Buildings & towns

dougeagle · Post by **dougeagle** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:29 am

Hi,

I'm in the midst of looking at a village for my micro armour and am wondering from others about how they present them.

Do you use single buildings on a piece of felt to represent a block or do you base the whole town on a piece of board?

Some insight would be appreciated

bejart7092 · Post by **bejart7092** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 2:02 am

Doug ---
I use individual cardboard buildings based on a double thickness cardboard. It gives me more flexibility on my layout. I have a couple of double size buildings, but I've found that they're harder to use.

http://www.freewebs.com/gupiao/rivercro ... kozlov.htm

This is a picture from a secnario I posted on my website showing that flexibility.
Bill

dougeagle · Post by **dougeagle** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:38 am

That is way too cool

Do you play as the 1:1 ratio or the 1:5 ratio?

Fulcrum · Post by **Fulcrum** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 3:48 am

I mount mine into my boards.... But I keep a few loose building to break it up a little. Here is my basic Soviet city....

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Mk 1 · Post by **Mk 1** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 5:43 am

bejart7092 brought us:
http://www.freewebs.com/gupiao/rivercro ... kozlov.htm

This is a picture from a secnario I posted on my website showing that flexibility.

Wow! Nice stuff bejart! Where have your posts been up to now?

Dougeagle:

As with bejart, I also use individual buildings. I game at 1-to-1 unit scale. The rules we used to use, by Mobius (who frequents this forum) recommended just using a cut-out to represent the limits of the built-up area, and a couple buildings scattered about for esthetics. We never implementated that.

I do use a cloth cut-out with a couple random trees on it to represent the wooded areas, or with lichen to represent swampy areas, when I use my own felt-cloth + tape approach to terrain. But I've never used a cloth cut-out (or cardboard or sheet plastic cut-out) to represent built-up areas. Always gone with seperate buildings.

http://www.microarmor.com/images/June2605/index.html

Here are a set of pictures of a game we did at my home, which uses my buildings on terrain boards done by Thunder (who also frequents this forum).

http://www.microarmor.com/images/Kursk/index.html

Here are a set of pictures of a game I put on at a gaming Con, re-creating a portion of the battle of Prokhorovka. This one uses my own felt-cloth + tape terrain, and shows a lot of steppes with only one village, but you can at least see a few free-standing buildings.

http://www.microarmor.com/images/MK1%27 ... index.html

Here are photos of a game run on superb terrain boards done by CG Erickson (who graces this forum on occasion). On his boards the terrain is done in great detail, and again each structure is a 1-to-1 representation.

There are several battles recorded on Thunder's website that you can review, that show seperate buildings used on felt-cloth battleboards (my terrain), seperate buildings used on terrain boards (my buildings, Thunder's terrain boards), or terrain boards with buildings mounted right on them (CG Erickson's terrain boards). We've never used a patch to represent the limits of the built-up area.

I have just come to prefer looking at a building and seeing it as a building. A house is a house, a barn is a barn. In the rules we play now, Mein Panzer (by ODGW), they recommend working line-of-site by the mechanism of the "string of death". You stretch a string between two models. If the string has to go around something in-between, they can't see/shoot each other. It is a very simple, intuitive, and effective approach. A building model is a building, and the line-of-site is related to what the model obstructs. Can also be implemented with laser-pointers, but somehow it is a bit more fun to call for the string, and say "just SOD 'em all!".

I realize that there are inconsistancies with scale ... ie: our ground scale is usually 1:1,000 or 1:2,000 even though our models are 1:285 or 1:300. So that little village church winds up covering an acre or more. Yawn. I can live with that, easier than I can live with one tank representing five. (Not that I'm criticizing a 1-to-5 unit scale. Go ahead and play it. It just isn't my cup of tea.) We always make some abstractions in gaming. A street that is 50 yards wide, or a peasant hut that is 100m long, is an adjustment to reality that I can accept.

voltigeur · Post by **voltigeur** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:03 am

One of the things I was taught in the military is the 10% rule. I try to lay my terrain out from actual maps. I look at the largest streets to get a layout and lay the village of small town in a close configuration to the real thing. Then if a small town has 100 buildings I will only use 10 on the table.

This works well the map makers only draw 10% of the actual features I only modle 10% of that. GIves me the tactical situation. I also apply this to hills. When I look at the coutours I only look at the dark lines on US maps that is every 5th line. Then cut 1/2 of those and you have the shape of the hill in an easy to model format.

voltigeur · Post by **voltigeur** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 6:04 am

One of the things I was taught in the military is the 10% rule. I try to lay my terrain out from actual maps. I look at the largest streets to get a layout and lay the village of small town in a close configuration to the real thing. Then if a small town has 100 buildings I will only use 10 on the table.

This works well the map makers only draw 10% of the actual features I only modle 10% of that. GIves me the tactical situation. I also apply this to hills. When I look at the coutours I only look at the dark lines on US maps that is every 5th line. Then cut 1/2 of those and you have the shape of the hill in an easy to model format.

bejart7092 · Post by **bejart7092** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:02 am

dougeagle wrote: That is way too cool

Do you play as the 1:1 ratio or the 1:5 ratio?

We play 1:5 ratio, and use Terrain Maker for the game board. I like the modular flexibility that that system offers. I also work from maps, the old Department of Defense US Army of Engineer's maps from the late 1940's-early 1950's. They're terrific for hills, roads, swamps, railroads, the size of towns, even ones that were destroyed. Most of what we game are Eastern Front sceanrios and accurate maps are hard to come by.

The buildings are now out of print. They were from the early 1980's published by a company in the UK, Hard Cover Buildings, I think. They have a black and white shell that fits inside to represent the same building, but rubbled.
Bill
http://www.freewebs.com/gupiao/

1ComOpsCtr · Post by **1ComOpsCtr** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 7:25 am

As most have stated the size of the town and the number of buildings depends on what scale you are working in. We work in one-for-one scale using Geo-Hex 12" hexes at a 3mm per meter scale. Each hex is aprox. 100 meters across at the flats. Makes conversion to a map very easy.

Here are two overviews of parts of the same town using that scale, as well as a master map to indicate the total area represented by the miniature.

The image above is of the west side of the Neretva. Image below if on the east side of the river.

Note the railroad...

The simulation area (miniature terrain) extends 2KM N/S and 1.5KM E/W at the moment but is expanding every month. We expect to have all of the area in the red grid by the end of the year at 3mm per meter scale both horizontally and vertically.

Will
CopmOpsCtr

dougeagle · Post by **dougeagle** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 8:14 am

One of the things I was taught in the military is the 10% rule. I try to lay my terrain out from actual maps. I look at the largest streets to get a layout and lay the village of small town in a close configuration to the real thing. Then if a small town has 100 buildings I will only use 10 on the table.

This works well the map makers only draw 10% of the actual features I only modle 10% of that. GIves me the tactical situation. I also apply this to hills. When I look at the coutours I only look at the dark lines on US maps that is every 5th line. Then cut 1/2 of those and you have the shape of the hill in an easy to model format.

That is a good idea, I kinda like it. Thanks

To everyone else, thanks for the info and thanks for the pics...

tstockton · Post by **tstockton** » Thu Mar 15, 2007 12:31 pm

I've been "kicking around" a thought or two about towns...

Since I use light gray "gravel" to cover all of my roadways (Woodland Scenic's HO-scale fine gray ballast) -- it seems to me that a few hexes covered with just that ballast would make a good "base" for a town. The buildings could then be positioned as required / desired, on a relatively flat base.

My "flat" hexes are rarely flat, since I tend to use different grades of ground foam to represent foilage / bushes / etc. I've seen photos posted here on the message board, where buildings are "based", then placed on top of a "flat" hex, or alongside a road on a "road" hex... but with my "3-D" terrain, I have a feeling that would not work so well.

However, a hex with only "gravel" on it would be relatively flat, so that the buildings would sit fairly flat to the surface. Also, the "gravel" would blend in with a "road" hex leading into the town area... And if I needed a building with a hedge or a garden or other scenic element, that could be modeled on a base and set in position...

Has anyone tried this, or something similar? Does it sound "do-able" -- or is there something I've missed?

Thanks in advance!

Regards,
Tom Stockton

voltigeur · Post by **voltigeur** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 9:24 am

Since I use light gray "gravel" to cover all of my roadways (Woodland Scenic's HO-scale fine gray ballast) -- it seems to me that a few hexes covered with just that ballast would make a good "base" for a town. The buildings could then be positioned as required / desired, on a relatively flat base.

I have used grey felt to show teh extent of build up areas. But that idea harkes back more to Napolionics. It is good when things are abstract. In 1to 1 games I don't care much for it.

Since I not gaming right now I'm trying to draw up plans for a terrain wedge that will flatten a pad out to mount a building on. Not sure how it will work. Trying to finish my Soviet Regt and get my rules to a play test stage.

CountRingworm · Post by **CountRingworm** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:35 pm

hmm.. on that idea, would it be possible to use some sort of "bean bag" with a stiff material for the top (cardboard, plastic, etc). that way the soft bean bag part could conform to the uneven terrain and the top would be flat to place buildings on.

i realize these would be pretty small, but if someone is handy it might be an interesting exercise...

of course, i don't know what i'm talking about sometimes anyway.

Cav Dog · Post by **Cav Dog** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 8:40 pm

voltigeur wrote:
Since I use light gray "gravel" to cover all of my roadways (Woodland Scenic's HO-scale fine gray ballast) -- it seems to me that a few hexes covered with just that ballast would make a good "base" for a town. The buildings could then be positioned as required / desired, on a relatively flat base.
I have used grey felt to show teh extent of build up areas. But that idea harkes back more to Napolionics. It is good when things are abstract. In 1to 1 games I don't care much for it.

Since I not gaming right now I'm trying to draw up plans for a terrain wedge that will flatten a pad out to mount a building on. Not sure how it will work. Trying to finish my Soviet Regt and get my rules to a play test stage.

I think this trick comes from an old Woodland Scenics Scenery manual. What they do is lay tinfoil over the existing terrain and pour plaster to get the same countour. Then they build whatever different type of terrain feature they need on the plaster cast, and in theory, they can swap between the two features as needed. I haven't actually done this, but it sounds plausible.

1ComOpsCtr · Post by **1ComOpsCtr** » Fri Mar 16, 2007 10:27 pm

Sand paper is a great idea for several reasons...

1. It is uniform in depth and surface.
2. It is not as thick and uneven as using ballast can be.
3. It comes in a size (the surface) that can be selected to match the scale of the
surface desired.
4. It takes paint well.
5. For a little more money you can get black with the same qualities.
6. It is easy to cut into strips for roads, as well as made to fit most commercially
available bridges.
7. It is flexible and will conform to surface changes plus you can stretch the paper
between two surfaces and "fill" the difference while keeping the road flat or to
have a grade (as in slope) change.
8. You could mount the paper on a surface with tapered edges to simulate shoulders.
9. Major time savings...
10. It will not damage miniatures unless you drag them across the surface.

Great idea...

Will