Elven Watchtower

Completing (for now) my elven terrain, I built a watchtower. It is 7" high, but I'd rule that it can be climbed as normal stairs (which are inside the tower), ignoring 1"...

So, the catch with this design is, that it's a round tower. As I've got no specialized tools for cutting round shapes on my Proxxon, I had to make do with careful cutting.

The tower consists of two parts, the upper half being slightly smaller in diameter than the lower one. On top comes a larger platform.

The entrance door and the windows have been carved with hobby knifes. I then used my trusty tinfoil ball to get some texture onto the walls and platform.

The whole building has been base painted with Umbra, then I cut strips of foam to build some false columns onto the walls.

I then painted those parts in Umbra, then brushing with Beige and White.

After glueing the tower together with PVA glue, I cut a balustrade from the leftovers of the lower part, glueing it onto the platform and fixing it with pins. 

The gaps I filled with some texture paint and painted the balustrade the way of the tower. The stairway onto the platform, windows and entrance door were also painted.

Finally, I cut a base from cardboard and added vines, bushes and tufts of grass. Some patches of gravel give the base a more natural look.

Adding some height to the gaming table makes for interesting tactical options.

Elven Longhouse

In my vision of Middle Earth, there are buildings of the Noldor still around, strangely holding up against the winds of time. I've already built the ruin of a small building, but now I want to build something bigger.

Longhouses are places of social encounter, not really meant to be lived in but rather for gatherings. As Middle Earth is set in something akin to our Dark Ages, this concept seems fitting also for elves.

I'm not going to bore you with a detailed tutorial of how I cut the parts from foam, but begin with a picture of the test-assembled building.

As you can see, the roof is detachable, and there are two levels inside. The architecture draws from Renaissance buildings and a touch of Asian influence. The roof itself is just a sheet of paper (though I'd use some thin cardboard next time).

For a base-coating, I used my Umbra paint and dark green for the roof. After that, I brushed with beige and finally white.

Next, I did the base and the floor. I used a piece of cardboard (actually a piece of the parcel my last order from Cubicle 7 came in), and carved the tiles with a ballpen.

After painting the roof first with bronze and finally with gold, I assembled and glued the whole thing together. I added two swan figures on the roof, cut from a thin piece of foam.

Finally, I added vegetation. Vines that grow on the corners and some bushes that sprang up along the walls. On the roof, some patches of moss have grown.

In actual play, the building makes for a nice addition.

Building Armies

When I looked through my models from back in the days of the LotR Strategy Game Magazine, I found some from different lists. So, for actual gaming, I'd need two armies - and I was sorely lacking evil models.

I decided on an Angmar army, but not going the usual way with the Witchking as leader. Instead, I chose the Dwimmerlaik. He commands some Warg riders and two bands of orcs, lead by Barrow Wights - and one Cave Troll. This brings the army up to 500 points, which is fine for a start.

I've got more models from the good side, but first thought of going with the Wood Elves. Later I decided on a allied army and finally came up with Rivendell and the Rangers.
Glorfindel leads this small force, with two Rivendell knights (which I have to proxy with Wood elven knights, as the original ones are not available), three High elven warriors with bows and three with swords (models from the magazine). His ally is Aragorn (the Helmsdeep model) with a single ranger sidekick. This amounts again to about 500 points.

While Glorfindel and Aragorn carve through almost everything, the sheer mass and the army bonus of the Angmar army make it possible to counter the two heroes.

I can build up from here, adding models to slowly get up to 700 points.

Elven Ruins

I've done quite some ruins for Frostgrave, some with foam, some with Stewalin-stones. Now, while a frozen city is one thing, to my imagination, elven ruins should have something unique.

When thinking about the elves of Middle Earth, two things come to my mind: elegance and sadness. To work these into a piece of terrain seems hard, though.

So, I started with the 'basic' ruin, cut from foam.

I used a toothed corner in this project (which is rather easy to do with a hotwire cutter). Cutting the doorways and their frames, I used a ballpen to carve the individual stones into the walls. I also cut and carved narrow windows. With a crumpled piece of tinfoil, I pressed some texture into the foam.

Glueing the frames over the doorways and finishing carving all the stones (on both sides!), I got the thing ready for a first fit.

The whole thing will be built on a MDF base. I also cut some stones from foam to place inside the ruined building.

Now I did the first layer of paint. As I wanted the ruin to be of an almost white stone, I began with a terracotta tone.

After a brushing with beige, I finally assemled the ruin on the base.

A brown wash to give it deeper texture.

Finally drybrushing with beige and white and glueing gravel besides the bigger stones for piles of rubble. Fine sand was glued onto the rest of the base and some piece of the old floor was done with cardboard in one corner.

Now, what to do about the look of sadness and passing time? A tree that has sprung up inside the ruined building gives a good impression of how long it has been abandoned.
So I built a tree - you can find the tutorial to this method also here.

The tree grows on the rubble (and is removable for gaming).

Some coarse flock to form some vines and moss for small bushes after a wash of brown mixed with green on the base.

Placed on the table with some trees, it looks really good. For a size comparison, here's Glorfindel.

Combining the FIMO-tree with the ruin has proven to work really fine, because with a fitting wire aperture, the tree stands firm without need for glue. If it gets in the way, it can just be removed and replaced later.

The Eaves of Mirkwood

Did you ever look at those modeling trees on the gaming table and think of how strange they look? Especially deciduous trees can look out of place. Those (expensive) Citadel trees seem to be of a very strange breed...

I've experimented with different materials for trees. The best looking results I got by using real branches, with seaweed and flock. The problem with those trees is - they just cannot be stored without damaging them.

Then I built wire trees, experimenting with texture paint for bark. They looked better, but not really as good as I'd have liked. And then a friend of mine brought FIMO® to my attention. This is a modeling clay that's heat-hardened and most often used to make pieces of jewelry.

So, I combined methods (one of my favourite ways to grapple difficult problems) and started my first tree. I've tried to get that 'Mirkwood-feeling', so you can of course do those trees in any shape you desire.

Materials used: Wire (I use covered wire for garden fences) and FIMO® soft (which is easier to cover the wire frame with)

First step is to cut about 6 strips of wire abou the same length (I use 25 cm length). Those are bent in the middle and twisted to form the trunk.

Now, cut the loops and begin forming the roots by twisting two strands of wire together.

The same procedure is used to form the branches of the tree.

Now, I bend the tree into the desired form, roughly shaping the overall silhouette. As I said above, I want the slightly crippled Mirkwood-look.

That's all rather easy and fast, but now we've got to cover the whole thing in modeling clay. I'm using thin patches, which I press onto the wire like a kind of stockings.

Don't use too much clay, especially on roots and branches. After all the effort, the tree should look something like this:

Now, add small bits of clay as smaller branches, and model the bark. Modeling tools come in handy here, but you can make do with wire and a knife.

Now, the thing has to go into the oven at 110°C for about 30 minutes. After that, the tree is hard and dry, but leave it some more time to cool down and finally set. After that you can use acrylic paint on it (there are colour clays, which makes base-coating obsolete).

When the paint has dried, we'll need something to hold our foilage. I used cotton wool on my first trees, which works fine, but then I discovered felt wool. It's cheap and can be bought already coloured.
Just get some PVA glue on the ends of the branches and drape the wool over the tree.

After the glue sets, I spray the wool with spray glue (I use NOCH® but any good spray glue works) and apply flock. Add some highlights with lighter flock. Finally, fix the whole thing with a coat of clear paint and base it. The tree is ready for the gaming table!

Just to give you an impression of what can be done and how those trees look on the table, here're some pictures.

That's the self-made battlemat from the other tutorial, by the way. As you can see, you can even do something like Old Man Willow. 😊

Including all the materials, one tree clocks in at about 3,- € and about 2 hours of work (depending on how detailed you want it to be).

Building a dwarven mansion entrance

Since playing The One Ring (TOR), I've thought about dwarven mansions that lie abandoned in the Grey Mountains. That kindled the idea to build the entrance of one for wargaming.

I've got a Proxxon hot-wire cutter for christmas, and by now I also have some experience with it. So, naturally, I'd build it out of foam.

Fist step was to cut the 'mountain' face, glueing the parts together with PVA glue. Some of the cut-offs where instantly recycled as rocks protruding from the cliff-face.

The next thing was the actual gates and the frame. I wanted two pillars supporting the gates and some kind of 'roof', protecting them from stones and debris from above. Cutting them, I just put them in place to look, if it all fit - I did not glue them for some steps to come.

Next, I used a ballpen to put engravings on the gates and the frame. The orc on the picture is there for size-reference. I tend to build too big, so I have to see an actual comparison when building.

Adding some more rocks and finally glueing the frame and left gate into place, I painted the 'hall' behind the gates - at least a glimpse. The rockface was covered with PVA and sand to give it texture.
I also added steps and four small pillars besides the stairs to the gate.

First step of painting, painting the rocks grey and the gates and frame brown. This is merely a base paint.

Painting the rocks dark gray, the gates bronze and applying a brushing of light grey to get a feel for highlights and structure.

I did apply a Strong Tone wash on the frame and Green wash on the gates. The rockface was washed with dark grey. Then another brushing of a light grey followed.

Drybrushing and some more washes later, I was satisfied, and began adding patches of earth and moss, with brown and green paint.

I drybrushed with light grey and Spaceship Exterior (Army Painter) to get a more natural look.

On the patches of colour, I applied PVA, using flock and static grass.

Finally, I added some moss and tufts of grass, painted the symbols on the gates in bronze, so the axes would stand out more.

And this is what it looks like on the table:

All in all, it took me about 12 hours to build the piece, quite some time just waiting for the paints to dry.