Wargame Building Project

Our latest project is to scratch build a collection of town houses and farm buildings designed to fit our campaign based wargames.

For many years we have had a large collection of 28mm commercial buildings, many of them Hovels.   Their “footprint” is much too large, but that did not worry us when we were fighting one off battles.   The towns could be as large or small as suited a particular wargame.

Now that all of our wargames are produced by the campaign it is different.   We have to be able to provide cities, large towns, small towns and a selection of villages and farms.   To do so we use felt squares 8”8”.   One is a village, two a small town, three a large town and four a city.   They are designed to be practical and wargame friendly.   When fighting takes place in the town one or more buildings are removed to make space for the figures.   The felt square remains to show the outline of the town.

The problem is that most of our commercial buildings take up too much space.   One building looks ok, but two or more look very crowded.  

The Hovels buildings, which I think are 28mm but might be 15mm, are much smaller.   I can fit three or even four on a base without looking too crowded.

Neither of us are very good at scratch building, but about ten years ago we gave it a try.   We made a walled town to match the Hovels buildings.   Each buildings and section of wall could be used on its own.

Lately we have used some of those town houses together with the Hovels ones.   Ours are slightly larger, but still look ok as part of a town.   In the photo above the large building on the left indicates the problem of size.   The two at the front on the right are Hovels, the two behind are two of our ten year old card buildings.

The plan is to make a selection of town buildings to use with the Hovels.   If this works well, we will then produce a couple of farms, both farm house and outbuildings.   We will concentrate on northern European first, and then have a look at Spanish.

I will post occasional updates on the blog.