No hammer like Oldhammer: Warhammer Townscape

After the slightly dismal end of my Kan project I decided it was very important to immediately get on the hobby horse and start afresh. For me building scenery/terrain is a perfect counterpoint to miniature painting and in this case therapeutic. Scratch building is a bit more forgiving and a hell of a lot cheaper than miniature painting. So scratch building it is. As I also like to go for overtly ambitious goals I decided to get started on a long held wish to build the classic Warhammer Townscape buildings in foamboard. To make it interesting (and avoid cherry picking) I decided to use the numbers in te original instructions as the order in which to build the entire set. Here is where I'm at right now.

The first 2 out  of 39, it's a a start.

For those of you wondering what the Warhammer Townscape is. Way back in 1988 Games Workshop published a book with cardboard cutout buildings for use in your Warhammer Fantasy games. I'm quite sure at least one of the ruins in this book also featured at the famous 'Battle at the Farm' in the original Warhammer 40.000: Rogue Trader book. If you're curious about the book, outside of Scribd I found a pdf of it here. Orlygg, the venerable Oldhammer Guru running the Realm of Chaos 80s blog has a nice write-up on the book here. I used to own all the cardboard buildings and vaguely recall fighting battles with them on the classic 8 foot by 4 foot table. Unfortunately time and a very damp basement haven't been kind to them. The trashbin took them a long while ago. Aside from that, I really like making pretty buildings out of foamboard, cardstock and old tea boxes. So off I went with that plan.

Having instructions within reach is helpful.

I'm using a pdf of the original book for this project. I've printed the pages with assembly instructions for reference and use a plastic geo-triangle on my monitor to determine sizes (remember to set the pdf to 100% self!). One of the fun parts of this book is that from a scale perspective most of these buildings don't really make sense, but from a wargaming perspective they are perfect. They look believable and take up a nice amount of space. They add to a gaming table instead of cluttering it and getting in the way of a game.

Foamboard on the table can mean only one thing: new buildings are going to appear soon.

As I'm also trying to reduce the amount of 'useful garbage' in my house I've used leftover 3mm foamboard for the first building, the farmhouse. I cut the bits to size using a metal ruler and a box cutter (remember to break the blade regularly for a neat cut). I cut out windows and doors using a scalpel. Within almost no time I had the first of three parts for the farmhouse ready.

One frame made, dozens more to go...

I glue the building's sides together using cheap (smelly) transparent universal hobby glue. It holds well and dries very quickly. I also use needles in the sides to pin the foamboard. This helps create a stronger bond for the glue and speeds up assembly time even more. I used to carefully bevel the edges of foamboard to make a perfect fit, but I find foamboard makes for a very ugly base to paint on. As I texture it beveling is a colossal waste of time, so I skip that step.

Adding shapes together.

Within no time at all I had the basic Farmhouse complete. Building from the Townscape book has its own fun challenges. The original buildings are printed on thick paper, my buildings are made out of thicker foamboard. This messes with the dimensions. For instance a window that fits neatly on a card building might get partially blocked by a wall in my version. I realized this during construction of the first two buildings, and will have to remember it through the rest of the project.

Don't worry old Land Raider box, you'll continue to play a part (several parts) in the hobby.

On to basic roofing. Unless I'm building a ruin I use cardboard to make a basic roof shape. The cheaper the cardboard the better. An excellent chance to put the paper recycling bin to personal use. I pulled an ancient Land Raider box from it as well as some tea boxes and other assorted cardboard containers.

Lord Nelson tea, is it possible to make your tea sound even more British?

Here's a Lord Nelson Earl Grey tea roof (might've been put to better use to make a ship I suppose). As with the walls I use pins and universal glue to stick the roof in position. I also close off the back of all holes for windows and doors with cardboard at this point. This will make it easier to add actual doors and windows later (I hope). The building above is number two in the book: the Gatehouse. I used 5mm foamboard leftovers for this one. For beveling 5mm foamboard is easier to work with than 3mm, but for most other purposes I prefer 3mm these days.

Ignore the unpainted mass of Skaven in the background please.

And here we have my first two buildings assembled. For those of you wondering, that's about an afternoon's worth of hacking, slashing and globbing on glue. Good times, now on to the time consuming part. As I'm talking about invested time here. The rest of this article took me another afternoon and an evening's worth of work. It was spent listening to Plague Garden on Audible (a rather enjoyable AoS audiobook) and old episodes of QI on YouTube (a rather enjoyable British game show).

Half timbering a house is an easy effect to achieve.

Next up I got started on timbering the half-timbered farmhouse. I used leftover bits of balsa wood, sticking them on as required and cutting them to size (when necessary) after the glue has dried. You could do this super neatly, but I actually prefer to work slightly sloppy as this just makes it look a bit more run-down and Warhammer-like.

Coffee stirrers are cheap, can be broken by hand, cut with scissors or (in buches) with pliers.

The farmhouse also has a timbered upper floor. I've uses my coffee stirrers for these. Now you can steal these by the fistful anywhere they sell coffee, but I found it easier to just invest in a box of 1000 of my own for around one euro (I think). Better for the conscience, you get an actual box to store them in with your purchase and it'll last you a long, long time. As the farmhouse should look rundown I used my fingers to snap the sticks to size and then glued them onto the house in a slightly irregular pattern. Now it was just a matter of time waiting for the glue to dry so I could cut the top parts along the line of the roof with detail cutters (I'm unable to find a proper translation for this tool, the link goes to rather pricey GW ones, you can find a cheaper equivalent in the electrician's tools in a DIY store).

I love Green Stuff World texture rollers and I'm not ashamed to admit it.

The gatehouse is a plastered building with some stones showing through bits where the plaster has fallen off. I used my new 'Dutch Brick' Green Stuff World Texture roller to make a dutch brick patterns in air dry clay.

Digging out some foamboard to replace it with clay.

I proceeded to cut a similar pattern in the foamboard side of the gatehouse.

Clay added.

I glued the clay on with some PVA. I actually did not make the hole deep enough for this one (the other hole in this building was better placed). Lets just hope it'll work well enough in the end (and pay more attention moving forward).

Interestingly enough you can plaster a scale house with the same stuff you use on a full sized one.

Next up it was time to add texture to the foamboard. Even a badly made texture will look better than painting foamboard directly so I would advise to always texture. Practice makes perfect and all that. I took a small bucket of instant filler and globbed it on the side of the gatehouse.

No, I do not like this pattern at all (even though I've used it before).

I spread out the instant filler and used a sponge to make a pattern. After it dried I decided I really did not like the pattern. I do like the way the brick has been incorporated in the structure. To redo the texture I simply globbed on a bit more instant filler and used an icicle stick to spread it out as if I was plastering a real wall.

This is starting to look better, needs a bit of extra work though.

I like this result a lot better. Following a technique I spied watching actual plasterers work, I waited a bit for the instant filler to almost dry. I then used a wet sponge to flatten the texture a bit more. The blobs above looked a bit to far off scale for my taste. The 'stones' around the gate where hand made for the purpose with bits of air dry clay.

Making roof tiles from cardboard. It's not a glorious job, but it need doing.

Next up I made roof tiles. I use store bought 1mm cardboard for this. It is very cheap and buying it instead of using recycled bits of paper ensures a consist look to the tiles. Come to think of it, I should at least try using recycled bits on one of the 39 buildings in this project and see how an inconsistent look looks. Lets get to that later.

Draw lines, add more lines then cut ignoring most of the lines.

I use a technical pencil and a measuring triangle to (sort of) plan out 1 cm by 1 cm blocks. I then use a steel ruler and a box cutter to cut out the long lines keeping the last bit of the cardboard intact. Cutting along the shorter lines does not work as the cardboard curls up when you force a blade along it. Instead I cut the strips to small bits using a large, sharp scissor.

Job's done, moving on.

After a bit of work I get a bowl full of almost 1cm x 1cm tiles. These aren't exactly to size which is excellent as I want my roofs to look a bit messy.

Cutting all those tiles was worth the effort I think.

Next up I simply spread some universal glue on my cardboard roof and, using the point of a scalpel, I place the roof tiles one by one. Every once in a while I cut a corner of a tile just to make it all look well worn. After the first (bottom) row is finished I add a second row in a brickword pattern, cutting a tile in half if necessary. I keep this up, filling the entire rood. I know people use strips of the right size with the tiling cut in, but I think placing individual tiles just looks a little bit better and its not a heck of a lot more work to achieve the effect.

Where would I be without a good source of very cheap PVA glue.

With all roofs finished, after giving the universal glue a bit of time to dry, I pour PVA onto a roof section and spread it out with an extremely wet (and old) brush. This helps strengthen the roof and fixes it firmly to the building. As the PVA is drying I regularly check for pooling (for instance where the center roof connects to the left roof). Dried pools of PVA on a roof look hideous when you paint them.

Next up: doors.

Next up was detailing. I usually make doors out of balsa wood by sticking the wood on a bit of masking tape and covering it in PVA. As the PVA is wet add detail using bits. This helps make a door look convincing and a convincing door helps makes the entire building look convincing. I made the hinges and door handles by cutting up a chaos star from a Chaos Tank Sprue. Usually I wait for the glue to dry and then take the doors of (the balsa wood acts as a sponge to PVA, helping inidividual planks stick together). This makes it possible to glue them at a slight angle, making it look as if they're askew.

Now this is beginning to look a lot like a building.

In this case, it wasn't really necessary as I wanted the doors to look closed anyway. So I just glued them on flatly. I used small bits of paperclip to make the hinges part of the rest of the building. The windows have been made out of Ikea carpet underlay. It's an experiment. I'll get back to those when I start painting (hopefully with good news).

And another door is added. 

I added the front door to the farmhouse, using another chaos star for the hinges and a small bit of plastic for a door handle. I also experimented with a different size bit of balsa wood in the center to give the door a bit of character (and a window). Let's see how that works out while painting.

And the final door on this building is in place.

And here's the door to the shed.

Plastering a half-timbered house is no easy job. 

As you can probably already see on the pictures above I also textured the foamboard within the timber. I used a toothpick to add instant filler and an old wet brush to spread it out. Texturing within half-timber is a challenge and this is a new technique I'm trying. I'm very curious to see how this look after paint has been applied.

And there we have yet another door.

I used more bits of chaos star and the other half of a circle cut of from a plastic pipe on the door for the gatehouse (the other half is on the front door of the farmhouse). I also sneakily glued a skull to the center stone above the gate (hey, this is Warhammer and I had a leftover skull just lying around, begging to be used).

And to finish up, we add a small shutter and the final window in this set of two.

The final details where two framed windows for the gatehouse and a small shutter with the last bits of a chaos star for hinges. On a whim I used the point of my scalpel to give the little hatch a small hole and I cut in some extra grooves to make the wood look more like wood.

I forgot to take a proper grouped shot, so I'll leave off with this picture. Next up either painting, or even more buildings...there is no plan here, just chaos.

And here I am on this new project. It is a joy to get back to scratch building (scratchbuilding? do you English speakers ever glue words together like us Dutch folk do?). I do feel slightly intimidated by the idea of making 39 buildings (although there are about ten rather small ones like an outhouse and tents in the set (I think, I haven't actually counted them all yet)). Also I'm still considering whether to go for my usual approach of basing these buildings on a bit of MDF (I probably will) or leave them standing alone as is (following the cardboard ones in the book). Basing a building makes it look more a part of its surroundings and adds a bit of structural reinforcement. Not basing it makes it easier to use on different types of terrain. Decisions, decisions....Wherever the dice land I also have to think about painting wood. The wood on the old GW concepts have a rather reddish looking wood (Rhinox Hide?). When I paint wood these days it turns out a very dark brown (Dryad Bark) or yellow (Vallejo Wood). Old wood in the real world looks rather grey to me (Baneblade Brown perhaps). Plenty of reason to experiment. All in all, I'm having fun with this project Lets see if I make it to 39.