Monopoly Buildings and Heroscape

Monopoly houses and hotels with a single Heroscape tile

During my recent games using the blocks and Heroscape tiles rather than Hexon I decided that even the smallest buildings from my current collection had too large a footprint on a hex. Even using a single block to represent a unit meant that hexes would be very congested when including terrain - the same also applies to trees, more of which in a later post.

I decided that I would need to use smaller buildings and so looked around for suitable alternatives. My initial thought was to use 1/300th buildings but even they seemed a little on the large size (although could be easily used for the larger Hexon set up). My next thought was to look at 2mm but the problem there was that much of the currently available range from Irregular Miniatures seemed to be too 'featured' for my purposes. Much of their range features buildings that are almost mini dioramas and include roads, fields and other terrain features. They are quite spectacular when painted but are too much for what I need. Then it came to me.

Monopoly.

The houses and hotels from this famous boardgame are just the right size for what I want and although I was not about to remove the same from the family copy of the game I was able to source a supplier that sells them separately on eBay. The version I have acquired was ridiculously cheap - £4.80 for 25 each of the hotels and houses - and best of all is made from hard plastic (like that used for plastic kits) rather than the usual polythene or wood.

I fully intend painting these and will also add a little detailing as well. I will probably base them on a hexagonal piece of plastic or similar and make sure that sufficient room remains to be able to place a block when occupied by the same. My plan for Middle Eastern buildings is to make use of the two stud Lego style MegaBloks as they are a basic rectangle which would suit the main building style across the region.

Next up will be the trees and for those I will be using 1/300th scale models as they will fit admirably within the smaller hex and without too large a footprint.