Making buildings in 12mm

A new scale has called for new terrain. In several instances I've considered how I can use my existing terrain which was initially created with 20mm in mind. While a few elements might be usable in 12mm there are certain things, like buildings for example, that clearly will not work for a smaller scale.

For me buildings have to be practical for gaming. I like to be able to put my figures inside, which means the roofs have to come off and the building dimensions need to be such that the figures and their bases can fit. Having looked at what is commercially available for 10/12mm and not seen anything that will work for me I've decided to begin by scratch building what I need. 

There are a few reasons for this. Firstly, I can build the terrain to fit the specifications and basing size I am using and secondly, I can ensure the building interiors are accessible. I like the way the O Group rules abstract the use of buildings so that a given area is classified as a Built Up Area (BUA) and as long as figures are anywhere within that area all that matters is the direction they are facing. It's assumed the men will take up the best available positions and it doesn't need you to micromanage the placement of figures to windows and doors. In many ways this is similar to the way Crossfire treats what it calls Building Sectors. After all, if you are supposed to be playing the battalion commander it should be safe to assume that an order to a platoon or company to 'hold the village' will see the commanders of those units do the job of assigning their units to the best defensive position for the job.

This allows for a bit of creativity in the way the BUAs are made. The way I've approached it is to consider the base size as representing the entire footprint of the BUA, so that as long as a unit is placed on that base it is considered 'in the building/s' or taking advantage of the cover they offer.

I thought 3mm foam core would work well for this job and constructed a quick test building as a proof of concept. Rather than make detachable roofs I've taken the lazy option and decided all my buildings will be ruins. The test building worked well and the base size was sufficient to house my figures on their 20mm square bases.

With that decided I set about making a selection of buildings to represent farms or sections of a village. For the bases I used pre-cut MDF coasters that are sold in craft shops and the first thing I do is take my Dremel and roughly chamfer the edges to give a more natural look.

The building dimensions are created to fit my figures and bases. These are marked out on the foamcore and then cut out with a craft knife.

The pieces are glued into place with PVA, all the while checking to make sure the dimensions will work with the figure bases. As you can see the buildings do not have to fill the entire base, you can create walls and gardens as additional features to give each base an individual character.

Foamcore is easy to work and you can cut out pieces to represent the damaged walls (which serves the additional function of making it easier for clumsy, fat-fingered wargamers to place figures during a game). By stripping back the paper and exposing the foam in the core you can then score it with a blade or similar tool to make brickwork.

Here I've used strips of greyboard to add external features. You'll note that I have not cut windows at ground level on any of the buildings. It's tricky to do at this scale without weakening the foamcore and I've decided to add shuttered windows made from thin card once the buildings are textured and painted.

Pieces of cork, cut from cork floor tiles, are useful for making extra features.

The next task is to bind everything together with a coat of filler that also adds texture to the exterior and fills any gaps in the foamcore joins.

You can use this to create the effect of flaking and broken plaster around the carved brick work.

Once the filler has dried the bases are textured using PVA and sand.

Once everything has dried the entire base and buildings are given a coat of dark brown acrylic paint as a primer and base coat. At this stage you begin to see the buildings come together and start to look the part.

The next job is to paint the bases and buildings as you would normally. I put down base colours, give the buildings a wash and then dry brush to pick out the highlights.

At this point you can bring out the features like the carved bricks and the nice thing about using the broken plaster effect is that it doesn't matter if this looks roughly done, as that is part of the effect you are looking for anyway.

The shutter windows are cut from a thin piece of card and added after the walls had been painted.

Despite saying I wasn't going to make roofs this hasn't been completely true. I liked the idea of a farmhouse with an adjacent barn. This roof, made from corrugated cardboard, is not detachable and the barn itself too small to fit a base of figures, however the entire building base is large enough to take the number of figure bases needed. I simply wanted to add diversity to the types of buildings and their appearance.

The last stage was to add flock to the bases.

A late addition was an advertising sign for Dubonnet. This was inspired by a post on Twitter. It involves adjusting an existing jpeg image to the correct size and flipping it to the reverse. Print it out on an inkjet printer and glue it face down to the building exterior with watered down PVA glue. Once the glue has started to dry wet the paper and slowly rub it away with your finger to reveal the image on the wall. It won't look perfect but gives the aged look that you see here. It's a very effective technique that makes the sign look like it has been painted on and gives it a pleasing weathered appearance.

As I mentioned earlier, the only key requirement for the placing of units in a built up area for the O Group rules is that they face in a particular direction. It's not necessary for all bases to be inside the buildings just as long as it's clear that they are occupying the built up area.

The two other terrain types that need to be created are trees and hedgerows. I'm hoping I can do those in a way where they might also work as small items of 20mm terrain and so be as versatile as possible. With most of my miniatures now painted and based it's only a matter of finishing off the final terrain pieces before I can start to play. I'm getting there!