New buildings

This week I'm going back up to Scotland to play in a 'League of Gentleman War Gamers' bash. It got me thinking about a request for windmills for a previous bash. Windmills are something which I didn't have. Why not? Windmills are iconic, period, landmark and totally war game. The fact I didn't have one is something that has troubled me since. We are, I think, always looking for another building to own, and another mercantile building is always a draw, so I Googled windmills.

As many of you will you know, I'm not a big fan of proper scaled buildings on a war gaming table. They tend to be far too large. Ground scale will reduce villages to a single building rather than two or three buildings over which to fight. Hamlets, with true scale buildings, for big battles, are impossible to represent: I once, remember having to representing a chapel at Lobositz with a roadside shrine, because single isolated buildings are almost impossible to represent when doing 'big' battles. Perhaps this is why windmills have escaped me for so many years. They tend to be isolated buildings, and they tend to be large.

It is all down to footprint on the table. I always build my buildings rather under scale with a doors and windows to scale. It's an odd combination to have buildings that look plausible on the outside that would not on the inside but, it tends to work well in practice. For 'footprint' purposes I decided to omit a tiller bar: these are very common with windmills but they take up far too much room to be a good 'gaming' design.

This windmill is not a 'universal building'. Windmills can visually transport a gamer to the setting his game is in; windmills are very much placed in a specific time and space; this building is for my SYW collection. C'est la vie, I'll just have to do another for Spain. 

Anyway, for northern Europe this is what I came up with.

The building is basically MDF side panels on a 7.5cm heavy gauge cardboard cardboard tube.

The conical roof is thin card, as are the roof tiles. The side boarding (red) on the upper mill is thicker grade card. 

The sails are barbecue skewer and balsa wood and the square section spindle is a piece of oak. 

Bricks on the circular base are balsa wood. 

The balcony, doors, windows and ladder are bits from War Bases.

Walls are HO scale resin I bought years ago.

I also, in building mood, made a couple more cottages for balance. These cottages have no basis in reality: They are war game buildings only.

 First up, a village building cottage, half stone ans half 'wattle' with a tiled roof. 

It is constructed from MDF, card and balsa wood. Doors windows and window shutters are by War Bases.

It's a good basic design, so I did another one but with slightly different door, window and chimney lay out.

 This kind of building is a staple. They are not exactly inspired but, they do a job.