Quest of the Ringbearer: Pop-up Bree, Part 3

Good morning gamers,

We're back for the last post (for now) on my Bree board - this time, talking about the other buildings I've built for the board and some of the additional 3D printed bits I commissioned Centaur to print for me to fill them. If you haven't read the previous posts in this series, you can find them on our Quest of the Ringbearer page. Let's get right into it!

The New Buildings

Here's a quick look at the old and new pieces that Centaur printed for me - this, in addition to what I already have, won't be enough to fully populate the city, but I see filling each building as a long-game (I don't want to "just print a bunch of stuff" when there might be things I find later that I want).

It's unclear if Bree had a standing militia in the books, but it had a gate-keeper (Harry Goatleaf will probably make an appearance whenever I use this building) and we know from the books that when Sharkey's Rogues began invading the Shire, they gathered in Bree and started making trouble (and those loyal to order and peace rallied behind Barliman Butterbur to defend their town, kick out the Ruffians, and establish a more secure town). As such, I assume that at least one building should serve as a bunkhouse for whatever local militia are "on call" that day. Here we have a few cots for resting on, as well as some crates for those men to refresh themselves as they await trouble. Functionally for game play, this is a pretty open space.

Loot Studios provides a lot of different chests in their range (all expansions have at least one - and they have a variety of different aesthetics, so chances are good that if you use them for a year, you'll have a wide collection of things to use). I picked some of the tamer ones and have them all compiled in a small building here on the side, which is serving as a bank of sorts. This building has been stationed near the bunkhouse for reasons that should be obvious.

This building has lost one of its tables because it was VERY crowded, but is otherwise unchanged - the building is twice the normal size of the buildings in this build and has several doorways/small rooms that can be fought in.

For our most recent GT, I used a small, out-of-the-way building to serve as the Prancing Pony. Well, this is the real thing - complete with attached stable (for Bill to be in - as well as a dog). Lots of the terrain you see here was already printed and showcased in the previous post, but it fits better in this space as you can see. Barliman and Bill don't NEED to be in these buildings, but it works well thematically.

As was mentioned in the last post, this is one of two built-in dice trays for the table. This blacksmith shop has a few bits hanging around it (including the blacksmith himself), but otherwise is sparse (so dice can be rolled in it without risk).

I made three big bales of hay (or something) for the granary and it makes the room pretty crowded. It also affords some things for models to climb on to get elevation bonuses and potentially in-the-ways. 

One of the new buildings I made is intended to be a meetinghouse - and for that, we need benches of various sorts. Some were taken from chapel expansions (this room could be used for religious gatherings, though how those work in Middle-Earth is unclear), while others came from more rugged traveling expansions. Either way, we have some simple benches as well as more elegant ones in the building. With game play in mind, they've been placed in the building to provide some cover, but not too packed together so as to create impassible choke-points. Yes, they would count as barriers, but getting around them wouldn't be that difficult (so you'd need some guys in the aisles too).

With that, we're half-way across the board - let's look at the other side of town!

Bree isn't just a waypoint for travelers to rest (it's that too, for sure), but it's also a place for craftsmen to come and find an ever-changing customer base to buy their wares. As such, we have a room specifically dedicated to the craftsmen of Bree - a place for them to come and make some money!

These buildings (the Apothecary and Notary shops) have lost a few odd bobs because of the narrowness of the buildings - they have a clear path through that isn't obstructed and most of the remaining bits are for decorative display, not to make the buildings look full.

Near the Apothecary/Notary shops is . . . currently an empty building. At our recent GT, I had the Prancing Pony bits in this building (and they'll go in here if I need the center of the map clear of a great big building). For now, I haven't printed anything to be in it - we'll see what Loot Studios wants to make in the coming months before committing.

This community stable is the other built-in dice tray for the map and is basically unchanged from the last update. I put things around it to protect the odd bits from being pulverized by aggressive dice rolling (and they can be in it if players have their own dice trays).

I haven't fully furnished this building yet - and it might become two buildings with a divider between the two sections. For now, it has a single table with chairs and no clear identity - not much going on.

Another building without a clear purpose (it might steal the table from the last one - we'll see) - comment below with ideas if you have any!

Got one last building without a purpose or furnishings. Whatever . . .

And last but certainly not least, we have Leland Underhill and his wine store - with a keg room in the back and him dancing on his table in the front. Yep, nothing much changed here - life is good!

What's It Look Like And What's Left?

The whole town, looking in from the main gate (which I guess would make it the eastward look) . . .

. . . looking southward . . .

. . . looking westward . . .

. . . and looking northward . . .

And so with that, here it is in all its glory - I'm excited to have this behind me. Of course, for matched play, this is FAR too many buildings to be practical (though if you don't like being shot to death from far away, it isn't bad at all). Besides printing the last bits of terrain, my goal is to get a Nazgul In Bree game in at some point since that will actually use all of the terrain I made. Whether that's part of a larger series on playing through the Quest of the Ringbearer book or not will be decided later.

Conclusion

Hopefully you found this to be enjoyable - I've seen some Bree boards recently on Facebook and they've all been pretty open (about 1/3 of the board built by Steve over at Top Table Gaming had some good building density - check out his stuff if you haven't already). I personally wanted mine densely packed - but if you've worked on Bree terrain, shoot a link in the comments section and show off your work! We'll have more Quest of the Ringbearer content soon - until next time, happy hobbying!