The Egyptian Adventure and Gaming on a Budget: Free Downloadable Buildings from Rory Crabb Games

"Wow", stated Sgt. Archibald Cutter,"We've never had realistic buildings to game with before!"

During the Covid-19 pandemic The Chief of Staff and Minister of Finance and myself have been very careful with our money and spending. As I continue to work on my "The Egyptian Adventure" I suddenly realized that I needed a village for one or more of the scenarios. Surprise! I don't have any buildings in 25/28 mm scale to fit the build. Fortunately I asked Mr. Google and he directed me to Rory Crabb Games which have 4 different buildings and 2 sets of walls  for download as PDF files for FREE. They are scaled for 1/72 but I think they will do just nicely for what I have planned.

Picture of Large Building Number 1 from Rory Crabb Games website.

Above is my "Large Building Number 1" with two 28mm Copplestone figures to give you an idea of the scale. Not exactly up to building codes; but, it will do the trick. Eventually I'm going to go back and fill in the seams. You may have noticed I gave it Vallejo Buff and Dark Flesh in various places to give it a weathered look - in reality, I started to do that to hide the fans and air conditioner units since the downloads are designed as modern buildings. I'm sure my construction and modelling techniques will improve with each building.

 "My fedora is gutting dusty." "Enough quips Sam, we are walking on burlap."

The buildings are perfect for just about any scenario in North Africa, the Middle East or India from about the 15th Century to Modern Conflicts.

 Waiting for the train next to "Large Building Number 2". Figures are left to right, Copplestone, Pulp Alley, Pulp Alley, and Copplestone.

I kept on messing up the roof of "Small Building Number 1"; either I was not following the simple instructions correctly or the roof is too big and needs to be adjusted. But I'm not complaining because it is free!  About half of the buildings had the downloads glued to cereal boxes and I need to go back and fix the edges (again, not up to code!). Half I did without and they are pretty sturdy with stock printer paper I'm going to go back and just add a bottom base of cereal box to help prevent any disasters on the gaming table.

I knocked out 7 buildings spending only a couple hours each night over a 3 day period. Notice the building in the upper right hand corner; yep, I did not notice that the roof was not in the right position when I left it to dry. I'm assuming there was an earthquake and that's the story I am sticking with. Going forward it will be Perilous or Dangerous terrain depending on the rules. The tower is an old GW cardstock building with a gold spray painted wooden knob on the roof. Here are some more pictures as I was fooling around rearranging the buildings based on 19th and early 20th Century photographs of Egyptian villages.

Part of Alexandria in 1880

Stock photo from the Web of a 19th Century Egyptian Village.

 Lots of experimentation! I think some additional accersories are planned for the future.

I highly recommend using these buildings as an inexpensive way to make a quick village and a new gaming locale.