Economical terrain for IHMN

[Craig]

Although there is magnificent terrain available through North Star (4Ground) and others many of us old gamers are always looking for something good looking and economical.

I came across this site this morning and thought it might kick-off a discussion regarding how we can build up a decent Victorian terrain collection on a budget.

http://www.modeltrainsuk.co.uk/superquick-model-card-building-kits--papers-56-c.asp

These are 4mm-foot, so might be ok with 25mm figures.

Over to you all.

[Dewbakuk]

4mm-foot is 00 scale so will be too small really. Although they do look pretty good. The other standard size you can find is 7mm-foot which is British O scale (1/43) and a bit too big. US O Scale is better at 1/48 but it's not readily available over here and tends to focus on US style architecture.

[Craig]

I did try googling the scale comparisons but just got myself heartily confused 

[Red Orc]

I tend to work to 4mm to the foot. But whenever discussions of scale come up, the answer is always 'what looks right'.

There are some simple and some complicated reasons why 'real' scales can look wrong, including the fact that people don't go around with great manhole covers on their feet that add a foot to their height and make it difficult to get through doors, and that when we experience 'real life' terrain we do it from the perspective of a mini, whereas when we experience 'game world' terrain we do so from the perspective of a hawk. Or God.

I was once involved in a discussion about building the Reichstag for 28mm minis - until we realised it was going to be bigger than the gaming table...

I tend to think smaller scales are better - buildings are actually often pretty big, if you put a 1:56 (or there abouts) engine shed on the table it would take up masses of space so you'd have to make the interior playable; a 1:75 or there abouts is probably better; but then you have to increase the size of the doors and make the windows higher in the wall to make the figures-plus-bases look right... at which point it's usually easier to see how Thunderchicken and Pappa Midnight have done it, and forget the 'truescale' railway modeller kits.

And as I don't want to start an argument with anybody over this I will add: results may vary and other approaches to terrain-making exist.

[Dewbakuk]

And as I don't want to start an argument with anybody over this I will add: results may vary and other approaches to terrain-making exist.

  too late to get the worms back in the can now 


A lot of it is down to preference. I dislike doors that figures can't get through for example inc their bases, although I use flat bases not slotta. Brickwork and details like that bother me less so 4mm-foot would be fine but I'd have to swap doors and windows etc. At which point you may as well have built it from foamcore and stuck textured brick to the outside.

However, to get away from scale, I believe the query was on how to do a board economically. One question on that though, is your time free? For example, Overlord made his stunning Geezers board by hand scribing the brickwork on every wall including the enourmous railway bridge, economical on cost certainly, on time however...

For an economical board, my first stop would be a park. I have the bits ready for mine but I've not had time to do it yet but it's not expensive.

[Fuzzywuzzieswiflasers]

Buildings out of scale with the miniatures is one of my pet hates in wargamming. I know that in ground scale the buildings should be smaller but it just looks stupid. I tend to follow the "what looks right"  philosophy and build buildings roughly to scale and just say one building represents a group of buildings. For skirmish games like IHMN I would try and be close to scale but again make sure it is practical for the game.

Cheers
Fuzzy.

[fastolfrus]

Craig -
if you are looking for card kits try these:
http://www.scalescenes.com/

Downloads to print yourself.
There are some free samples available.

Again, these are too small for 28mm figs but the designer is aware of that and can tell you how to scale them up.

[alastair]

I've also been looking at Scalescenes card buildings but not for IHMN.  We play a lot of Force on Force... mostly in Afghan/Middle Eastern settings... and we wanted to play some games in a more Western industrial setting [my son has an unhealthy obsession with old episodes of Ultimate Force and they always seem to be set in old warehouses, docks etc!].  We play in 15mm so scaling them down should be easier than trying to blow up the building plans.

For IHMN I'm planning to use some of the lovely buildings from Stoelzels Structures [available from Wargames Vault...www.wargamevault.com/index.php?manufacturers_id=4244  ]  They have some really nice Victorian warehouses, houses, banks etc available as downloads.  Some of these are waaay too complicated for me so I'm planning to stick to only building the exterior of the buildings and avoiding adding all the detailed interior fixtures and floors etc until my card modelling skills have improved!  

[fastolfrus]

If you contact Scalescenes the chap can tell you how to enlarge or shrink to fit figures - he is an ex gamer so knows about the different figure sizes.

[LCpl McDoom]

I like the cardstock designs because I often use them either as templates for my own foamboard/plastic card constructions (old habits die hard) or as the outer cladding for great detailed finishes to simple carcass boxes. I generally just scale the print ratios too to get close to the figure scale required.

Great site Fastolfrus, many thanks.