Monday, January 9, 2012

A Fresh Look

In a rare expression of "commonness" with his subjects, the Grand Duke of Litharus was observed taking a stroll with his Duchess and retinue recently.  Stunned on-lookers saw him walking the cobblestones of the older part of Vilnius.  He was even seen to leave a few coins at the local inn.






Buildings are a recent addition from the fpm series available at the Wargame Vault.  http://www.wargamevault.com/ These are sold as PDFs and are an inexpensive way, coupled with a quality printer, to produce inexpensive buildings by Dave Graffam Models.  They often come with different "layers" so that with basic Printshop skills you can produce a winter or harbor-side version.  Plus, since you have purchased the PDF you can print multiples, make some variations of your own, and produce a nice village or town setting.  Frequently at The Wargame Vault you can score a free or on sale version.  In retrospect I should have scaled them down a bit before printing so make them more compatible with my not-quite-so-heroic scale figures.

For our purposes, my darling wife glued these to a card backing of similar weight to what you would find on the back of a pad of paper.  This gives the building much more strength and fewer warping problems, but does create some construction issues.  Peg did a very nice job putting them together so they sit nice and flat.  These aren't Miniature Building Authority quality (what is?) but you can literally get a couple dozen for the price of one MBA model.

The cobblestones are a post-Christmas sale score.  The strip is 3' x 18" and cost me less than 10USD.  Over the years I've picked up enough of them to set a decent diorama.  Figures are a mix of Blue Moon and Eureka with the parade offered up by the latest Ostzeiskiy battalion from the Wargames Factory figures.





8 comments:

  1. Your buildings, street and minis all look so good!
    A promising debut for the new year in Litharus (btw you forgot to 'label' the post).

    Cheers,
    Jean-Louis

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  2. Very nice, sir. And, Michael, if you ever need "Old West" buildings, I can highly recommend the "Whitewash City" buildings:

    http://www.erichotz.com/whitewash.html

    I believe that these are also available from Wargames Vault but not with perhaps as good a look at them.


    -- Jeff

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  3. Nice display, Michael. I especially like the Grand Duke at the tavern.
    Thanks for sharing your buildings -- a very reasonable way to get some buildings. Do you know if they have dark age or ancient buildings?

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  4. Nice setup, buildings are great.

    -- Allan

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  5. Reich Duke Wilhelm has requested the College of Honors to induct Grand Duke Alexander Orzepovski into the Ancient and Honorable Order of the Tankard. Best regards, sir!

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  6. Thank you all.
    I added labels. :-)
    I noticed those Whitewash buildings; pretty nice.
    Dark Ages and Midievals are available.
    My thanks to the Reich Duke. My first bestowed honor!

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  7. Michael,

    Where did you procure the two boys marching ahead of the column?

    Jim

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  8. I wish I could be specific, but they came in a set of civilian figures I got loose off eBay. It included the woman sweeping, the laborers and a few others.

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