"Hobgoblin Watch Tower: scratch build project." Topic

Picked up a copy of Slayer's Guide to Hobgoblins, and I was inspired by a piece of artwork inside. Decided to build a tower for a future BattleSystem game, where a wooden palisade, built by Hobgoblins, will be attacked by a Dwarven army. The artwork's tower is a perfect addition to the Hobgoblins' defences. Hope to finish it this week; everything on the blog page was done in one day, working off, and on, throughout the day.

Here is the link to the blog page: link. The palisade model is on top, while the new documentation on the Guard Tower, is further down the page. Cheers!

Hobgoblin tower is looking great! Bonus points for repurposing the 54mm stockade, and triple word score for using Battlesystem. :)

I never thought about pumpkin stems as a potential craft project.

Well done. Although i would have used shorter and plain thoothpicks, for the ladder. And put more of them so they are closer to each other. The gap between each one looks a lot wider for 25mm minis

Thanks, Gentlemen.

Ghostdog: I understand your point, but I was hoping to be able to slide some figures, on 1"-square bases, between the toothpicks, to have them 'climbing' up the ladder. Not sure it will work, but I wanted to give it a try. Originally, I had the toothpicks much closer together (the pen marks), but realistically, drilling the holes any closer would have been exceedingly difficult. Reality trumped my fantasy -- I hate when that happens. ;-)

The pumpkin vines are really a neat craft item to use: they look like miniature trees -- no painting required; they are incredibly lightweight; they are fairly strong, and they are easy to drill/glue/etc. If someone had not posted about using them on DM Scotty's forum, I'd never have given them a thought.

I should have some new photo's up on my blog, tonight. The platform is ready for some walls, and for mounting to the tree trunk. It is coming together very quickly. Cheers!

Sgt Slag,

Looks great so far.

Ghostdog: I understand your point, but I was hoping to be able to slide some figures, on 1"-square bases, between the toothpicks, to have them 'climbing' up the ladder. Not sure it will work, but I wanted to give it a try.

GW does that with their LOTR figures.

Xin

Thanks, Xin. I tried to fit a figure, on a 1"-square base, between the 'steps' last night, but it did not hold as I had hoped it would. Oh, well, not a major issue.

I like that ladder, though. I will definitely keep that in mind for future ventures. Cheers!

That looks great. I may try to make some of those for my Hostile Realms Goblin army. I have two pumpkins laying in the house that my wife and I never got around to decorating.

How do your little guys get to the top of the tower? It looks like the base of the tower blocks the planks.

I will be adding a card stock trap door, just above the last plank step, beneath the deck.

I tried a figure on a 1"-square base again, last night, to see if it would stay in the plank stairs -- it did. It may not work on every plank step, but it worked on several. I think it may also depend on the figure, due to balance, size, etc.

I've added two new photo's to the blog. You can see that there is a low built-up wall of Hot Glue, which will become dirt, to channel would-be attackers to the open point in the wall of spikes surrounding the base of the tree trunk. I will be adding rocks and sand (gravel), and some grass, to dress it up further.

This will be the first, of several, of its type. I plan on building at least four of these towers, for use in both BattleSystem mini's games (including Skirmish), as well as for use in RPG's. I am really enjoying this scratchbuild -- never tried anything this big/involved before -- it is not terribly complex, just my first venture into such a project at this scale. Just wish I could share it with the original artist, but the only thing I have to go on, is his signature, "Webb". Cheers!

Update: Finished the prototype model, with 11 more Guard Towers right behind it, ready for paint on the bases, followed by lichen/thorn bushes surrounding the wooden stakes at the base of the Towers. Photo's of the finished prototype model are located near the bottom of this page, featuring some nearly-finished Hobgoblin Archers manning the Guard Tower. Cheers!

Fantastic!

Final update on this project: I have finished detailing the bases on five completed Towers (photo's of all five, finished Towers are on the blog page); I have another six Towers to finish, yet, then this project will be complete. Here is a direct link to the blog page. To see the updates, scroll to the bottom of the page, and then move up to find where today's update begins. Cheers!