How to base buildings (for towns, cities)?

6mmwargaming · Post by **6mmwargaming** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 2:54 am

Hi all

I'm trying to figure out a way to layout and base up all my 6mm buildings which can be both flexible and still look good. Also I would like to be able to replace buildings (maybe not all) with destroyed ones or destroyed town sections. And I would to be able to alter the layout and roads.

Some options
1) 1 base per village/town. Looks great as a diorama but the least flexible
2) 1/2 or 1/4 bases for town/villages. More flexible but all the bases have to be a similar size and shape
3) Smaller base clumps of 2-3 buildings. Flexible but a pain to get right for all the different size and shape buildings.
4) An empty town base with removable individual buildings. Similar to what Total Battle miniatures does. Flexible but again hard to fit all my different sizes and shapes of building I have on.

Any other suggestions? I want the town to look good as I think it is just as important in a game to have nice terrain to complement the figures. I don't just want to slap down a bit of felt and put some buildings on it.

Cheers
Kieran

Sudwind · Post by **Sudwind** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 7:04 am

Well.....felt is really practical. You don't have to leave it plain. You can mark off roads and paint those or glue on/tape the road/highway rolls from Noch. Make them geomorphic, so when you line them up, the roads line up. Other than that, there is a material known as Taskboard you can use for the base. It won't curl when you add paint/glue unless you want it to. It cuts with an Exacto. I use a 3/32 thickness for basing micro armor and ships.

Guroburov · Post by **Guroburov** » Sun Mar 13, 2016 11:17 pm

I was going to recommend 6mmwargaming's page until I bothered to see who was posting. Now I just feel dumb.

Seriously though, I'm slowly working on my own city boards and have been facing the same issues. I was going to make generic city blocks with whole sheets of plasticard. I was going to have the outer edges be the streets with built up sidewalks and open space in the center to allow freeform building placement. Boards placed against each other make for larger streets while outer edges have smaller ones. As you can guess it just doesn't look that good and gets pricey quick to cover any area It also leaves a grid city only with no real option for curved roads. Now I'm thinking of using strips of styrene cut to shape to be city streets with space along the edges for permanent building placement and I'll just have to work out how to fit them together in a cohesive whole. This will make them more of diorama sets but will let me make more realistic and dynamic cities. It will also leave blank spaces between parts I'll have to put trees into or leave blank as parks. Sorry for the convoluted post but basically option 3. Small clumps of bases permanently built with intersection pieces to bring the parts together.

Steve

cvn68 · Post by **cvn68** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:05 am

depending whether you use the hex or square boards, I lay out my town/village on 12 x 16 sheets of Styrofoam laying out blocks , roads, parks, government buildings, playing fields, railroads, etc. For the buildings I follow and old way place the building where I want it, the walls or fences, for the natural look depress or cut the Styrofoam down about 1 or 2mm then flock and add bushes or tress. Some glue to their foundations and if not enough building or fences just the outline. As for paper building- print them out and before assembly using the print out with with plastruct/evergreen and balsa wood form an outline of the building the attach the print outs to the plastruct/evergreen or balsa wood, then these building can be attached to boards. boards I have stored in 8x14 paper boxes. If using hexes you will have to determine were the joint area meet. Also when using the pink Styrofoam sheets the are slightly taller than the GHQ hexes which means some gentle sloping to join up properly. Be also aware of your roads in the city meeting up roads and rivers leading out of town, otherwise seems to have quite well a good number of years

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 7:07 am

I don't see the difficuty with #4. Why is it "hard to fit all my different sizes and shapes of building I have on."?

6mmwargaming · Post by **6mmwargaming** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:17 pm

Because I have buildings from about 6 different manufacturers!

Extra Crispy wrote:I don't see the difficuty with #4. Why is it "hard to fit all my different sizes and shapes of building I have on."?

6mmwargaming · Post by **6mmwargaming** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 1:23 pm

I think I have a plan although it is complicated!

I will go with a couple of different sized templates and I can combine them to make bigger buildings/areas. The larger towns will have a base area with some roads and simple features along with blank areas the same size as the templates , and some of these areas will be 2-3 templates in size. The template sized bases will have buildings (smaller ones may have walls/gardens), side roads, alleys, parks, squares, courtyards and so on. I will get out some buildings and see what is the best sized templates but my thoughts are 30x30mm or 30x40mm sizes. Also will have a few triangle shaped pieces as I don't want too much of a grid layout

For smaller villages I will go with a 1-3 bases with random shapes and sizes as there will be different angled roads running through them. These will have fixed buildings and features.

Any other ideas or comments are welcome.

Cheers
Kieran

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Mon Mar 14, 2016 6:34 pm

Seems unnecessarily complicated to me so clearly I am missing something. Glad you found your solution though!

BattlerBritain · Post by **BattlerBritain** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 3:13 pm

I've started to just use a Google maps screenshot sized to the scale I'm playing at, eg 1":100m, and printed out then pasted onto some board.

That gives the town layout view.

I then place buildings on top of that to give a 3D view. I can then move the buildings around and place units under/in/on the buildings, eg:

Extra Crispy · Post by **Extra Crispy** » Tue Mar 15, 2016 7:20 pm

That's kinda coll looking!

6mmwargaming · Post by **6mmwargaming** » Sat Mar 19, 2016 3:57 am

Interesting idea there BB.

Well some buildings from Leven turned up a few days ago and they are lovely. I got out some of my other buildings and drew some different sized grids. 40x40mm is the best size I came up with as anything smaller is too small for the buildings I have. For larger city blocks I will go with multiples of 40mm for the frontage and a depth of 60mm (for the wider roads).

I'll start with the smaller village pieces first as those are the simplest!

Cheers
Kieran