The Virtual Armchair General's Kris And The Flame 28mm East Indies Huts #4 (Thatch Walled Longhouse 6” X 2.5” X 3 high on large bamboo platform, $8.00) and #8 (Thatch Hut 3” square and 3” high elevated above ground with porch $8.00).

There has been recently resurgence in companies producing paper miniatures and terrain. Unfortunately for this magazine's readers most of these are made for Science Fiction and Fantasy games. Of course the historical crowd can't let their fantastical counterparts have all the fun. So now The Virtual Armchair General has released a series of native huts and other buildings in both 15 and 28mm.

The samples of these the Heliograph staff received is a pair of East Asian to the Philippines huts up on stilts. The graphics show green thatch walls and thatched roofs with the floors/platforms of bamboo. Both huts come on two sheets of light cardstock, the printing is okay but somewhat pixilated, this could be the result of scaling up the same art used for 15s as the 28mm version. Both also ask the builder to provide small sections of balsa dowels to put the wooden platforms up on stilts. (Useful in monsoon season no doubt)

Hut #4 sits on a bamboo platform 8" long by 4" wide and is itself  4" x 2" and 2" high. Hut #8 is 3" square, is about 6" tall on stilts, and has a porch. Of variable dimensions, but we'll get to that a little later.

There are no instructions on the pages as such but the package they came in sent us to the website for directions. I couldn't find them, but these are pretty simple constructions and the cutting lines are easy to read.  The only real problem I ran across from the lack of proper directions was the roof of Hut #4. I still haven't quite figured out how it was supposed to go, but just following the tabs you'll realize that the roof was measured wrong and the sides of the roof stick out to the front and back of the hut almost like small tusks.

And on Hut #8 I didn't realize until I was almost finished that the porch section was also supposed to provide the floor for the hut. I didn't notice it because there was a panel right below the door that instructs you to glue the porch to it. But the pics from the website and the floor cutout itself point to having to cut the panel out and slot the porch section in. But now it just has an extra large porch, oh well.

While you can build these huts without reinforcing them it's pretty easy to add a foam core backing, as you only have to cut simple squares. If you do add the foam core the pieces are solid, have a nice heft, and can hold as many metal figures as you can cram on without bending or warping. Also during construction, you'll want to make sure you score (as in lightly cut) the fold lines to get nice crisp edges. Not to mention that card doesn't take well to simply being bent on work this fiddly.

When finished the huts look pretty nice without any extra work, but a little paint here and there to cover score marks and some balsa dowels added to the roofs like on the website will give you some really nice scenery without much effort.  As the roofs aren't meant to be glued on, you can also take a little extra time to decorate the insides for fully functional interiors and hidden forces. If you're looking for this kind of native building I can recommend them as an easy addition to your collection.

Another VAG: Building Review [H147]