Building the Old West
Recommendations: 1292
About the Project
I attempt to make an Old West town to play Fistful of Lead, Reloaded.
Related Genre: Western
Related Contest: TerrainFest 2023
This Project is Active
Two Watering Holes
Simple horse trough. 
A significantly more complicated watering hole. This is a two story saloon with an exterior staircase, and both a sidewalk and second story wraparound balcony with a significant number of windows. I’m going to have to make a lot more sub assemblies. And I’ll probably wind up painting everything first before assembling them. 
All these parts will be painted white so I’m leaving them in place and giving them a white spray from a rattle can. New Stuff
I backed Mantic’s latest terrain KS and it arrived yesterday. If it’d been here earlier, it probably would’ve been my project for the competition.
Mantic’s sci fi Terrain Crate. Not useful here unless … 
Oh look! Wiley Games has a 99¢ scenario with Aliens! 
Finished up the telegraph/post office. Printed out my own Notary sign but the other signs on this and the other buildings are from a free PDF from Sarissa Precision. 
Approximate size of a 3x3 mat with all buildings finished to date in place. This won’t be the exact setup but is mostly just for planning purposes and to visualize progress. Telegraph/Post Office
Everything so far. Fistful of Lead is mostly played on a 3 x 3 but as you add players can go up to 4x4 or 6x4. The rules are simple enough to make this a good convention/participation game. 
Subfloor, floor, walls, roof and awning as separate sub assemblies. Significantly easier to paint this way. 
Sub assemblies dry fitted before final touch ups. 
I figured I’d get a start on the civilians while waiting on some other stuff to dry. I usually start from the skin out on figures. It makes it easier to paint and even just the little bit of a face and hands looks much better than plain primer and gives me motivation to paint more. One more down, Telegraph office on deck.
The assayers/lawyers offices are now open for business, the town is starting to grow and the telegraph office is the next building up.
When the telegraph office is done, all of the one story buildings will be done.
The last building will be the saloon/hotel.
The biggest single building in our new town. Assayers Office
Gold is yellow, right? So the trim on the assayers office is yellow. 
All the subassemblies dry fitted together. 
Hmm, may have an idea to spruce up the jail. Urban Planning
The Sheriff’s office and the gallows are natural story elements for a Western themed game. But our town needs a reason to be there and each building needs a reason to exist.
Water is a major reason for towns to exist. With regular access to water, you can grow food, raise livestock, communicate and trade along rivers and railroads need water stops for the steam locomotives. And access to water resources caused more than a few fights. Water features would probably be better suited to a rural or wilderness area.
But gold rushes did create a lot of boom and bust towns. A gold mine could be a project unto itself but a town with an assayers office and maybe a lawyer to transfer claims and deeds would add a reason for rough and tumble types to come into town. And gold robberies and claim jumping gives more narrative reasons for gunfights in our town.
The general store is self explanatory. Our citizens need a place to get their supplies. And the real money in a gold rush town is selling to the miners.
A saloon is of course nearly mandatory as a place to gamble, get liquor and start fights. And of course separate miners from their gold.
I think our town also needs a telegraph and post office. By itself it implies the existence of other communities. And if you’re getting mail and telegrams, then the Sheriff can send for help or be warned of the imminent arrival of bad hombres. And a post office is a Federal government responsibility so now we can add a Federal presence in the form of US Marshall’s or the US Cavalry.
I’ll add more buildings later on but I’ll try to come up with narrative reasons to add new ones.
Final assembly, signage and next building
All sub assemblies and paper signs glued into place. 
This and the next building are essentially the same as the general store with just a few minor differences. More assembly and second coat of paint.
The base is actually made of two pieces in order to give the raised floorboard effect. This is the bottom level. 
Top and bottom level attached. 
Walls and floors are now attached. 
Second very light coat of green added and white trim painted up. 
Everything dry fitted into place. I need to do a few touch ups on the paint and add the signage but mostly done with this building. 
