Ruined Watchtower: January Terrain 2019

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Not a GW kit for a change, today’s terrain piece is a ruined watchtower. I can’t tell you who produced it, though – as I picked it up quite a few years ago now in a job lot with a whole lot of other bits and pieces.

Speaking of pieces, it was in several until I finally assembled the thing earlier this month, with this month’s challenge and the good spraying weather finally motivating me to finally get the thing done!

It went together simply, if not easily – with some drilling and clipping needed to get the pieces together. The different segments don’t fit together perfectly, but they’re close enough so that it can be difficult to notice.

Once again, the sheen from several layers of varnish combined with a lot of lights belies the more matte appearance that it has in person. It looks almost like flowing mud here! What can I say? My lighting options for larger pieces are pretty shithouse! It’s kinda hard to see, but I’ve attempted to have the orientation of the grass on the tufts “flow” with he contours of the model, as the whole thing has a pretty windswept look to it.

That big section where it looks like it’s fit together extraordinarily badly is part of the sculpt – it’s intentional – rather than being the result of my terrible modelling skills. I’ve mounted it on an inexpensive wooden teapot stand to give it a nice sturdy base, and rather than trying to bevel it to the ground or try to paint the edges in an awkward (to me) brown so it “fits in better” with my table surfaces, I just went full fuggit and gave it a similar black rim as I do with many of my bases. I did roughly sculpt some simple flagstones in the ground, giving the indication of a small path that may or may not continue on the battlefield surface.

The scale of this model seems a bit smaller than most “heroic” scale models. Here we have it with a few Heroes of Men from the LotR range, with their slightly smaller scale showing the sizing. True historical models would be a touch smaller yet, so would fit in even more nicely with the tower. I also thought our friend The Imperfect Modeller would appreciate how close this almost gets to a proper diorama! I’d just need an appropriate figure to put in Gandalf’s place there, and a pin to hold them there on!

FInally, as a point of contrast, I thought a couple of more modern-scale AoS Bloodbound figures (ok, one is at least 50% Shieldwolf) would be a nice counter to the above – as you can see, it’s still very much usable for Fantasy of pretty much any stripe. And the number of times that Space Marines have fought their foes over terrain that resembles Terra’s ancient medieval castles must be beyond count!

37 thoughts on “Ruined Watchtower: January Terrain 2019”

  2. Great looking piece mate, it looks a lot like the base piece of a dragon that “cool mini or not sold” I believe it was a limited edition piece so would be very hard to get hold of as an individual piece.

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    • I figure it’s easily an “old” run and it’s close enough for gaming. “28mm” scale is all over the shop anyway with disproportionate heads, hands, weapons etc… so just more of the same, really!😄

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  12. That looks great! I like the idea of just doing the rim of the base the same way as all your Models. I think a lot of us in this hobby end up sort of training ourselves to not see the rims on bases while looking at Models, and it carries over here.

    And the wind-bent grass was actually noticeable, at least to me. But I’ve lived in a few areas with very strong prevailing winds, so maybe I’m a bit more attuned to that sort of thing than others.

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    • Thanks Alexis – good to see that it actually comes across on the model. The grass is certainly a subtle touch – probably something that would stand out more if I messed it up than got it right, I guess!
      I reckon you’re right on the base as well. I’ve got a couple of other (unfinished) terrain pieces that I’ll be mounting on similar bases, though I plan to integrate those a little more into the “game” space.

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    • Yep, for sure. I reckon it’ll look fine for others as they fight *around* it, and the size difference won’t stand out so much.

      Maybe it’s fine for 40k. I’ve seen some of those ancient (by Australian standards) pubs in the UK that are still operating after hundreds and hundreds of years with the tiny entrances because people were shorter then, so it probably still works for Imperial Guard!

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  15. Excellent. I do enjoy GW’s wildly over-the-top terrain pieces with all their giant skulls etc but it’s actually really refreshing to see something that looks as though it could have been lifted from the real world and would fit into any fantasy setting, but which still looks incredibly dramatic and lends itself to the setting of a story.

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    • Agreed. I do like these more realistic pieces a lot more than Skully McSkullface which is where GW has gone with everything. Those Shardwrack Spines are full of skulls tangled in their roots which I only noticed while painting them. Luckily they’re pretty well hidden in those sculpts, so I chose to ignore them rather than highlight them, so you don’t even see that they’re there.
      Having said that, I do have a bucket-list goal of finding a Castle Greyskull in decent condition for a decent price on eBay and turning it into a Warhammer Terrain piece…

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