but fold flat for storage. To keep them in place they sit on a fold flat village base so they stay accurately in the same place throughout the game.

Nice. Thanks for sharing your techniques. Cheers!