At the start of this year I planned to build a gaming table utilizing the Sarrissa terrain tiles.The plan for the project is to build a generic Asian town that could easily fit into 19/20th Century Asia, with specific influence from China.

On a trip to China a couple of years ago I visited a permanent movie set just outside of Shenyang. It was basically an early 20th Century town, so I decided I’d use this as my first point of reference in building the gaming table.

I put a project up on the On Table Top website here (https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1381838/) which hosts a lot of the image I took at the set. This should give me a good reference point for a sample of the types of buildings I could use and colors.

Since the UK went into lockdown and my company furloughed me I’ve been able to catch up on a lot of hobby projects and painting tasks.This has included being able to build and paint some of the buildings I currently have for this project idea. I’ve not been able to make a start on the tiles themselves because we went into lockdown before I was able to pop down to my nearest Wilko and hardware store. So for now I’m concentrating on building and painting the buildings I have.

The first two buildings I have are two dark age dwellings from Renedra, both of which cost £5. These will be used as rural farm homes, fortunately they’re pretty generic looking and will pass as homes for poor farmers. The build on both of these buildings was very easy and quick to complete.

I gave them a quick paint job and didn’t want to spend to much time on these, as once they’re placed on to the tiles, and the rest of the scenic elements are added, you won’t really notice the paint work.

The next building I built and painted was the Ramshackle Barn by Renedra, this costs around £19 though I recieved mine as a gift for xmas from a  friend. The plan with this is to use it as a workshop/barn on the outskirt of the town, that no longer in use.

The build was relatively simple and quick to put together, being hard plastic meant it didn’t take long for the glue to set. I gave it an undercoat in white, for the wood I used a combination of washes, inks and contrast paint to build up the appropriate color. The roof tiles were done the same way, but I also added a dry brush step with grey.

The next three building I have are MDF Table Top Scenics from the Eastern Empires range, the Kura Storehouse (£10), Small Minka A (£6.95) and Machiya Shop Front (£4.95). These are slightly slower kits to build due to glue drying time, with them being MDF. I plan to build and finish these in the next week or so. I also plan to purchase the following buildings from this range as well Oriental Bridges and Lanterns, Small Minka C and both sets of Eastern Accessories which are produced in resin.

Eastern Empires

Renedra