It's Been a Long Time

It's been a long time since I updated the blog with a post.  I really need to try and get into the habit of posting at least once a week!  So what have I been up to?  

Most of my hobby time has been taken up in getting ready to put on a game at the Royal Armouries 100 Years War event.  Our game (using Lion Rampant) was based on a French raid on the English siege lines at Harfleur.  As well as painting the relevant forces (mainly Perry HYW plastics) the game needed a representation of Harfleur.

I have had a few wall sections in the garage for years made by Hudson and Allen and these would make a good basis for the town walls.  Luckily I also had a copy of the Osprey Agincourt book and this had a nice double page spread of Harfleur.  This provided me with our table representing the Leure Gate.

In order to neatly fit the walls onto a terrain tile they needed to be cut up and joined.  The light foam the walls are made of made this really easy and as the walls were to be plastered it was easy to use filler to hide the join.

Next the moat had to be carved into the tile and then smoothed out using filler.  I used really watery filler so it would level out nicely.  It worked pretty well but took a few layers and a lot of time to dry.

Next textured wallpaper was glued down to represent the cobbled streets of the town.

To replicate the Osprey illustration the walls needed to have timber hoardings added to the battlements and the towers needed to have conical roofs.  The hoardings were simply made with foam card, mounting card and balsa.  The conical towers with card and then tiled with card.

Conical roofs in progress.

Hoardings and 2 of the towers done.

Finally the earthwork used to protect the gate was made with a polystyrene core, balsa for timber and a generous layer of filler.   Oh and the walls were plastered with filler.

All that was needed now was painting.  

Here's some shots of the finished article ( minus some final reeds added to the most from broom bristles).

And finally he whole set-up in action at the Armouries.

We are taking the game down to Partizan in a couple of weeks and will be running participation games all day.  If you are down there please come and say hi and join us for a game.