Builds

Build kits are the scenery, not the figures. A squad standing on a bare plate is a row of plastic. The same squad in a shell-holed house with a collapsed floor is a story, and that is what everything in this collection is for. All compatible with major brick brands.

What is in this collection

Ruins and damaged buildings. Shell-holed houses, a ruined chapel with a roof cross, a collapsed-floor wall section, a ruined domed parliament building with barricades, a two-storey house with boarded windows. Damage is modelled in rather than implied, which is the hard part to build yourself.

Fortifications. A concrete coastal bunker complex with a gun casemate, a shelled blockhouse, a desert sandbag post with a power pole, a walled compound with two watchtowers and a gate.

Medieval and castle. Fortress gate with studded wooden doors, ivy-covered tower with a conical roof, wall tower with a tiled-roof pavilion, a stone weapon shop with battlements, and a great hall interior with a round table and hearth.

Support structures. A landing craft with machine guns and cargo, a vehicle repair garage with a staff car, a tiled-roof gate pavilion.

Choosing a build kit

Buy the structure the story needs, not the biggest one. A small shell-holed house with four figures reads better than a large walled compound with the same four figures rattling around inside it. Scale the building to the cast you already own.

Interiors matter more than footprints. A kit you can see into gives you two scenes, outside and inside. The great hall interior and the garage are built around that; a solid block is one scene from one angle.

Ruins are more useful than intact buildings. Damage creates sight lines, cover positions and places for figures to be doing something. An intact house is a box figures stand next to.

Buy one, then build around it. A kit sets the colour palette and the architectural style for everything you add next. Picking the anchor first is cheaper than retrofitting a scene to match.

Putting a scene together

A kit is the anchor. What turns it into a diorama is the ground it sits on, the figures in it, and the clutter at the edges. Our battlefield diorama beginner's guide covers the 60-30-10 ground-colour ratio, building height in early, and posing figures against the base rather than the figure.

For terrain technique, see making realistic terrain for military dioramas. For designing your own structures rather than buying them, how to design a MOC from scratch is the place to start, and buying bulk bricks for MOCs gives the part ratios a build actually eats.

Populate a kit with minifigure sets, extend the ground with bulk bricks, and add vehicles for scale. Suitable for young builders working from instructions and adult builders kitbashing the pieces into something else.

Every ruin and damaged building

Ruins do the most work in a scene because the damage creates the sight lines. These are the full set, smallest first.

• Shell-Holed House with Black Roof. The cheapest way into a ruined street. Good first anchor for four to six figures.
• Ruined House Wall with Collapsed Floor. A wall section rather than a whole house, so it reads as part of a bigger street without costing like one.
• Ruined Military Command Outpost Building Set. A damaged command post, for a scene with a reason for figures to be inside it.
• Ruined Chapel with Roof Cross. The roof cross gives it a silhouette nothing else here has, which is what makes a photo read at a glance.
• Ruined Domed Parliament Building with Barricades. The barricades come with it, so the defensive line is built rather than improvised.
• Ruined Two-Storey House Shell. Two floors of open interior. Figures can be on both levels at once.
• Ruined Two-Story Weapons Post with Machine Guns. The largest ruin here, and the only one that arrives armed.

Bases, checkpoints and fortifications

Modern and military structures. Start with a checkpoint if you want a scene, a compound if you want a backdrop.

• Modular Military Container Base Collection. The cheapest build kit in the collection and modular, so it grows instead of being replaced.
• Artillery Cannon & Security Checkpoint Building Set. A checkpoint plus a gun, which is two scenes in one box.
• Fortified Security Checkpoint Gate Building Set. A gate is the single most useful small structure to own, because it gives figures somewhere to be stopped.
• Military Jungle Outpost & Base Defense Set. Jungle rather than desert or urban, so it does not compete with the ruins above.
• Modular Military Guard Tower Building Set. Height is the cheapest way to make a flat layout look built. Modular, so towers can be stacked or paired.
• Tiled-Roof Gate Pavilion Build Kit. Works as an entrance for either a medieval or a modern layout.
• Walled Base Compound with Two Watchtowers and Gate. The biggest footprint on the page. Buy it last, once you have the figures to fill it.

Medieval, castle and naval builds

• Ship's Gun Deck with Cannons. A below-decks interior, which is a scene almost nobody builds and the reason it photographs well.
• Jousting Tournament Field with Grandstand. The grandstand gives a crowd somewhere to sit, so spare figures stop being spare.
• Castle & Kingdom Medieval Build Kits. Buy single pieces or the larger kits from one listing, so a castle can be assembled over several orders.

All of the above are brick-compatible with major brands, suitable for young builders following instructions and for adult builders taking the parts somewhere else.