"I need to refight the taking of Ste.-Mere-Eglise, Gettysburg, Bastogne, etc. I need some BUILDINGS!" Have you said this? Is the search for miniature structures for your battlefield causing you to choose between expanding your armies or buying buildings for your battlefields?

What do you do? Is there hope?

Dollar Stores

Yes, there is, from two cheap and rather unlikely sources. The first one I discovered when a new Dollar Tree store opened up in town. Any of you aquainted with such stores know that, aside from selling bargained priced everything, they also sell little knickknacks. When I went in I was looking for cheap metric/English tape measures. However, staring me in the face as I rounded a corner were some of the most exquisite buildings for 15 mm that one could hope for. These little plaster or ceramic structures were almost perfect for 15-10 mm miniatures gaming. With a price of around a dollar a piece, I could build a small city for the price on one resin-cast structure.

The drawbacks were that these buildings were a bit more fragile than many resin structures and they weren't quite 15mm. Some would pass nicely for 22 mm (HO gauge), while others would work great for 10 mm. Some of the small, ornate bridges would be fantastic for 6mm Napoleonic or Renaissance gaming. Those bridges will make great models however for larger scale structures. The other big drawback was that these are solid structures, so no basing troops inside.

Paper Buildings

This last problem can be solved with our other option: paper buildings. I know the idea seems strange and some of you may think it is impractical. I've found that it works quite well and is something that you should be willing to try. I was driven to try this due to the difficulty of finding European style structures in resin for my World War II towns. In my searches on the internet, somebody discussed the idea of using paper buildings. I did a search and came up with a few good sites.

They are:
http://thortrains.hypermart.net/ (A model railroading site with downloadable buildings.)
http://www.fiddlersgreen.net/index.htm (Fiddler's Green, a great resource.)
http://www.paperparadise.com/ (Another great resource for downloadable buildings, with all of the Fiddler's Green catalog)
http://papermodels.purespace.de/ (a German site with some nice downloadable buildings from Germany or Austria)
http://microtactix.com/votc.htm (This is the address for the Vyllage On The Cheep line of buildings)

There is a fee for some of the buildings from Microtactix and Fiddler's Green/Paper Paradise. The nice thing about these buildings is that they can be printed or copied in any size or scale needed. The Fiddler's Green N scale structures work nicely for 15 mm. The HO Gauge line is probably a bit small for 25 mm but that can be fixed with a good enlargement on a copier. These buildings give you several options that many resin cast structures don't allow.

For example, how much would it cost to buy both a "battle damaged" and pristine version of the same resin cast building or model railroad model? Not too cheap is it? The price for a bombed out paper model and a pristine model is a couple of bucks at the most.

Putting these models together is fairly straightforward. All you need is a pair of scissors, white glue, a decent ruler or straight edge, a dry pen for a burnisher, something to cut on and an X-acto knife.

I've printed mine out on card stock, or copied them on card stock at the local Staples. When I started, I took the model and cut out the parts with the scissors. I then used the pen or burnisher and straight edge to score the fold lines for the model. I next fold all the parts and do a test fit to align everything correctly before gluing. Once that is done, I glue up the model. From here you can detail it however you please.

I'm starting on laying out and making some interiors for mine. The battle damage is kind of neat to do. All you need is a match hee, hee, hee. Seriously, cut away "shell damaged" portion of wall and roof, burn the edge with a flame a little and add some joists and rafters made from balsa wood, appropriately painted, and voila! A damaged building that would look great in the heart of any contested town.