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Mod Mansion

This is an approach to making modular building interiors for various types of wargaming. Because I am making a mansion, pulp games of various stripes and superhero games come to mind. But large, room-to-room interiors also feature prominently in modern skirmish, far future and steampunk scifi, as well as fantasy and even a decent number of historical scenarios like the ever popular (in human history, at least) "peasants storming the gaol" event.

To make this simple, flexible, and easy to do we are going to use two stock items from the Friendly Neighbourhood Craft Store: (1) scrapbook paper (which comes (cheaply) by 12"x12" sheets in many wargaming useful patterns), and (2) corkboard sheets, which also come in matching 12"x12" pieces.

Sorry for the pic, but I fiddled with it to bring out the pencil lines.

Speaking of which, I divided the sheet into four 3" tall strips and then divided those into one (so, like I did nothing to it), two, three, and four pieces. Then I went back and added a "fold line" guide 1" up from the bottom of each wall. This will give us 12", 6", 4", and 3" long walls to work with.

The idea is to fold the bottom inch forward (away from us in this picture) to make an L shape. The bottom of the strip can be slid under the corkboard, which will provde a decent amount of stability. Then you put another L facing the other way on the other side of the wall. The other one can, of course, use a different pattern.

Speaking of ideas, here's one. I lined out the different wall sizes (and put in the fold lines) to show the concept. But I'm not going to put all that work into it by hand with ruler, pencil, and scissors. Once I had the concept down, I turned to the finger amputator.

Otherwise know as a "paper cutter".

So a little cut, rinse, and repeat later, I have a pretty big selection of different walls with the 2" wall and the 1" lip to go underneath the board. Another good thing about these, is they will store well in a small space, but can occupy a large table area.

So the walls are modular in usable increments to create walls and "doors" (spaces where the is no wall). The base of the building will be the corkboard, which is the same size as the scrapbook paper. So, hey, I don't need cork floors everywhere (though I have done that before with a factory layout for an 1812 Luddite rebellion scenario), I can lay down "carpet" or "tile" using the full sheets. I can even leave one bare (upper left of the 3x3 layout here) as the "outdoor ground" at the entrance to the mansion.

Since we are sliding the walls under the corkboard, I find it best to work from the inside out. From one side to the other would be fine, too.

Here we have a big room with walls around it. You can see the back of some of the walls. other walls, facing the other way will go in front of them.

Here's the finished layout.

I have the big dining room area without a wall between two pieces. I used a 6"x12" strip of additional "carpet" to cover the seam. I also put a smaller square from the dining room into the tiled kitchen area. Not sure why I did that, but the point is you can vary up the floors as easy as selecting different wall lengths to create different floorplans.

Here's a virtual tour with some interior furniture placed in it.

In some of the places the furnishings look sparse, but this one actually played out well with 4"-8" movement. Figures were able to hide behind and go around things, so they made a tactical impact in addition to the floorplan.

Yeah, ground scale doesn't match figure scale. Then again, I don't actually stand on a 5' diameter disc of personal space in real life either. Especially on the train during rush hour.

And since I called this project "mod mansion", I thought I should do something a little "mod". If you look through the scrapbook paper enough, you can set just the right mood for Husky and Starch to go after the Upper Cambridge Malevolent Arses.

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