I love collecting, painting, converting and scratch building terrain. I even get to play a game once in a while. I'm a big fan of gamification as part of teaching - I'm an elementary school teacher.
This blog covers my hobby work and 'teaching through gaming'.
I've already build a bunch of small WW2 25mm houses from TTCombat. They were quick to build and very cheap. But I have also gotten myself a bunch of bigger row houses, in both two and three storey versions. These houses are a lot bigger and really give off that Baldur's Gate vibes that I'm going for.
The upgrads of these buildings are the same and I've done with the smaller houses. Stone wall ground floor, timber frame second floors, added plaster and lots of colors. The top of the roof is cobber, and would probably be all green from verdigris in real life, but that color clashed to much with the buildings. So I've only painteda bit of verdigris here and there.
For a tutorial style step-by-step check out this post here. And see all the collected fantasy city terrain on this page.
I've also made a YouTube video with these buildings:
When I bought all my city MDF kits, I also got a pack of TTCombat Streets of Venice balcony upgrades. It was pretty cool and allowed me to add a lot of balconies on these house. Some already came with balconies, but it's a seemless fit, so hard to make out which is which.
The awnings are originally from grey board, but I've tossed those out and found some striped fabric instead. These give a much more life like look to the entire building. I've also made some signs using an online coat of arms maker, those will be added one day when I get around to it.
All colors chosen for these buildings have been found with online research on real tudor or timberframed houses. And I've made sure to mix it up, so all buildings have different combinations.
It's pretty fast to paint these buildings, as most of the job is actually done while base coating with cheap rattle cans, then some drybrushing and was will make it all pop. Flock and posters add the last layer of life to them.
On my other houses I've made sure to add a 1cm flat area on the top of the roof, for miniatures to keep their balance there, but that's not needed on any rowhouses. It'll look great when I get around to painting the last 4 of these.
Check out the game Guilders: A Life In Shaows. A 28mm skirmish miniatures game, with lots of RPG elemenets. Inspired by my love of Frostgrave, Mordheim and the Warhammer Quest RPG book. All Guilders is collected here.
For the game Guilders: A Life In Shadows there's a few scenarios, that require play inside buildings. I've covered the build of this huge tavern, based on a TTCombat Carnevale set before in this blog. And covering some of the bits and bobs painted for the interior in this blog.
Now the entire thing is completed. Take a small trip through the build in this little video and read on for some words on how it's done. Most of the miniatures in there are from Dunkeldorf.
I 3d printed some flat doors found on thingiverse. Some of the prints failed, but since I don't like throwing suff out, it was easily fixed with some coffee stirrers.
I've printed out some floor details, found online somewhere. I printed them on a3 paper, so they fit an entire floor with having to make some funky line-ups.
I also found a bunch of pictures of carpets online, printed them out and glued them in place here and there.
For the stairs, I printed some I also found online, and to save space on the top floor I simply added a wooden trapdoor in the floor, that saved me from cutting actual holes in the terrain - that would serve no practical purpose anyway.
The walls are painted an off white that I mixed with cheap acryllics. It's painted on with a sponge, it adds a bit of a textured detail with the MDF shining through here and there.
I added rooms to the floors using thick cardboard. The doors don't open, but that's not really a problem during gameplay. The wooden beans are used coffee stirrers glued in place, but they really break up that MDF look nicely.
Normally I've been opposed to gluing terrain in place inside buildings, not wanting to 'waste' painted interior. But these days, I glue terrain inside. It's just easier and with 3d printing and a ton of terrain crate - I'll never run out anyways.
The top floor is a large suite, added some nicer looking interior details up here. Some a Dunkeldorf bits, some are from Mantic games.
Full topdown look on the 1st floor, with two small common room and one room that's a bit more exclusive.
This is the top floor suite, with one large room and a seperate sleeping chamber.
If you like my stuff, please consider following some of the SoMe pages, it'll all help once Guilders is released and goign into sale. You can also pop into the Discord, it's a very good little community of supportive hobby people. It's all found through my LinkTree.
This is kind of a summary post. I've finished up a full 3'x3' board of painted city terrain. This areas is what Guilders: A Life In Shadows is written for, so it's a nice accomplishment to actually getting around to finishing it. Now it's all just about getting more clutter, more life and variation onto it.
Here's a youtube video going over the different stuff.
I have collected all the different blog posts about this project on this page right here: Fantasy City Board hub.
When doing terrain I always take lots of photos and write step-by-step guides for it. My style is always simple and cheap techniques for huge upgrades.
Thanks for checking out the blog! You should consider checking out the Discord server, it's grown into an amazing community with some very lovely people.
So far I've build an entire 3'x3' board worth of buildings. These are more of the super cheap "25mm" WW2 house from TTC. The size fits well for both 28mm and 32mm miniatures.
For a full ste-by-step tutorial on how I upgrade these houses to something nicer, you can check out this previous blog post.
I also talk about the upgrades and show the buildings in this video:
The Swedish House
I try to mix up the colors for all my buildings, so I have as many different combinations of colors as possible. All houses colors are also some I've found doing research online. Another way to change them up, is I've placed chimneys differently and the board ledges as well.
The furnace is from Terrain Crate by Mantic Games. It was a quick little piece to do, but adds some nice life to the city board. Will fit equally will in a dungeon.
Shop
The other little building is a shop. I found some checkered fabric pieces and just for awnings. The buildings come with grey board, but a quick upgrade to real fabric does so much for the life of the building. I've used the online Coat of Arms maker, to make some signs for the buildings - that I'll get around to adding at some point... in some future.
Whenever I build some terrain I make sure to cover the build process with a blog post and step-by-step guide. So follow the different SoMe platforms, if you want to make sure to catch them.
Here's the third solo playtest game I've filmed of Guilders: A Life In Shadows.
In this scenario my guild is going to rob a new alchemist store in the city. Here's the introduction from the rulebook.
A newly
arrived Alchemist from a far-away land have set up shop in the city. Through
neglect, error or arrogance (that is unknown), the alchemist is not yet a
member of any Guild (that is known). Time to get some free supplies is short,
quickly now before a member fee or protection money find the Old Alchemists
Guild!
This video is cut a bit tighter than the others. As this only shows the actual gameplay. The aftergame section: XP, injuries, jobs etc. will be covered in another video.
Guilders in general is pretty far. Nearly done reading the entire thing for corrections and grammar - it's taken a long time. This heatwave is really not leaving a lot of brain activity for that part.
I've also had a lot of artwork made for the game. So all in all it's going really good.
Support my projects
Remember to show some love for the SoMe platforms, help Guilders and the blog grow. Jump onto LinkTree and drop some likes all around. There you'll also find the current rules for Guilders and the Guilders Lite Edition for an easier read.
Affiliate
Wargames Vault / Drive Through RPG Affiliate
If you enter either side by the following links, some percentage of your buys will go to me. It'll all go towards the Discord Community and Guilders artwork.
Here's the links (clicking them will remember my account for 14 days, when you enter the side however).
I've finally taken some photos of my entire 3'x3' city setup. I've finished enough kits and scatter to really fill out the board. Should have enough stuff to hit 4'x6' when (in years) it's all done.
For now I'm really please with having a fully painted board for all the Guilders: A Life In Shadows stuff.
There's step-by-step blog for most on this over here and many buildings are covered on YouTube as well.
And here's a bunch of photos from a setup of all the terrain.
Support my projects
Remember to show some love for the SoMe platforms, help Guilders and the blog grow. Jump onto LinkTree and drop some likes all around.
Affiliate
Wargames Vault / Drive Through RPG Affiliate
If you enter either side by the following links, some percentage of your buys will go to me. It'll all go towards the Discord Community and Guilders artwork.
Here's the links (clicking them will remember my account for 14 days, when you enter the side however).
A few news about Guilders: A Life In Shadows. Work continues - but it's slow. Sommertime is different hobbytime for me, it's all outside stuff. So miniature hobby is always on a slow burn this time of year.
That being said, there's a few news regarding Guilders.
Logo
I've comissioned a logo for the game. There's some minor tweaks being worked out - like switching the scales, so the illegal part is heavier.
But I don't want to wait with putting out new stuff, so here's the first official logo.
I've edited the second solo play video and uploaded it to youtube. In this scenario my solo play guild is going into a temple, to rob all the old relics. They are however protected by paladins.
Go check out the movie - it covers everything. Lots of rules, guild, skills and the entire end game sequence. That's also why it's rather long.
Show some love and hellp spread the word. I want Guilders to get out there. I plan to do a larger amount of SoMe stuff over the summer. So please help out by growing the various platforms. Go to the linktree and drop follows all over the place.
A couple of weeks ago I sat down and started testing the solo capabilities of Guilders - A Life In Shadows. All scenarios will need a couple of solo playtests from myself. Both to check who the campaign works and if the scenarios are fun.
Playing the three games did bring up a few point that I need to tweak, but nothing major.
The first solo Let's Play is now up on YouTube. And this video will cover the entire section of a game.
I've added timestamp / chapters to the video for easier watching. The video is fairly long but it will cover:
My Guild: All the characters, quick description
Setup: How the board, objectives and civilians
Full Game: A full 6 turn long game, with descriptions of what goes on in the different phases.
End Game Sequnece: All the RPG elements going on in a game. XP, Loot, Injuries, Roam the City.
This video will give a fairly good overview of the game and definately make it easier for people to read and understand the rules.
I have a bunch of How To Play and two more Let's Play videos filmed. Just need editing and will be posted in the future.
I would love feedback on both my video - editing stuff if really new to me and I learn stuff each time.
The rules. Read them, check them, play if you want. All manner of feedback is appreciated. You can find the rules and the various SoMe on the Linktree.
Wargames Tournaments is a company making various MDF kits. Sometimes they have some insane 'kits under 10£' deals. So way before Brexit I stacked up on a ton of wonderful and cheap kits. Between those kits was a love midieval church kit for cheap.
I used thick card to make foundation stones all around the base of the church. And on the tower I mixed different thickness of cardboard.
The roof got shingles mde some long strips of thin card, with small triangles cut into them. It's a lot quicker to cut than one might expect. The top rof is the most tricky. I cut both sides and leave a 1cm wide flat space on the top. This allows miniatures to stand on the roof, perfect for skirmish games. I also did this for the small roof on the entrance.
The nave (main house on church) I gave the premixed polyfilla with some added woodglue. Giving nice various textures on the build.
Base painting was done with four different rattle cans (just the cheap ones). Black on the roof, white on the nave, dark grey on flat tower surfaces, light grey on the corners (a kind of pre highlight).
The tower had a wooden floor added. I cut a small square piece of XPS and rolled it with a Green Stuff roller. Painted it with modpodge and then drybrushed light brown.
The rest of the build is painted with different cheap acryllics. Gave the roof a dark drey drybrush on the black. Picked out individual stone with various greys here and there.
I also painted individual stones on the flat parts of the tower, further giving the illusion of stone work.
The base around the church is made with a mix of sand in some places, cardboard tiles in others.
I went with a bright red for the windows around the church, making it match on the priests and monks I've painted up.
