houses/2 Permanent or loose?
Up to now, I've always assembled urban areas, as needed. Using a collection of loose items: a few houses, a pile of stone walls, various other bits, these are all placed on a board to represent a village or small town. Certainly this gives you flexibility as you can assemble your urban area as whim or need dictates. However, at conventions I've seen urban areas permanently assembled. Although this gives less flexibility it looks a whole lot better as the modellor's skill gets free reign. This approach obviously leans towards the model railway approach. What are people's thoughts on this topic? Permanent or loose? donald

If you bases each building, with its own "grounds" you can them put them together to create the same effect while keeping the flexibility of loose.

I see your point, Dave, but then the edges would have to match up. I've never gone into base boards for the same reason. Roads & rivers need to line up. And BTW this isn't a criticism, just personal preference. donald

have been pondering this for a while Donald Mine are currently free For my last game I placed them on some 1.5mm Neoprene squares as below and I think it looked better than a house just being plonked on a green terrain board I think ideally what I'd like to do is base each house on a small bit of its own base about the size of a beer mat or so and adorn it accordingly. I'd then have all my buildings have the same base foot print that could be dropped into a village base or bases about the size of a 3/4 table mat with precut holes designed to take these base footprints. This would allow me any no of variations but with the luxury of a village base. I did see a commercial option somewhere At the moment is on a list to do but is a long way down and will require some skill with a saw :eh: - that's why its a long way down the list :)

I do both, (just to be difficult), with some houses on a small coaster sized base & others that are free standing upon a larger base. To some extent my approach varies according to the building. For example if I want them to have a yard, outbuildings or if I want to put some additional scenery on them. Some houses come with a small built in base too, in which case I usually don't base them. These are from Timecast & have a small plinth moulded (by TC)around the base. They're freestanding on a larger scenic base. This is a Scenic Effects church, on its own base with graveyard. The base is a placemat sized piece of MDF. This is the Airfix ruined farmhouse, on a coaster. I must give it another coat of matt varnish! A combination of small bases & a larger freestanding base.

Donald, With my own terrain what I tend to do is create a base board for each building and create the yard around the building but not glueing it into position so the building 'slips' in and out. For example this building is not glued into position but sits between the picket fence at the front and the rail fence at the rear. The only down side for me is that there can be a very tiny gap where the building joins the actual base board. The only time I base my buildings permantly is when it is based on a specific historical model, a DBA BUA or a model I intend to sell.

Barrys stuff is even nicer in the flesh!

Here we are Donald this is the type of thing http://totalbattleminiatures.co.uk/ look under the mats in the blackpowder range. I'm sure there was another site with bigger/better village mats but I can't find the link now

VB, Thanks for the link. They look great.

Both for me as well. The larger buildings, especially the plaster block ones, are permanently mounted on baseboards, out of necessity. The Coffeyville Wild West buildings were all built on a sturdy frame, so I can plant them where I want. So, it depends.

VB, the buildings on their mats re exactly what I was thinking about with permanent urban areas. Thanks very much: you've been a busy fellow. donald

My preference over the past 5 years is the 'module' approach to buildings. One module is a village, two are a small town, three/four a large town and so on.. John

When ky mate bought the terrain for our 1967 games it came with several sheets of textured ground, at first we used these to mark poor terrain but recently we started putting building on them to create urban areas, this mace for a mor ebuilt up look. I have seen similar sheets in various colours and textures in railway shops.

I used to build houses into my terrain boards - They looked good and you could add lots of touches - however you always had the same boards and teh real problem came when moving and trying to transport them - not good! Now I do it on baseboards - But try to make them still big enopugh for fenced areas, attached sheds, trees, cheese and beans.

One trick to get rid of nasty base edges is makign them part of the terrain - ie) by building a wall/hedge straight to the edge and painting, flockign accordingly.