Building a Woodman village

The ancient kingdom of Rhovanion spun across all that is known in the Third Age as Wilderland. When the Shadow came to Dol Guldur, the kingdom slowly fell into ruin and finally collapsed into tribal villages, a lot of them disappearing over time.

Peter Jackson's The Hobbit is not only a bad rendering of the book, it also has some of the worst design choices. Lake-Town and Dale are especially bad, showing the lack of research into the cultures of Wilderland.
Tolkien based his vision of Lake-Town on a (later proven to be wrong) assumption of a Iron Age stake-village at the Lake Geneve. It was certainly not meant to look like a wooden Venice!
The people living there were descendants of the kingdom of Rhovanion - as are the Rohirrim. Why should they look like ragtag Italians or Turks?

As GW has to follow the designs of the movies, there`s not much to look for when it comes to miniatures of these parts. So, I decided to build an army of Woodmen (those folk that live right under the eaves of western Mirkwood) - and build a village for them.

You've already seen the first houses for them, but the center of every Woodmen village (following the Dark Ages theme) is a Meadhall, or Great Hall. It is used for gatherings of the village elders and the warriors in times of strife, for festivities and funerals.

As you can see, it is build upon a solid foundation of stone, with a roof over the entrance to the antechamber. Two wooden obelisks flank the entrance, carved with runes and pictures of revered (or feared) forces of nature.

The roof is detachable in this build, so the hall itself can be used for fighting (or retreating). There are four pillars holding the roof, the wooden throne of the village elder and the great fireplace.

The next phase of this build is a low hill, where the hall will stand, raised above the rest of the village.