Skraelings for Saga: The Dark Ages

A dramatic image of Vikings fighting Skraelings

Since I first heard of Gripping Beast's limited edition Skraeling boxed set, and realised it was no longer available, I've been hankering after some of these, and recently reading The Vinland Sagas has only made me keener.

You can download the rules and a battle board for the Skraeling faction in Saga from Studio Tomahawk.

The Vinland Sagas - the original tales of the Viking adventures in North America - are two separate documents, both of which are recommended reading that won't take you more than about an hour to get through. The Saga of the Icelanders and The Saga of Erik the Red are both very short, and the bits that take part in Vinland even shorter, only a few paragraphs in each tale in fact. Both sagas also tell pretty much the same story, at least as far as Vinland is concerned.

The Vinland map (which may well be a fake)

Vinland (named so after the vines that were found there) refers to an area of coastal North America and Newfoundland beyond Greenland. Its precise location and extent is still subject to controversy. Vikings referred to many indigenous peoples they came across in their travels as Skraelings (a derogatory term meaning something like "barbarian", or "foreigner"). The Skraelings we are talking about here were most likely to have been woodland Red Indians of a culture that was later to become part of the Iroqois nation. They might have looked something like the later Mohicans, although there are no contemporary depictions to confirm this.

With the Gripping Beast Skraelings unavailable, all is not lost. Two manufacturers currently produce 28mm Skraeling figures, and there are other figures available that are strictly more modern but which could be used with some conversion, for example, those made for the Muskets and Tomahawks game, which I am not going to go into here.

Footsore Miniatures (formerly Musketeer Miniatures)

http://footsoreminiatures.co.uk/collections/28mm-skraelings

These look to be very nicely cast figures, depicting very (stereo)typical Red Indian types, which are on the large 28mm side. They're priced similarly to Gripping Beast and there's a good choice of figures to use giving a reasonable amount of variation of poses. I chose not to use these simply because I preferred the look of the CP Models Miniatures, but that's just my preference.

CP Models Miniatures

http://www.cpmodelsminiatures.co.uk/CP%20Models%20Skraelings.htm

These are on the small 28mm side and have a really tribal look about them, most of the figures wearing loincloths and very little else. There isn't a huge amount of figure variety (only three different archer figures, and six different poses of warrior, excluding the command figures), but once the army is put together this really doesn't matter. They are lovely figures and  I think they look superb.

Army List

CP Models sell their figures in packs of three, which may not be ideal for Saga, but they're great value, and even better there was an offer when I placed my order, so I bought a few more than I had originally planned.

To give plenty of flexibility, and to minimise the surplus unused figures I would end up with, I set out to make a Warlord, four units of 8 Warriors, and three units of 12 Levy. A total of 69 figures (23 packs) altogether, giving some flexibility in the 6-point list I might field, and coming in at an extremely reasonable price.

Some CP Models Skraelings, straight out of the box (plastic bag, in fact).
Neat castings with very little flash and no significant mould lines.

Levy

These were simply cleaned up, based and painted as is. Nice figures all in very similar positions standing with a bow at the ready, three different figure poses altogether.

I painted their skin in Valejo Mahogany Brown highlighted with a slightly lighter brown, hair Black Brown and clothing a variety of dull cloth colours.

Levy unit #1

Levy unit #2

Levy unit #3

Warriors

The CP Models Warriors come with separate weapons and shields, which allow for more variety in their finished poses. I decided to replace their weapons with scratch-built javelins made from brass rod. To get a tribal effect (similar to the look of the spears that came with the figures) I tied dressmaker's wire around the bottom of the spear head and fixed it with a drop of super glue to give the impression the spear point was tied in place. I made some extra javelins so that some of my warriors could carry spares with them in their shield hands.

Spears during construction

The figures were painted as the Levy. Shields were painted black and dry-brushed with grey to get some texture, after which I added some home-made tribal designs - lines of spots, zigzags and hand prints, to give each Warrior a unique design.

Warrior unit #1

Warrior unit #2

Warrior unit #3

Warrior unit #4

Warlord

To make the Warlord stand out from the rest, I gave him a rock to stand on (along with a bit of dead vegetation), and equipped him with a mace rather than a shield. The mace is a weapon head from the weapons supplied with the CP Models figures but with its shaft replaced with a short length of brass rod. I also gave him a few extra feathers made of green stuff in  his hair and tied to his javelin, as befits a minor chieftain.

Skraeling chief, from front and back

War Paint

After one failed attempt to get this right I decided not to paint war paint on the bodies and faces of any of my Skraelings. While it initially appealed to me (in my appreciation of the stereotypical Red Indian) my efforts to paint it on just didn't look right at all. Anyway, after checking images of early native Americans (from the time of the pilgrims and conquistadors, at least) there are very few illustrations that show war paint or the like at all. So if I am asked, I'll say my Skraelings have been caught by the Norsemen by surprise and haven't had time to put their war paint on yet.

The completed Skraeling army. Six points for Saga comprising four units of Warriors and two of Levy.

Mutatawwi'a for The Crescent & The Cross: The Saga Continues

Reinforcements for my Mutatawwi'a army

Having played a handful of games with the Mutatawwi'a army from my earlier post The 20-Day Challenge and learned a lot I decided to expand the troops available so that I could have a bit more variety in my army list. Several reasons for this. First of all, it was a quick lesson to learn that this is a very tricky army to handle. The battle board is good, but very finely balanced and it is all too easy to see your own force dwindle rapidly through over-extending and becoming vulnerable, or over-enthusiastic self-sacrifice - both of which I seem to be prone to do. Secondly, it's just a shame not to have all the options available, especially when one of them is camel-mounted Hearthguard.

I also realised that I had made a very basic error in my original list concept - Mutatawwi'a aren't permitted mounted Warriors (oops!).

So the additional troops I have put together for the list are as follows:

• 4 x more horse-mounted Hearthguard (to add to the four mounted from before, which we can now consider to be Hearthguard rather than Warriors);
• 24 x bow-armed Warriors (giving the option for pretty much any of my Warriors to be fielded as bow-armed);
• 1 x additional standard-bearing Warrior (giving an option to field two large bow-armed Warrior units with War Banners - which I thought might be worth a try in some circumstances); and
• 8 x camel-mounted Hearthguard (because, I am told, you just have to have them, don't you?)

Mounted Hearthguard (on horses)

I could have bought some more Crusader Miniatures Berber Cavalry for these, to match the other figures I already had, but having had a search around on the web I liked the look of the Saracen cavalry castings by Black Tree Design, so ordered a pack of three of them. I already had one Crusader Miniatures model left over from before so the idea was to make an additional 4 mounted Hearthguard from these.

The Black Tree Design models took 25 days to arrive after ordering but I was expecting this based on other people's experience and wasn't in any hurry. That said, there were extenuating circumstances and I received an unexpected apology from them as well. Not necessary, chaps! And in any case, they were well worth the wait. Lovely castings and on first look at them I know I will be buying more from this company in future. That said, there were a few strong mould lines and a fair amount of flash on the horses, some of which was quite heavy and took more work than usual to make good. Riders were fine though, nice castings and easy to clean up.

I removed the flash and cleaned up mould lines on the figures. I filed off the fittings for the shields on the left arms of the riders, as I intended to replace the shields provided with slightly smaller ones. My intent was to use some of the shields from Crusader Miniatures Saracens, as these are lovely, but Crusader don't supply separate shields. So I scratch-built some using 12mm washers, drawing pins and some green stuff. Not as nice as the Crusader ones, but almost exactly the same size and reasonably straightforward to make. I clipped off the pin from the drawing pin, leaving a short bit attached so that I could fix it to the figure. I glued the washer to this so that the shield was slightly enlarged and provided with a rim. When this was dry I made shield bosses from a couple of small blobs of green stuff.

The process of adding scratch-built shields

I drilled a hole in the rider's left arm to take the remaining stump of the drawing pin and attached with glue. Figures were then assembled and attached to bases. Using some green stuff I filled gaps between riders and horses, added veils across their faces (to match the rest of the army) and cloaks, so as to differentiate these four Hearthguard from the other four should I field them as separate units. Finally, I made short spears from 1mm brass rod and attached these to the figures.

I also made four extra shields and attached these to the four mounted Hearthguard I had previously painted.

Mounted Hearthguard, cleaned up (some with textured bases!)

Bow-armed Warriors

I bought a second box of Gripping Beast plastic Arabs for these, adding arms with bows and quivers, plenty of which were left over from the first pack, to make up the numbers.

Figures were assembled in a variety of poses and based on 25mm repair washers. Using green stuff I added veils across faces and some cloaks.

War Banner

This chap was made in very similar manner to the previous banner man out of one of the Gripping Beast plastic Arabs. His banner is a square cut from a small piece of cotton, fixed in position with superglue.

The slogan I painted on the banner is the same phrase as used previously - Allah is great.

Camel-mounted Hearthguard

After scouring the Internet for quite a long time I decided to use the camels from Black Tree Design (and this was the main reason for purchasing anything from them). I much prefer the shaggy, slightly cartoony look they have over the relatively clean lines of the Gripping Beast models (sorry, Andy & Darren, just my personal preference). I was a bit concerned about all the camels being in the same pose though - on some of the pictures on the Internet they look very regimented - but I reasoned that I could almost certainly move some legs around and vary the overall impression if I put my mind to it, so I took the plunge and ordered three packs, one of each of the spear-armed camel-mounted Saracens they produce, so as to get even more variety.

I was not disappointed. In fact, there are three camel poses, and the figures are absolutely gorgeous. As with the Black Tree Design horses, there was a lot of heavy flash to be cleaned off  - so much in fact that I had to use a drill - but after a morning's work they cleaned up very nicely and I think they look great.

Two of the figures were cast with weapons held against their sides. I much prefer open hands to equip with spears for all these figures so carefully removed the arms concerned and replaced them with spare arms from the Gripping Beast plastic Arabs, removing plastic spears and drilling holes to take wire ones later. Replacement arms were pinned in place strongly by reinforcing the joint with wire.

I added scratch-built shields, cloaks and (longer) brass rod spears in the same way as for the cavalry, and made good the gaps between riders and camels with green stuff once the assembled figures were dry.

Cleaned up camels

Basing and Painting

All the figures were based with a mix of PVA glue, Polyfilla, water and builders sand, spread over the bases and textured with a sprinkling of small stones and chinchilla dust. Before this dried I washed any overspill of this mix from the feet of the figures concerned.

As usual I primed the figures with an off-white emulsion and painted bases Crown Brown Sugar highlighted with a dry brush of Crown Biscuit.

Figures were painted in exactly the same way as described in my earlier post The 20-Day Challenge, but with the following additions:

Camels

Generally sandy brown coloured, but they can be quite light, with almost white patches. I undercoated some camels in Desert Yellow and some in Brown Sand, and added various levels of lighter highlighting to get a variety of appearances within the same overall colour tone.

Half-painted camels

Mostly-painted camel

Shields

I chose two shield designs, one for the cavalry and one for the camels. These used brown, black and brass in the same colour scheme and general style as the shields for the foot warriors described in the previous post.

The photo sequences below show the progress of each of these shield designs.

Shield design for horse-mounted Hearthguard

Painting sequence for camel-mounted Hearthguard shields

The Finished Figures

Overall I think they look really nice and they will definitely be a handy addition to my Mutatawwi'a army.

Horse-mounted Hearthguard

Camel-mounted Hearthguard

Bow armed Warrior unit #1

Bow armed Warrior unit #2

War banner bearer

Random Vikings for Saga

Here's something a little light hearted that I hope people will enjoy.

In Saga, you can choose a Hero of the Viking Age to lead your warband. Heroes of the Viking Age are special characters with names and special characteristics which express his particular traits and personality.

Saga is a small-scale game. It has a 1:1 figure scale, which means that one figure represents one fighting man. So really, there's no reason why they shouldn't have individual identities too. Now I am not advocating special rules for individual characters here - if you want that there are other rules than Saga that would do the job better - but there's nothing to stop you giving them names.

With this in mind, I have created a handy spreadsheet that does just that. At the moment, it's only available for Vikings (hence the title of this post) but you never know, if anyone's interested and if I find myself with sufficient spare time, I might expand it for other factions as well.

The names shown for the men in my earlier post about Egil's Band were generated using this spreadsheet.

Not that anyone would need one, but the spreadsheet will also work as a handy list checker for your Saga Viking faction. Just bear in mind that the list checker will only handle Warbands with 8 or fewer units, and doesn't cater for Swords for Hire, though it does allow for Heroes of the Viking Age that can lead a Viking warband, as well as options for a Priest and a Wandering Bard.

Please feel free to download and use as much as you like, and let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Egil's Band: Swords for Hire for Saga: The Dark Ages

Egil's band (yes I know I am one Viking short)

I am someone who gave up history at school at the first opportunity (I put this down to the disinterest of my teacher at the time, and the way the National Curriculum handles the Tudors and Stuarts). No regrets :-)

 It is therefore a positive joy to be able to enjoy history (albeit very selectively) through the wonderful hobby of wargaming. And over the last few years the game of Saga has inspired me to read actual Viking sagas. So after reading Egil's Saga how could I not add him to my growing Saga collection?

The description of Egil Skallagrimsson on his Saga rules card as "everyone's favourite psychotic poet" is a really good summary of his character. Egil is a man who repeatedly makes unexpected and often incomprehensible and violent decisions that often lead to the deaths of others, and then apparently puts the situation right afterwards by reciting lines of verse. You feel you must be missing something when you read about his exploits, especially given the quality of his poetry. He is, nevertheless, psychopathically endearing.

In Saga, Egil leads a band of Vikings that can be fielded as a mercenary unit in any Dark Age Saga faction other than Vikings (though in Egil's Saga, he wasn't quite so fussy about who he fought for). You can download his special rules from the Studio Tomahawk pages. His focus is almost always on plunder for personal gain. I therefore made up his band from a mixture of odd Viking figures, some of which I modified, all of which are very much heroic 28mm - i.e. on the large side - which seems to fit my impression of Egil's band being made up of men picked for their strength and fighting prowess.

I've detailed the men in Egil's band below (and at the same time given them some names that I think match the figures concerned. All names randomly generated using my Random Viking Warband Generator, which I promise to include in a short future blog post!)

Egil Skallagrimsson

This is Gripping Beast's Egil figure. Never mind that in Egil's Saga Egil almost exclusively fights with a sword and a spear, this is a superb figure with some great detail and a mighty axe*. The detail on the casting is lovely with some very nice touches such as the horn and bear claws on his fur cloak. Lovely.

*If you wanted to be more accurate, you could use this figure to represent the Viking hero Grettir Asmundarson "The Strong" (unsurprisingly, the hero of Grettir's saga - more recommended reading) who really did regularly fight with an axe. Grettir was also a big bloke and a psychopath, but his poetry doesn't seem to have been quite so well received as Egil's.

Viking #1 (sword and shield) THORVALD

This is I believe a Wargames Foundry Viking, but I could very well be wrong so please email me to correct me if you know better. That applies to all these figures, which have been out of their boxes so long I've forgotten where they came from. Many apologies to any of the manufacturers concerned for any errors. Anyway, it's a sharp casting with very little flash, a sword held like he means it and a shield as thick as a barn door. He has a relatively straightforward painting scheme that makes the most of the look of his chainmail. As with all the Vikings in Egil's band other than the big man himself, I've tended to use more gunmetal than brass paint on the metallics, so as not to give the impression that they aren't in need of the loot they are plundering. I gave him a simple cross and circle shield design.

Viking #2 (axe and shield) HJALDI of BJARFJORD

I think this is another Foundry Viking, this time with a separately cast shield, even thicker than Viking #2's. He's wielding a pretty hefty hand axe. Again he was given quite a simple painting scheme with the emphasis on the armour, and a straightforward shield design in black and red. I added lines to his cloak to give an impression of woven cloth.

Viking #3 (Dane axe) BJORVAR

Foundry again, I believe. An armoured Viking with a heavy Dane axe held in both hands.

Viking #4 (standing with sword) ULF

Now I think this is a Viking from Artizan Design, but as above I could easily be wrong. Because this chap is wearing a coat over his armour it was a lot more difficult to decide how he should be painted and as a result he ended up with rather a more complicated paint job than I had originally envisaged. He wears a chequered tunic below a woven cloak, and presumably is keeping himself warm while he waits for an opportunity to fight.

Viking #5 (pillaging, with sack and barrel) GRUNNIM

I think this was another Artizan Design Viking , who I converted to become a pillaging Viking by bending one of his arms around a small Renedra plastic barrel and adding a Milliput sack across the opposite shoulder. His priorities are clearly directed towards his stomach.

Viking #6 (pillaging, with captive) SKUNDAL the DEVIOUS

A lovely figure that I again think is from Artizan Design, in the act of pillaging, captive (presumably fainted) woman slung over his shoulder. He seems to me to have a slightly manic grin on his face, though perhaps that's just my imagination. I'm very pleased with the result, but I found this figure particularly difficult to paint. Making a clear differentiation between the Viking and his captive was surprisingly difficult but by giving her very simple clothing and a contrasting hair tone seemed to do the trick.

Viking #7 (?)

Yes, I appreciate that Egil's band is made up of either Egil +3 Hearthguard or Egil +7, so for the time being the last space in Egil's band will have to be taken up by someone unexpected. Like in the Magnificent Seven, the Thirteenth Warrior, possibly even The Lord of the Rings. I'll find the right figure eventually and then update this post!

Norse Gaels for Saga: The Dark Ages

Small but perfectly formed (maybe): Brodir of Man's Norse Gael army

This is an army I have assembled over the last few years by buying odd packs of figures and which has been sitting around waiting to be painted for far, far too long. But, at last, they made it to the painting table this year. The original intent was that they would have been my fourth Saga army after Anglo-Danes, Vikings and Irish but my giving priority to The Crescent & The Cross has meant they've ended up being the sixth.

Army List

Norse Gaels have the unique capability of having warriors armed with Dane axes so I started out with one unit of these. I added both spear and Dane axe armed Hearthguard and Gripping Beast's Brodir of Man figure as a Warlord. I could expand this core as needed with Vikings that I had already painted previously, or my Sons of Death.

So my go to 6-point list is:

Warlord

3 x 4 Hearthguard (Dane Axe)

2 x 4 Hearthguard (Spears)

1 x 8 Warriors (Dane Axe)

The intent is that the warriors provide ablative shielding for the Warlord, as well as a reserve to be thrown in when necessary. The Dane axes will make them effective but quite vulnerable, so they will need to choose their opponents well and time their attack carefully. One 8-man spear armed Hearthguard unit will be the workhorse of the army. Three 4-man Dane axe armed Hearthguard units will be there for brave and suicidal charges into the enemy's finest - and hopefully will wipe them out in the process. All theoretical at this stage of course but the idea is that they operate similarly to my Mutatawwi'a. You never know, it might work!

If I field Brodir of Man, I'd use this same list but without the Warriors (and charge).

Figures

The Dane axe armed Warriors and spear armed Hearthguard are Gripping Beast Norse Gaels. The Dane axe armed Hearthguard are a mix of Gripping Beast Norse Gaels and Irish Fianna figures. Brodir is of course the Gripping Beast figure. I made his traditional opponent, Brian Boru, for my Irish,  using the Crusader Miniatures dismounted Brian Boru figure, and also converted an old favourite axe-armed fantasy figure that needed a repaint as an alternative Warlord should I not wish to field Brodir of Man.

Painting Scheme

To give a more Gaelic feel to these Norsemen, I chose to paint them with homespun designs similar to tartans and chequered patterns. I took each figure in turn and decided the colour scheme that would work for each of them. Shield designs were Viking in style, but tending to favour beasts and spirals and avoid crosses. I like to think my Norse Gaels embrace their Celtic roots and pagan heritage.

Warriors with Dane axes, painted in relatively muted colours, without shields, helmets or armour

More Dane axe armed Warriors

Spear armed Hearthguard - armoured and shielded with some helmets, and more bling than the Warriors

More spear-armed Hearthguard

Dane axe armed Hearthguard

More Dane Axe armed Hearthguard

And more of them

Brodir of Man (front and back views)

The broken cross on Brodir's base is made of Das Modelling Clay. If I made another one, I would use Milliput instead having discovered just how truly horrible Das is to work with.

Brian Boru, with added chair and refreshment (made from Milliput)

My alternative Warlord

This is a very old fantasy figure of mine, that I converted by lifting his left leg to rest on the body of a Viking victim (plastic Wargames Factory "Hammer of the Gods" Viking Huscarl, pose modified and cape added with the use of some green stuff). This has always been one of my favourite figures (though I have no idea of who the original manufacturer is) and after so many years of of good D&D service it is great to be able to give him a fresh coat of paint and a new lease of life as a Saga Warlord.

A Gateway and Border Tower for Dux Britanniarum

The watchtower on its hill with the gateway in the background

Although I made these at the same time as the terrain for Saga: The Crescent & The Cross (see previous article) I've put them in a separate blog post for easier reference. These buildings can of course be used as scenery for Saga: Dark Ages games but they were specifically conceived for two Dux Britanniarum scenarios - "Raiding a Wagon Train" (p.73) and "Raiding a Border Tower" (p.72).

City Gate

A wagon train approaches the gateway

This terrain item is for use in the scenario represents a Saxon raid on a wagon train which is attempting to get to safety within a nearby fortification. The scenario item required for this represents the gate of the fortification, and is a small terrain piece that sits across one table corner.

The fortification gate was designed to represent a simple wooden wall with rampart behind and earth bank in front. Its centre would be a large double door and for aesthetic appeal this would be set between two pillars looking like they were made of stone blocks.

I started by cutting a base from 3mm MDF about 1ft long and shaped so as to fit neatly across a table corner. I used kebab sticks to make the wooden wall at cut these to length, with some shorter ones going across the top of the gateway and a few more smaller ones each side of the front of the entrance, effectively put there to hold the earth bank in place. Each stick was roughly sharpened at the top with a modelling knife. I used two offcuts of wood, about 1cm square in cross section for the stone pillars and glued these in place, then glued the cut kebab sticks and set the whole aside to dry. Later, I attached  another wood offcut to the rear of the wall to form the foundation for the rampart so a few figures could be placed here to defend the fortification.

When this was thoroughly dried I used a lot of filler (mix of PVA, water, Polyfilla and builder's sand to create the earth bank and fill in the gap beneath the rampart. In hindsight paper mache or polystyrene to build this up first might have made more sense and would certainly have made the finished piece lighter!

The door was made in the same way as doors for the Saga terrain, by sticking strips of cardboard onto a piece of card and cutting to size when done. I made four doors in this way, two for each side of the gateway.

I used Milliput to texture the pillars and imprinted this with the shapes of stone blocks using the tip of a small screwdriver.

Finally I textured the top of the rampart with PVA and chinchilla dust, and the base itself as normal for my 28mm figures, using filler/PVA/sand mix and topping with a sprinkling of chinchilla dust.

When completely dry, I painted wood using a dark brown and stone in medium grey, and the top of the rampart a light sand. The earth bank and base were painted as normal for my figure bases, using Crown Cappuccino highlighted with a dry brush of Crown Brown Sugar. Finally, the whole finished piece was very lightly dry brushed with Crown Biscuit.

Once painting was completed I used some flock in patches on the earth bank to finish.

Border Tower

The watchtower, used without the hill

I intended my watchtower to match with the pre-painted resin buildings that I already have so designed it as a timber-framed building set on a raised stone foundation. Some brief research suggested that dark age watchtowers would be reasonably tall buildings preferentially located on higher ground, with a main entrance door raised above ground level for easier defence. The door would be normally reached by a ladder or wooden scaffold which could be easily removed or destroyed by the defenders if they wanted to make it more difficult for anyone attacking them. The roof could be thatched or just have a simple flat roof edged with a wooden rampart. For ease of modelling I made my watchtower with this second option with the intent that this could be removed to put figures in the building.

To give the option of the tower being sited on higher ground, I made a separate hill piece that the watchtower could be used with if desired.

 I cut a rectangular base from 3mm MDF for the watchtower, allowing some space on this for the scaffold that would reach the door. I cut a second piece about the same size as this for the top of the hill (see below) and a larger base for the hill itself, as well as a square piece of MDF to use as the base of the building's roof (cut very precisely to size - see below).

I first made the hill on which the watchtower could stand. I took the MDF piece that would be the hill top and glued this on a couple of blocks of polystyrene in the centre of the larger hill base. When this had dried, I built the basic shape of the hill around this using paper mache. Once I was happy with this I textured the hill with PVA/filler/sand mix, ensuring the top of the hill was reasonably smooth, with a few large stones set around the hill for aesthetic appeal. I tried to made a sort of obvious path up the hill to where the watchtower entrance would be. Once constructed, I painted the hill in Crown Cappuccino highlighted with Crown Brown Sugar. This was finished with some patchy areas of flock.

The main body of the watchtower was made from the box that came with a nice bottle of whisky. These are typically made of very good quality card that does not warp when wet (like beermats) and so are very good for modelling. They're also not corrugated inside so don't require filling around exposed edges. I cut this to the desired height and glued it to the watchtower's base.

I used an offcut from the whisky box to made an inset floor to use in the watchtower's upper room (I assume the watchtower only essentially has this one room and that this is reached via internal ladder within the tower). I textured this floor with paper strips to represent floorboards and a trapdoor made from strips of card, and glued it in place.

I used wooden stirring sticks (readily freely available from many coffee shops) to make the timber frame of the building. For rustic effect the sticks were each split lengthwise and I selected the most appropriate ones to put in place. I stuck these in position roughly in the same pattern as my pre-painted resin buildings. I made four windows for each side of the watchtower using cut matchsticks and small slivers of MDF, and stuck these in place. They would probably have been just as effective if made from card, to be honest.

I used filler (an air-drying modelling clay on this occasion, in fact) for the stone foundation of the building. I won't be using this material again as it shrinks significantly on drying and required repair works (though I kept a couple of the cracks that formed as they look plausibly authentic. Would have been a lot better using a thick PVA/filler mix instead, or possibly Milliput. I textured the edge of the clay when almost dry by gently tapping with the handle of a small screwdriver. The overall effect is more "Hammerite" than stone block, but is reasonably effective and this looks fine from a distance.

I made a door from card strips stuck to card, cut to shape and glued in place, and constructed a rough wooden scaffold to allow access to the door from a variety of wood offcuts from matches and coffee stirrers. After some fiddly and frustrating gluing and a reasonable amount of swearing I ended up (at last) with something that was the roughly right shape and size and looked good enough when glued in position.

I textured the walls of the building between the timber framing with a very rough plastering of PVA/filler and the base itself with PVA/filler/sand mix.

The rampart for the roof was made from cut matchsticks glued together to make an even arrangement along each edge. The MDF base for this roof fits inside the rampart edge (hence making a lip that sits neatly in place on top of the building) so must be quite precisely cut to size. The best way to do this is to build the rampart sides first, then cut the base, then glue it all together. But it's no more complicated than that and is very satisfying when constructed and sat in place. I added a trapdoor made from cardboard to its floor for added aesthetic appeal.

I painted the watchtower as follows: Vallejo Ice Yellow for building walls, quite heavily darkened with a thin black wash (after trial and error this was a reasonable match to the walls of my pre-painted buildings); a dark wood colour for the building timber and rampart, window frames, scaffold and inner building walls and floor; black for the insides of windows; mediium grey for stone foundation. All of this was then thoroughly but lightly dry-brushed with Crown Biscuit to soften colour tones and highlight edge details. The base, as usual, was painted Crown Cappuccino dry-brushed with Crown Brown Sugar.

The watchtower on its hill