The Upper Floor

Day 16

Version 1.0 18/11/02

Right, I’ve done a big chunk of work to the pub today. Firstly I finished off the basic framing of the side wall opposite the main door.

I’ll be adding more frames in later once any windows are added. It’s a small job that can wait for now. Easier to add them rather than try and remove them later.

So what have I built today? Well I thought it might be nice to get the balcony built. I cut myself a piece of art card that was just long enough to cover the two doorways. It was wide enough to provide a walkway for a standard mini base, with enough left over to fit under the overhanging upper floor.

When glued into place you can see how it should look in the next photo. Give the glue plenty of time to dry as it’s the only thing holding up your figures. PVA is pretty strong stuff though and will do the job nicely.

Now its time to start decorating it. The card base will be covered over with balsa planks in the same way as the internal staircase. Cut each one to length and glue into place. Around the door way you may need to cut the planks to fit around the door frame but this is a fairly simple procedure.

From above you can see how nice this is going to look. The walkway will fit all standard warriors and will make a smashing defensible position. Imagine this filled with archers!

Once the balcony floor is complete you’ll need to cut some balsa strips to glue around the base. This will give you somewhere to glue the hand rails to.

By now you should have a sort of external “tray” for your troops to stand on.

I cut a whole bunch of balsa rods into strips about an inch long. The rods are about the size of matchsticks and those would also serve for this purpose. Glue them at intervals all along the outside of the balcony foot rail.

Taking some longer pieces of balsa rod, you can now glue in the hand rails along the inside edge of the 1” supports. I glued the end pieces in first, and then used one long piece to form the front rail but you may wish to make it in several sections. Don’t be afraid to make it look even more ramshackle than this.

Now this balcony is either the best idea I’ve had or the silliest, but I wanted to keep my gaming options open. The inclusion of this (optional) balcony allows several additions to the model at later points.

The balcony allows:

• Models to jump to the ground to make a quick (but risky) escape from the building.
• More entry points on the upper floor means that Moria Goblins can scuttle up the side of the building and enter here making for some fun orc raid options.
• A small detachable balsa wood ladder can be added for a “fire escape” making it a second entry point for all models.
• A balsa wood bridge can be added to the balcony, linking the pub to the stables as Aaron suggests in his PDF guides. I hope to later make a stable building with this in mind and a removable bridge would really increase the replay value of these buildings.

More coming soon. Who knows, I might actually manage to get it finished in time at this rate.

Adrian Champion
Champion2k@ntlworld.com