Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
This is a project that I have been thinking about for a year or more... And I finally
got around to starting it and finishing it! It's basically a small castle. Although it is giant
compared to most towers in fantasy games (in particular, look at the tiny Games Workshop Warhammer
tower terrain), it is actually a very small tower garrison in real life :) It was designed for everthing,
from skirmish in Middle-earth to D&D to Hordes of the Things. Here's the image from the outside. The
figures are 28mm.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
So, let's take a tour of the tower. First, we start at the front door... Note that the door
is up a small set of stairs, and at an odd angle from the stairs as well... This helps prevent attackers
from having an easy time with a battering ram. This isn't the only door, but it's the only one on the model...
There is likely a secret egress for quick escape!
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
From there we go up the tower to the roof of the keep. For this project, I didn't bother to
detail the interior of the tall tower. It's assumed that it only has stairs in it, and they're cramped.
It will require some fancy work for rules when it comes times to skirmish with the tower, but it shouldn't
be too much of an issue. I'll likely use the 'access latter' rules from the Lord of the Rings skirmish. Anyway...
Here we see the painstakingly difficult to assemble hoarding. Overall, it's not too hard, but to attach it to a
roof that must also be removed is just plain difficult. In hind sight, I could have done it more easily... but more
on that later.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
A view of the top of the keep from the other side, with the door to the tower in view. Notice
that the brick/tile pattern on the roof is done in 25mm squares to accomodate D&D action!
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
And finally, up to the top of the watch tower itself. They didn't bother to use hoarding up
here because the tower is such a difficult target! And also, I couldn't bring myself to build another set
of hoarding after finishing the hoarding around the keep! It was a lot of work... But I think it was worth it.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
So, now that we've seen the outside of the tower, let's lift off the roof and check out the
inside! Notice that the actually roof floor along with the hoarding are removed to allow easy access
to the inside of the building.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
With the roof removed, here's a quick view of the entire inside of the keep. There are
four rooms in the keep, starting from the large room on the right of the picture and moving clockwise we have:
garrison barracks and mess, officer's quarters (which is hard to see in this picture), officer's mess and office,
and finally the kitchen/store room in the top left corner. Notice the grate in front of the door there? That's
an oubliette entrance! Every medieval tower needs a dungeon after all!
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
So, let's start with the officer's quarters here. It's basically an empty room with a little desk and
chair that I made. The desk sports an ink pot, a quill, and a piece of paper with some missives written on it...
All of the detail was made from bits of plastic or card or wire that I had lieing around.
I imagine the officer writing in her journal saying 'they sent me to this godforsaken tower in the middle of
nowhere because I'm a woman, those sexist ba*tards!' Note how simlar this is to my
banker's desk that I made
for my Umbar terrain, which I did four years ago!.
Like the Umbar desk, this one is also on a removable 40mm base.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
Next we'll go onto the kitchen. Here you see the over on the right, which is not removable. The table,
along with it's detail is on a 25mm wide by 50mm deep cavalry base. The details are either made by myself
or using bits I had kicking around. The barrels are also a nice extra, and are also removable.
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
Here we see the soldier's barracks and mess. The six cots are stripped of all bedding, which is stowed
when the sleepers aren't in them. Also, there are twelve men at this garrison, meaning they take shifts using the
beds! Each bunk is on a 25x50mm cavalry base, and can be removed. In the fore ground is the grate that covers the
oubliette. In all honestyl it's the oubliette that inspired this entire project!
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
The oubliette is my favourite part of the tower, and in fact, all I wanted was an oubliette. But how
can you have an oubliette without context? In any case, as you can see, the grate over the oubliette can
be easily removed...
Medieval Tower - Posted: May 17, 2010 - Manufacturer: Scratch built by Neldoreth
With the grate removed, you can see the poor peasant that's been imprisoned there for what is obviously
far too long, and having been fed far too little! The figure is a dark age casualty from Gripping Beast and the floor
of the oubliette is about 50mm down. And that ends the tour!