This winter I had a desire to get into World War 11 gaming. You know the feeling when you have a few painted figures that you haven't used in years. You just decide now is the time to dust them off and use them. Well, with a few 20mm figures set in a box a man-to-man, street fighting game sounded like a good idea; but, I needed buildings. Next to a good rule set and well painted figures, buildings and terrain are an important element to miniature wargaming.

A few months ago I saw some home-made ruined buildings that caught my eye. Thanks Scott for the idea. The buildings were mad out of cork board and the basing were paneling. An inexpensive combination of materials. The neat aspect was the "natural" bombed out look that cork board provided. So, I immediately ran out to Home Depot and bought a packet of cork board squares, a can of no-name black spray paint and Elmer's glue.

At home, I mixed the glue with water and applied it to the cork. Once it was dry out came the hobby knife. I cut up a few test pieces to form broke walls for my building and glued them to together on a base. For convenient packing reasons the panel base was cut to a 4" x 8" size (I can get large discarded envelope boxes to use for storage). The test pieces were then glued to the base and left overnight. The next day I spray painted the construction. With a dry black base coat totally covering the base and walls, the next step was to use a foam crafting brush to highlight the wall and base in a cream color.

The test piece came out better than I thought possible. The white walls had all these black "shell" holes in them that gave it a realistic look. What an easy shading technique. It was a destroyed building right? It needed rubble, so I pulled out my faithful rubble supply-unscented kitty litter.

Pour glue around the base of the walls and we have rubble. Note the rubble is added after the acrylic white coat of paint. As you may suspect, the rubble has a tendency to roll off the basing. The painted wall and base avoids unsightly losses of rubble.

The test piece was put together so fast that I made a few dozen more buildings with different shapes, heights, windows, etc. My ruined buildings are for an industrial area rather than houses. I haven't tried the house look yet. A few other touches started to help make each construction more interesting. I reinforced the wall joints with a few pins and glued them. Add a few flat tooth picks to the scene for exposed wood (in the rubble, on the wall, as floor supports or to frame a door). To create the illusion of piping use wood skewers (as in used for meat). One of my bases uses skewers and plastic film containers to give the idea of storage tanks next to a destroyed building. Top down you glue the container to the base, puncture it with the skewer and run it into the building throw the wall. Once it is sprayed and touched up with rust marks you'll have a great looking industrial building. You get the idea. Have fan with this weekend.

Now all that is needed is a man-to-man rule set we like.