Charlie Foxtrot Models - Tidewater House.

A few days away and a chance to crack on with the construction of Tidewater House from Charlie Fortrot Models or Plantation Oiseaux Moelleux as it will be known in the ongoing Haitian campaign.

The instructions are a little thin so I thought I would document some of the stages for those interested.

After the initial scare of opening the bag and being a little surprised at the amount of 'bits'. The good news is many of them are windows and shutters which once separated make the task somewhat less daunting.

The construction can be completed in two parts, which means you can work on both at the same time. It's quite imposing once you put the shell together with plenty of room to put figures in, some of joints are a little tight but they do fit together rather well with no gaps between connecting walls.

I should have added the sills in first before adding the shutters as this made the task of adding them in some what challenging espically if you don't leave enough room either side of the windows. However ignoring the fact I should have read the instructions first. I found the back of a tea spoon useful to ease the sills in to place before the wood glue dried.

Whilst the windows and shutters were drying, I completed the porch and chimney stacks, not overtly complicated once you have all the pieces put by. Although you will need to sand down the stacks to create the right angle for the roof.

Next up the steps and doors, the doors are a little loose in the frame, so I added a small block to secure the doors in place. I am not expecting to be opening them during game play, but it was nice to have the option to leave open or closed.

The roof fitted together very simply with a central support to keep it strudy, I found securing this first easier to create the right angle for the end sections and matching fascia.
 

Now for the trickest part, the front porch. The plastic columns are a little short, you will find a couple of spare cut outs from the column bases, I glued these to the plastic tubing to give that little bit extra length to secure the roof and floor by the columns. A strong elastic band allowed it to dry in place (thanks for the tip Steve.) so it did not lift up from the base.

Finally a liberal pasting of PVA glue and the adding of the paper tiles covers the gap in the roof apex and the entry slots of the wall to the roof.

 

Now complete it's quite the mansion and an imposing piece of terrain and will certainly fill the table top. I am toying with the idea of basing it adding in some shrubs and lawn, but will probably wait to consider this once it's painted.

I am still not sold on the MDF buildings over resin, whilst their might be an initial saving, once you factor in the man hours to construct and how resilient they are on the gaming table is their really that much difference in value/gaming return?

In any event it's nice to get it complete. Now just the task of painting it up.