Quest of the Ringbearer: Pop-Up Bree!

Good morning gamers (and happy Thanksgiving if you're in the States),

Confession: I have wanted to build a city board with tons of houses for ages. The idea of having side streets and main roads for armies to use to maneuver has always intrigued me. But, in MESBG, there is a tendency for boards with overly-cluttered maps to become a game in and of themselves and detract from the ACTUAL game that's being played. So when I saw the Nazgul In Bree scenario in Quest of the Ringbearer sourcebook, I immediately got thinking about how to build Bree (and how to run the Depths of Moria LL, but that's a different story). :-)

I knew there were two complications I needed to tackle when it came to the buildings: first and foremost was storage. Most of the YouTube content you find out there on building medieval taverns or Bree buildings specifically are built from foam card and aren't easy to store. I don't have a lot of storage space, so I wanted to avoid having 3-4 boxes of terrain for a single board.

Second and more applicable to game play was the skyline problem. You've probably run into a situation once or twice where you were not able to get your head behind your model to see if it has line of sight to something - and that usually happens when there's a building behind your model. Well, I wanted the buildings to be easy to remove and replace so that wouldn't be a problem (since the streets will be narrow).

So how do we do this? Well, we start by eating lots of family-sized cereal (my go-to is a Post-brand cereal that has raisins in it, but I settled for others when those weren't in stock at my favorite warehouse members-only supply store).

Yep, you guessed it - while the cereal is great, I was after the boxes. Family-sized cereal boxes are pretty close to 6" x 8" in base size (give or take - at least here in the US) which means they can be quiet effective as large buildings or two adjoining small buildings. The boxes are also sturdy, not obviously corrugated, and are tall enough to be able to get 2-3 buildings from each box. If you're on a tight budget or just need to throw something together, I'm not sure you can find a better material.

The biggest benefit of using these, though, is that the resulting buildings collapse flat, so you can store a ton of buildings in a single box that is also incredibly light. This solves our storage issue really well.

The biggest downside to these boxes is that they don't like to be square once flattened - they create a slanted parallelogram instead (which we don't want). This is easily solved with floors that are stuck to a polystyrene board (and conveniently solves the skyline issue as well, as the buildings can be removed without disturbing the models inside).

The boxes I used were around 11" tall, which worked out because I wanted my levels to be 3" tall and allowed me to have some leeway on roofing if I wanted it. I cut out either two buildings (one one-story and a two-story) or three buildings (three one-story) from each box and ended up with 17 buildings . . . though I will admit that the original mock-up was for 22 buildings, but that was way too crowded.

In a previous terrain post, I mentioned that I had some leftover polystyrene bits from some laptop purchases and I took some of these, cut them into strips, and added them to the sides of some of the buildings.

Once the buildings were cut out, I took out my utility knife and scored the cardboard on the sides - some with long lines like boards on the side, others with beams only that will be more of the white-wall style that we associate with the medieval era. Some got stonework added to the sides. This took . . . a while.

After they were scored, I took them outside and got a spray paint can and lay on the spray, making sure everything was covered thoroughly (don't want blue or purple sticking out). Once dry, I did the opposite side and then left them to air out their fumes (something I had to time around the autumn rains).

A few of the structures - the Prancing Pony will be the double building . . .

I then cut out all the windows - the intention being to allow models to be able to see not only out of the buildings, but also be able to see through them (increasing possible visibility - something most city boards get critiqued for). This took a long time as well.

"Bill, you belong on the other side!"

That done, I turned to solving the boxes-want-to-be-flat problem and prepped their floors - more scoring and a clear number on them did the trick nicely.

The boards still have their protective film strips because they're about to be sprayed as well - I figured I could always cut that off if I didn't like it. Here's what the town looks like at the moment:

6 more buildings to go - and lots of dry brushing . . . and interiors . . .

In Matched Play, this is going to be too much terrain, so I'm going to keep the floors on the map, but some of the buildings won't be there. I have played a few games on it and it appears to work just fine. Hopefully you enjoyed this - if you're working on Bree or have thoughts on buildings in tabletop games, let me know! Until next time, happy Thanksgiving, eat lots of comfort food, and happy hobbying!