Cardboard Terrain

For the very last session of one of my roleplay campaign, the heroes had to defend a small fortified village against a horde of beastman. For the occasion, I wanted to create the whole village so they can move their minis inside it.

Once again, I wanted something cheap so I tried to build them with cardboard. Not the usual “how to make a terrain using cardboard” tutorial you can find, but something even easier.

I went with the buildings from Fat Dragon Games. You buy their PDF, and they you print it to cardboard, cut along the lines and glue it together. Their Ravenfell set was exactly what I was looking for.

I weighted each building by glueing a few 1 cent coins at the bottom they they won’t be falling over during play. The Ravenfell set can be folded flat if needed, but I actually glued the pieces together to make setup faster and the building more resistant to shocks. It takes more space for storage though, so it’s your call which one is more valuable for you.

Each building comes with a few layers in the PDF that lets you add or removes details. I re-used the “bridges” that can go from one building to another to actually build palissades to run all along the village. I used bobby pins to attach parts together so they would not fall during battle.

I also recommend glueing buildings to a sheet of foamcore for more stability. I also printed floors (with a grid) on sticker paper and put that on the foamcore. That’s the perfect mix between building stability, terrain immersion and gaming aid.