German Farm Buildings

Despite having played Chain of Command campaigns set in many different parts of Germany, one thing has remained consistent. Whether it's been East Prussia or on the road to Bremen, I've fudged the terrain. It's always looked a lot more like Normandy than Germany. So this is a project that is well overdue.

More recently, I introduced a friend to Chain of Command and we are about to embark on the Westwind Konigsberg campaign. It's my second playing, but this time around I'm determined to make the tables look a little more 'German'. To be honest though, if I was really aiming for East Prussia in February 1945 I'd be making terrain for a snow covered table, but let's not go down that rabbit hole. Not yet, anyway. 

I thought I would start with a couple of half timber farmhouses and barns, so I ordered a few MDF kits from the 20mm Sarissa Precision range. As is my usual practice, I've made a few additions and alterations.

To start with, the roofs tend to have a few very distinctive features that seem to be the hallmark of all MDF kits. Concealing those feature, or at least embellishing them, is always a priority. Anything that can hide the joining lugs or the sharp laser-cut angles on the MDF can make a big difference. For the farmhouse I began by wrapping the chimney breast with wallpaper embossed with a brick effect.

Not only does it give a suitable brick effect, but it immediately softens the sharp angles.

For a similar effect, I lightly sand the corners of the top of the chimney. Once again, the aim is to give a softer, rounder edge.

The chimney pots, if you could call them that, are rather sad looking lumps of MDF. They were the next thing that needed addressing.

I cut them off and replaced them with a pair of metal chimney pots that I bought as part of a set of a dozen from a model railway supplier.

That was a marked improvement already.

The laser etched roof tiles were replaced with laser cut card ones from Charlie Foxtrot Models. They come in strips and are easy to apply using PVA glue. You cut them to the lengths you need and there is literally no wastage. They are very versatile. For the farmhouses I wanted to feature the distinctive curved tiles that seem a popular feature of East Prussian buildings.

My plan was to paint all the tiled roofs in the distinctive terracotta colour associated with certain parts of Germany, but particularly East Prussia.

I thought I'd vary the roofs of the barns and give one a thatch. I made that very simply by using a scouring pad and a strip of old towel, soaked in diluted PVA. The scouring pad is very quick to apply. Just cut it to the size you want and glue it to the existing MDF roof.

A piece of towel was cut to the width I wanted, dunked into a pot of diluted PVA glue and then placed over the join between the two sections of the scouring pad.

I added a few small features such as hinges and handles to the doors. The hinges were pieces of plastic rod and the handles were made by bending and shaping pieces of wire.

These may be only small additions, but they do a very good job of adding depth to the otherwise rather flat face of the buildings.

Given the relative lack of depth to the walls, you have two options. One, is to add additional material like strips of card or balsa to create the timber beams. The other, is to try to give the impression of more depth by painting. Call me lazy, but I went with the latter. The key is to create a three dimensional effect by layering the paint, this gives the impression of depth.

Most of that is simply starting with a darker base colour and then dry brushing with progressively lighter shades.

As with many Sarissa kits, some of the features are laser cut from grey board, including things like window shutters. I find it easier to paint these separately and then glue them in place.

The final bit of detail was to add a small amount of flock around the base of each building. With that, they were done. The two barns are identical kits, the only difference is one has a tiled roof, while the other is thatched.

While the two farmhouses both have the same style of roof tiles, I've added a bit of variety by painting the window frames, shutters and doors in different colours.

I think I prefer the grey colour, it's more muted and blends in well with the rest of the building.

So, that's given me four new buildings for Germany. Naturally, it's never enough. Buildings are like trees, it seems you can never have too many.

While I said that I had no suitable buildings for Germany, that was not completely true. I have had the one below for some time, in fact for so long, I can't recall who the manufacturer was. It has a very different style to the Sarissa buildings, with the timber beams in the walls much more prominent. I thought I could try to tie it in with the new buildings by applying some of the Charlie Foxtrot roof tiles.

Here's a few photos of the Sarissa buildings with 20mm vehicles for scale.