I like to pick up new terrain when I find cool pieces. These are usually buildings, and I've had several people ask where I get them. Well at Gencon, the good people at 4Ground actually had a booth, and I was able to get 4 more buildings for a great price!
I've already got a few of their kits, and these are just fun to put together. It is nice to not have super glue wick across fine details and glue my fingers to a model, but not the parts that I'm attempting to glue together (seriously WTF, my fingers are no where near where I applied the glue and STILL get glued to it). Straightforward instructions and plain old elmers white glue.
At Adepticon I found a couple of little cheap kits. It wasn't until after I put them together that I realized these are the buildings people construct next to castle walls - so, of course, they don't have backs to them. Not a fault of the kit, but I guess I need some castle wall fragments to back these up against.
Anyway, just like I do with miniatures, I thought I'd show off the kit and assembly of one of the buildings. For this I picked the Mordanburg HighStreet House #4.
So first all the components. They are all sheets of MDF or similar materials, and laser etched and cut leaving just tiny connections to the 'sprue'. Everything is pre-painted and colored, so no painting is required. In addition, all the parts are clearly labeled on each frame.
Ok, that was a lot of frames, but each one isn't all that big, so it can't hold that many parts.
After taking some pictures, I took everything (the kit, a hobby knife, rubber bands, white glue) out onto our new deck for a relaxing morning of modelling. This is where having a little tripod that holds my phone (which is my camera) is nice - I set it up next to where I was working and just snapped the occasional picture.
The assembly instructions were quite straightforward - all with only pictures and no written instructions so they are multi-lingual.
There are a lot of nice, little details in these kits - unfortunately for my use they will never be seen :-(. The kits are meant for use with any type of game - including skirmish games or RPGs. In those cases, you may have movement into the building, and through the various levels. Because of this, the interior of the structure is completely finished.
I like the little detail of the plaster cracking on the walls, and the details on the floor.
After gluing the interior walls to the floor, you then glue on the outside beam structure. With some of the other buildings I've made,
An interesting detail of these kits is that the outside plaster is a separate piece - each one fitting between the beams (it took me a bit to realize it goes MUCH faster to put the glue on each section of the house (and then place the plaster pieces) than to put the glue on each plaster piece.
One thing that struck me as a little odd is that the outside plaster in the kit is all "pristine" - clean and no cracks. The inner walls all have cracks - why doesn't it on the outside? Their other kits have some nice detail of the wall structure peeking through, but all of these have all been recently repaired and painted.
On the 4ground website, you can actually buy upgrade kits that replace the outside plaster with wooden panels to change the look - even after the kit is completed!
The kits even have 'working' doors, including trapdoors to a basement. Nice details if you were using this for an RPG or skirmish game - however for my purposes these building will all be blocking terrain - storing these in multiple pieces is probably not worth it. However I might leave one that you can separate, in case I might want to use it in some future skirmish game (not that I know anything (that I can share) about one anything like that - damn NDA's!)
The second floor was just as detailed as the first.
At this point the real world had to raise its ugly head and I had to take a break, and didn't get back to it until that evening - which meant that it started getting dark outside. I had a little light to work from, but didn't get many more pictures until it was finished. However as I mentioned, the instructions were clear enough there isn't need for more help.
Once it was done - back to the light box for finished shots of each of the three pieces before I glued them all together
The second floor, with a hole for a ladder - that is the one detail I didn't put on.
The finished house
I then spent Sunday morning working on the second one. I'm not sure why I find these relaxing to do on a weekend morning (especially sitting out on the deck enjoying a cool morning (and yelling at the dogs to stop barking at every thing)). Very nice additions to my terrain collection - easy and fun to put together and the previous ones seems to hold up to wear and tear quite well.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
I've already got a few of their kits, and these are just fun to put together. It is nice to not have super glue wick across fine details and glue my fingers to a model, but not the parts that I'm attempting to glue together (seriously WTF, my fingers are no where near where I applied the glue and STILL get glued to it). Straightforward instructions and plain old elmers white glue.
At Adepticon I found a couple of little cheap kits. It wasn't until after I put them together that I realized these are the buildings people construct next to castle walls - so, of course, they don't have backs to them. Not a fault of the kit, but I guess I need some castle wall fragments to back these up against.
Anyway, just like I do with miniatures, I thought I'd show off the kit and assembly of one of the buildings. For this I picked the Mordanburg HighStreet House #4.
So first all the components. They are all sheets of MDF or similar materials, and laser etched and cut leaving just tiny connections to the 'sprue'. Everything is pre-painted and colored, so no painting is required. In addition, all the parts are clearly labeled on each frame.
Ok, that was a lot of frames, but each one isn't all that big, so it can't hold that many parts.
After taking some pictures, I took everything (the kit, a hobby knife, rubber bands, white glue) out onto our new deck for a relaxing morning of modelling. This is where having a little tripod that holds my phone (which is my camera) is nice - I set it up next to where I was working and just snapped the occasional picture.
The assembly instructions were quite straightforward - all with only pictures and no written instructions so they are multi-lingual.
There are a lot of nice, little details in these kits - unfortunately for my use they will never be seen :-(. The kits are meant for use with any type of game - including skirmish games or RPGs. In those cases, you may have movement into the building, and through the various levels. Because of this, the interior of the structure is completely finished.
I like the little detail of the plaster cracking on the walls, and the details on the floor.
After gluing the interior walls to the floor, you then glue on the outside beam structure. With some of the other buildings I've made,
 |
| outside beams in progress |
 |
| didn't have enough clothespins, so had to use small clamps |
One thing that struck me as a little odd is that the outside plaster in the kit is all "pristine" - clean and no cracks. The inner walls all have cracks - why doesn't it on the outside? Their other kits have some nice detail of the wall structure peeking through, but all of these have all been recently repaired and painted.
On the 4ground website, you can actually buy upgrade kits that replace the outside plaster with wooden panels to change the look - even after the kit is completed!
The kits even have 'working' doors, including trapdoors to a basement. Nice details if you were using this for an RPG or skirmish game - however for my purposes these building will all be blocking terrain - storing these in multiple pieces is probably not worth it. However I might leave one that you can separate, in case I might want to use it in some future skirmish game (not that I know anything (that I can share) about one anything like that - damn NDA's!)
The second floor was just as detailed as the first.
At this point the real world had to raise its ugly head and I had to take a break, and didn't get back to it until that evening - which meant that it started getting dark outside. I had a little light to work from, but didn't get many more pictures until it was finished. However as I mentioned, the instructions were clear enough there isn't need for more help.
 |
| cute little dormer window on the second floor |
The second floor, with a hole for a ladder - that is the one detail I didn't put on.
The finished house
I then spent Sunday morning working on the second one. I'm not sure why I find these relaxing to do on a weekend morning (especially sitting out on the deck enjoying a cool morning (and yelling at the dogs to stop barking at every thing)). Very nice additions to my terrain collection - easy and fun to put together and the previous ones seems to hold up to wear and tear quite well.
Because it is all fun and games . . .
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