The recent itch for LoTR minis has sparked some interest in the kids. Though they mostly just go pew pew, we’ve managed to play a few small games. However, as they have… ahem… politely yet insistently reminded me, I’ve got plenty of sci-fi scenery, but hardly anything suitable for LoTR or even generic fantasy settings. So, on a quick trip to our local shop, I was (easily) convinced to pick up something we could use for our games. I let them choose, and this is the story of how we ended up as the proud owners of a Gondor mansion.
28mm plastic houses are the only kind of real estate I can afford these days, but that’s another story.
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| There's more to it than it looks |
Building the house is trickier than it looks, as it’s modular to an almost ridiculous degree. Each wall section consists of two interlocking parts, with the join neatly hidden by the stonework reinforcement, both inside and out. The same goes for the arches. I really expected this kit to be easier!
As the arcade will make part of the wall inaccessible later on, I decided to paint the lower floor before building any further.
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| Grey primer and watered down browns on some bricks. A little bit of Nuln all over later |
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| Very light grey drybrush to unify, then more Nuln on the lower part and watered down dark green later on |
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| It all leads to this |
At this point I started thinking. Of course, you all know that’s a bad sign. When you start thinking, you get ideas. When you get ideas, you feel tempted to make them happen. And when it comes to miniatures, you can safely assume all those ideas are inherently bad.
I was looking at the space under the arcade, which is about to be covered by a terrace. Would the ground underneath just be… whatever board I happen to use? Wild grass didn’t seem like a particularly fitting option for a space like that. It really needed some sort of tiled floor.
My first thought was to use an MDF board and build a large base for the whole mansion. But then I had second thoughts. Sensible as it might be, the only board I had was too big, and it would create the classic problem of whether to add grass or more tiles, depending on whether I wanted a rural or an urban setting (Overthinking? Me? Naaah…). So in the end, I went for a different approach…
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| A (very) simple tiled floor for just that space |
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| Once covered by the terrace you won't even notice it |
The terrace came next...
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| Looks sturdier than I thought |
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| Sticky fingers and all kind of assembling incidents, but I got it |
Assembling the upper floor brought a different set of issues, mostly down to the kit’s excessive modularity. I mean, I’m sure it offers endless possibilities for building your own designs, but it also makes it quite tricky to get everything to fit together properly. It feels like a Revell wannabe, but in true GW fashion.
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| Didn't really got to fit in all the pieces as exactly as they were supposed to |
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| You can see the source of my pain everywhere |
Right, next issue: the interior. The lower floor is inaccessible, and the narrow windows don’t really let you see inside. But the upper floor is a completely different story. Even in some parallel dimension where I glued the floor to the walls and made the room unplayable (good grief, what a thought), the interior would still be clearly visible through the windows. So of course, I can’t just leave it as it is, an empty, soulless room.
So how to decorate it? I had to think about the purpose of the building, and its current state and surroundings. It’s obviously a house, a place meant to be lived in. That gives me a general direction for the furniture. But is it a town house? A villa out in the countryside? Why do these questions even matter?
Because in a few years’ time you’ll remember this post. Or laugh at me. There will be no middle ground.
I’ve started to feel the itch for a (small!) fantasy board with a handful of buildings. Not quite a full Mordheim setup, perhaps, but at least a few structures. Maybe not ruins, but simply abandoned houses. The concept still needs a bit of refining, but now I’ve got a purpose. I want a house that was once lived in, hastily abandoned, its inhabitants fleeing from some now-unknown danger.
With that idea in mind, the first question I asked myself was… what does a house like this need first?
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| Well, some carpets, of course! |
Think about it. It’s a stone house, yet it has no fireplace. That, along with the windows, makes me think of a warm climate, which fits nicely with Gondor. Still, I quite like the idea of having carpets for a bit of comfort in the colder months. I simply browsed for some medieval-style carpets and printed a couple out.
As for the furniture, I don’t really have anything suitable (yet). I could probably borrow a few bits from my HeroQuest, but I don’t think it’s necessary for now. If I end up committing to this idea and building a few more houses, I’ll likely order some proper pieces down the line. For the time being, I’ll leave that aside. Today, the carpets will have to do.
Let's move on to the railing and the roof.
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| I could declare this thing done! |
But of course there's still work to do.
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| It will look better in a minute |
Grass, flock, tufts, ivy, leaves... When you get all those together, you get...
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| ...this |
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| A house that has clearly seen better times |
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| The vines and flock are just there to hide my mess-ups! |
Just a view of the space under the terrace:
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| Dammit, the cardboard. Should have used MDF |
A final aerial view:
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| Still to be completed! |
Well, I don't know when will I build more stuff like this, but for now we have a piece of scenery to play with, and that's something!
