Editor Dan embarks on a brave new journey of discovery, involving cardboard and clips. Dan: If you’re a 50+ wargamer like myself, you can possibly remember your first model house building project. Perhaps it was something constructed in the 1970s using balsa wood and a toxic (now banned) glue, or maybe the 1,274 models you have built since then has erased the memory of your first time. I can well remember mine, it was… let me think… last week, yes that was it, last Tuesday! It’s fair to say I’ve arrived late to the party when it comes to constructing model buildings for the wargames table, and even then I’ve probably cheated. No complex crafting tools like PVA glue or a knife for me, instead I opted for a model building project that required nothing more than the ability to ‘pop’ ready painted pieces of card from other pieces of card. I had stumbled upon Battle Systems' card buildings by complete accident, but on seeing they required minimal effort - my pre-requisite for any modelling project - I thought I would give them a go, a couple of goes in fact. I opted for the Town House (at £14.99) and the Chapel (£31.99), from their Fantasy range. The Town House and Chapel - my first Battle Systems models. As seen on the Battle Systems website. The price tag gives you a guide to the size (and complexity) of each model. I’m not actually a fantasy gamer, but I like my medieval, and these buildings didn’t look so ‘fantasy’ that they wouldn’t work for, or rather with, my 14th - 15th Century 28mm medieval collection. The photos of the builds on the Battle Systems website looked impressive but being a pessimist by nature, my hopes of tabletop ready buildings coming flat packed, made of cardboard, and able to survive my construction skills seemed unlikely. Beginning with the Town House and the emptied box contents and a laptop before me, I set to work. The laptop (or phone, iPad, etc.) is an essential tool in the construction process because Battle Systems buildings come with no instructions in the box. You need to rely on your own model making intuition (sadly lacking in my case) and/or the tutorial videos which Battle Systems have created for every model. The cheery fella who presents the video tutorial(s) dispenses with any preamble and gets straight into Town House building action. After a glance at the length of the vid - 9.48 minutes (a clear and pleasant indication as to how long construction might take) I was off. Popping card, clipping clips and generally trying to keep pace with the guy in the video, which wasn’t too
