"WIP: Two castles halfway through the build (many images)" Topic

A couple of castles I am working on that have made it to the halfway point, which is the worst they will look as from now on the appearance will start to improve  :D

Both variants side by side: late Medieval for Wars of the Roses and then the later modern-day interpretation with Tudor infill/enhancement, buttress repair to ECW slighting, and visitor car park.

From this halfway point, there'll be much much gap filling and adornment using No More Nails and Greenstuff, fitting of the doors/windows/stairs, painting and then flocking, etc.

First up the simpler WotR version:

And onto the later version which will be winterised for use with my Scavenge Skirmish Survive post apoc game and as a stand-in for Castle Black Game of Thrones type games.

The two castles are on different bases as they will go onto the table top in different ways.

The later winterised version is on square tiles and will form one end of this board, which is to become three tiles wide, though I'll also be making a lot more generic winter tiles (trees, mountain ridge, etc) for GoT type use.

The above image is by Eric The Shed

The earlier summer version with the shaped bases will become part of this board, sitting at one end.

The above image is by Captain Blood (and also includes his minis as well)

There's some very nice modelling there! I partiularly like the stonework effect and the idea of half buildings with the interiors modelled is splendid! However, I do think the design is somewhat lacking:

Any significant angle in the curtain wall should be protected by a tower, so you could do with a couple more!

A gateway would nearly always be defended by a tower. Even a postern gate would have some solid structure behind it rather than just a gateway in the curtain wall. I am not too sure about the halftimbered bit above the gateway, it appears to be totally unsupported and just hanging over the wall.

The curtain walls are just not tall enough. The whole purpose of the walls was to protect the buildings inside, so the walls need to be at least as high as the gables of the buildings within.

I appreciate the models are not yet finished but I hope the walls and towers will be crenellated when complete?

It's styled on Stokesay, compacted a bit to fit onto the wargames table, with other mods for ease of access to interiors. So it is more accurately a fortified manor house built more to impress than to defend.

Stokesay has two towers, a great hall between them, with a semi-circular wall to the front that has an off centre gatehouse: considered solely as a fortification, it's design is somewhat lacking.

link

Stokesay had/has two significant angles in the curtain wall that lack towers.

IIRC, Stokesay presently has walls that are lower than portrayed in this piece (7cm @ 1/56 = 3.92m), so I think the modern interpretation is fine. I've read that Stokesay originally had walls (destroyed during the ECW) that are thought to have been 10m tall from the base of the moat (no idea on depth of moat), which would make them between say 14 and 18cm tall on this wargaming piece. If I replicated that sort of height it'd be completely impractical to game with individually based minis within the courtyard. So as far as the medieval variant is concerned, both the wall height and moat width are less than they would have been at Stokesay. That said, I took the view that if the owner were really more concerned with impression than defence, he'd want visitors to get a good view of the massive glazed window, and with that thought in mind I can live with gaming with a lower wall.

Regarding the half-timbered gatehouse on the modern variant, indeed it does sit on a timber sole plate that is sat astride the wall. What I have yet to fit are those angled props that come out from the wall to support the larger upper footprint of Tudor type buildings (much like the additions to the north tower at Stokesay). So yes at the moment it is unsupported but it will not remain so. As this is the modern day interpretation, influences of the Stokesay gatehouse and north tower aside, I also like to think of the half timbered structure being the result of some fancy Victorian reconstruction.

The wall of the present day Stokesay lacks crenallation, which is consistent with my modern day interpretation. IIRC the view is that the original Stokesay wall did have crenallation, dating I think from the 13thC and destroyed in the 17th. As my late medieval castle (or more correctly, fortified manor house) is set in the Wars of the Roses of the late 15thC I am tempted to imagine that at that time it lacked a full license to crenallate, which also accounts for the lower perimeter wall, which makes the whole complex much less of a fortification (and therefore a more interesting prospect to wargame).

It's styled on Stokesay, compacted a bit to fit onto the wargames table, with other mods for ease of access to interiors. So it is more accurately a fortified manor house built more to impress than to defend.

Ah, yes of course. I had assumed (wrongly, as it turns out) that this was meant to be a generic medieval castle model rather than a stylised model of Stokesay.

Stokesay, as you quite rightly state, is technically not a castle but a fortified manor house and thus from a defensive point of view it's design is indeed somewhat lacking as we have agreed. I did think when I wrote my previous comments that the gatehouse reminded me of Stokesay, but the implication of your OP was that it was more of a castle than fortified manor house.

As an interpretation of Stokesay then, I retract all my previous comments and congratulate you on a splendid model of an FMH!!

Ta very much :-)

Of course Stokesay doesn't help but mislead by calling itself a castle!