Scenics

15mm/20mm Card Buildings

review by Paul Koch

The really central difference between miniatures and board gaming is one of looks. Miniaturists care or should care about how their games look. Years ago when just started in the hobby I remember beingtremendously impressed with a statement of General Young in his classic book CHARGE. He wanted his games to "look like an 18th. Century battle." Regardless of our period or scale, that is what we all should aim at too. In my own games I am constantly looking for the "moving diorama" look of Peter Gilder.

Nothing aids in this quest like terrain pieces. For the American Civil War this has been, until recently, something of a problem. The only structures one could find were either contermporary suburbs of HO trains orexpensive and very European houses from the Continent

This has recently changed. Now there are a wide range of plaster and resin cast buildings for the little 5mm to the 25mm giants. What is more, they are of striking beauty when painted up. They are also very expensive. That is why for years I used, if not preferred, the paper models of the Smithsonian Institution and John Hathaway's wonderful German imports. However, both have become difficult to impossible to get for the average gamer.

A new product from Ohio has just entered the scene. It is called SCENICS. They produce a line of 15mm scale buildings especially for the ACW gamer. For $9.95 the gamer gets about 15 structures. They are mounted on medium card stock and unpainted. Upon first viewing mine, I must confess to being somewhat disappointed. Remembering those full color German sets, I may have been spoiled. In the interest of fairness however, I painted and built some of the buildings.

The instruction sheet suggests two methods of coloring the buildings. The first is the water color markers used for posters, etc. I have never had much success with those and so I opted for the second method, washing with acrylics. I did this with some fearas the card upon which the designs are printed is of medium weight at best. The result however, was better than I had hoped. There is an uneven absorption in the paper that makes the wash self-shading, and only a very little warp.

Assembly is easy and straightforward. I do, however, urge the use of heavy card, right triangle tabs to strengthen the corners. This done, the structures look quite nice and sturdy enough for regular use if not abuse.

I recommend these buildings as fairly cheap, but good looking terrain pieces. A final word about scale: these buildings are full size 15s. Even the big Stone Mountain figures can stand under the doors. As such they do very nicely for 20mm games. They will be added to my own games and that is sort of a bottom line. They are available from: SCENICS, 209 Henrich Drive, Kettering, Ohio 45429.

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