half-timbered house (1/72 scale)
While designing the game table to play the "Surprise at Kosen" SDS
scenario, I realized that my miniature
buildings were not well suited to play 1:1 skirmish games with my 1/72
figures.
My existing buildings were designed to play Napoleon's Battles (NB) and
follow the
Built-Up Area concept. Because real buildings are big
and can dominate the battlefield in a wargaming table, the mine were
built with a smaller 1/100 scale. This is not a serious problem with NB
(or Lasalle) games, where it is clear that the miniature figures are
abstractions representing 120 men (in NB) or 20-30 men (in Lasalle).
However,
in a skirmish game with a 1 man: 1 figure scale, my
buildings become significantly smaller
and everything seems too strange, because a 1/72 figure (1.80 m tall)
looks like a 2.50 m tall giant!
To resolve this mess, I decided to make a couple of buildings from
scratch at 1/72 scale for use in SDS encounters. With my miniature
armies fighting mostly in central Europe, it was clear that the
buildings should be German-looking, so half timbered houses, ubiquitous
in Germany, Austria, France, etc. in Napoleonic times, are obvious
candidates
This house is made following a similar method to the used for
Napoleon´s Battles and Lasalle
B.U.A.'s
| 1 | This is a typical european half-timbered house |
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| 2 | A view of the materials: 2mm cardboard, water-based paints, white glue, wooden matchsticks and wall-scratch paste |
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| 3 | A template is drawn in Powerpoint using the total height of a 1/72 figure, to ensure that doors and windows are up to scale |
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| 4 | The timber frame is built using wooden matchsticks, fixed with white glue or two-sides tape. |
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| 5 | Scratch-wall paste (or similar) is extended between the wood frame and allowed to dry |
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| 6 | Additional wood beams were added on the façades |
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| 7 | The tiles are made from corrugated cardboard cut in strips |
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| 8 | The strips are glued with white glue, painted with dark red and highligted with light red |
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| 9 | The walls are painted in ochre and higlighted with yellow. The wood beams in brown and brownish red |
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| 10 | Closed windows are laser-printed, glued on cardboard and placed in the façade. The chimney is decored with yellow bricks and red tiles |
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