BGiME #10: Making a Rohirrim Building

This is perhaps my favorite “Modelling Workshop” to date. Issue #10 provides detailed instructions on making low-cost but good-looking houses for Rohan. Their appearance, however, is generic enough to suit most Dark Ages or medieval periods, and they can easily pull double-duty as a Western European structure if your wargaming tastes lean towards the historical as well as Middle-earth.

The basic box shape of the house means you can use any rectangular object of the correct size as the building’s base. I followed the instructions and used some old tea boxes, but anything close to that scale would also work. If you’re overly ambitious, you could even build the base from scratch with heavy cardboard or foam board.

The roof “thatch” is ordinary spackle diluted down to a toothpaste consistency and painted on. Once laid down over the cardboard roof, lines are etched into the joint compound with a toothpick to give it the correct texture. Painted properly, the fake thatch looks fantastic and has so far proven durable.

I know later issues of Battle Games in Middle-earth demonstrate other methods of building Rohan structures, but I’d be surprised if you can make them for cheaper. It took me roughly a week of on-and-off building to create, texture, and paint these up. A long weekend of steady attention would probably suffice if you needed them faster. All in all, these are amazing terrain pieces. Combine them with the watch beacon from last issue and you have an eye-catching Rohan or Dark Age hamlet for your tabletop battles.

Under Construction: You can see the balsa wood trimmings and dried "thatch" roof ready for painting

Spackle covers the base to give it texture as well.

Painted with flocked base.

I like the horse-head roof emblems, but would probably make them from foam board or balsa wood if I had to do it again.

The doorknob is a drop of hardened white glue painted silver.

A good view of the "thatching."

Rear view.