Tuesday, October 10, 2017

Cardboard medieval town


A few weeks ago I was looking to buy something for my RPG use and I found it on the eBay store of a Russian seller. He also carried an extensive range of cardboard buildings; I have previously bought a few of the Eastern European buildings from the 1/87 range for my WW2 project and was quite impressed by the design and look of the buildings, so I decided to buy a pack of their 1/72 medieval walls in case I ever needed some for a siege scenario for my RPG or wargaming.

After I assembled the wall pack, I was blown away. The sections are designed to articulate with each other like plate armour to allow the user to form curved wall sections. I wanted more. I bought nine more packs, all of which I assembled over the weekend. The result is the scene above.

The buildings have a generic Western European look, and are closer to 25mm than 28mm. This means that if you plan to use them for wargaming, they will look good and serve well as markers for built-up areas, but their interiors are too small to fight in. I think they will be useful in a skirmish game, where the distinct character of each building can be used as part of the victory conditions - for example, one player may be required to steal a horse from the stables, while another has to take the relic kept in the chapel.

The card is thick, fully coloured on both sides, and in some cases also embossed to give texture. Windows and archways punch out, and doors are hinged. Some additional bits like carts are also provided, as are 2D cardboard figures.

Stables shown with HO scale horses.

The smithy comes with a cardboard anvil and bucket of water!

Some of the buildings feature walls or roofs that can be opened to display the interior - as you can see, the details on the inside can be quite stunning.



Here are a couple of shots of the inside of the walls. As you can see, there is a parapet when you can place figurines.



I also would like to draw attention to the Deep Cut Studio mat which I bought through Big Red Bat. This is the Plans design with 20cm grid, which I bought to use with the To the Last Gaiter Button FPW rules. The grids are inconspicuous enough for the mat to be used for other games, and I think this will become my default gaming mat over the flocked grass mat I have been using for years.

The only down side to all this is that once assembled they take up a lot of storage space. I may have to seriously consider taking them down and packing them flat if I don't plan to use them for a while...

6 comments:

Diplomatist said...

Those definitely look interesting. Have you a link for the seller?

captain arjun said...

Edwin, the seller's name is kotofeykotovich. Have fun looking through his store. 😄

Rodger said...

That looks pretty damn good. Great idea!

Diplomatist said...

Thanks Captain!

DeanM said...

Wow! Those are stunning. Very, very nice and useful.

Cho Gall said...

This is great!