The two towers

Sometime ago I got the Warhammer watchtower as a present for my birthday (thanx to Emely and Arjen!). After the successful (re)construction of my Mordheim ruins, I wanted to use this tower as well. However, the tower in its 'normal' form is not very useful in a game of Mordheim. So I decided to open up the tower to make 'playing inside' possible.

The first option I considered was leaving one wall off or making it detachable. On inspecting the tower I found out that it's a lovely model, with lots of details and extra parts, that makes a great site/sight on the battlefield. Alas, no interior details or floors.

So I went out for some Balsa wood at the local 'Hobby Modelbouw' shop. For one reason or the other I never worked before with this material, but all construction work went perfectly smoothly.

And the best idea popped up during the construction: Instead of one tower, I made two tower, each consisting of two walls of the original one. Not only did I get a 'free' extra tower, but they're more 'playable' as well.

Friday they will hopefulle make their debut in Mordheim. I hope I'll find the time to place them on a base. Painting won't be ready, there's a lot of detail on these..

Hirts Arts Moulds and Mordheim Buildings part 1

It's been a month vacation that caused nothing much for me to have produced in the modelling/gaming part and therefore no need for blog posts :) But I have ordered three moulds at Hirst Arts. I ordered the following ones:
#51 Dragon's Inn Mold
#201 Floor Tiles Various Sizes
#40 Basic Block Mold

My idea was to have enough bricks for builidings as well as arches for windows and doors. Floor tiles for flooring of course but also for building streets.

I started casting the moulds with modeling plaster. I found 2 brands: Knauf and Krone.

Knauf is found at the DIY store and Krone I found in a local arts and crafts shop. The Krone is almost half as cheap but they both are not that expensive: Knauf sells at EURO 6,00 per 2,5 kilo and the Krone at EURO 2,00 per 1 kilo or EURO 6,00 per 5 kilo.
I already casted the moulds about 8 times and it seems that is enough for making a tavern or something. Now some lasts casts are done, so I have enough stock to start building.
Of course the buildings will consist of more than plaster blocks alone. I went to the DIY store and got some lengths of 10x10 mm square and 5x20 mm flat pieces of wood. Almost 3 meters in length this should give enough beams and planks for roofs and doors and floors.
Also I got a piece of 4mm MDF that should act as a base for the building. Everything should be modular so I'm going to design 2 or 3 sizes of bases. These can have either a building or a piece of street, square or other scenery for the city of Mordheim that can be built with it. The first building will be the dragons Inn tavern from the Hirst Arts website. I'm going to alter it a bit so it's open to one side and it can be used in Mordheim for fighting in and around. SInce Mordheim is a thrashed and worn down city the buildings should resemble this. The roof will be crashed in, that kind of stuff.
When going out for buying the raw materials I also came acros my local games workshop store. It had a nice boxed set of trees.

I was looking for something like that, because the Mordheim buildings should have some grown over moss, plants and trees in them as well. This box with three large gnarly trees will be just right for the purpose. Also some chains, skulls and signs are in the kit that will fit perfactly in the Mordheim scenery I'm making.

For now some more casting and the building will start! Time for me to take out the saw and cut me some beams and create the MDF base plates.

More will follow in next posts, so keep reading!

New Warband: Dwarf Slayers

New Warbands are always difficult. What to choose and when chosen a subject what will be the contents of the warband. I started playing a night goblin warband in Mordheim and I almost finished the last models for this warband. With these done I have a big set of gobbo's to create a warband and change a warband with. Final items are some bases for now.
So a new warband since we all had ideas of starting a new warband. First up for me were the dwarfs. Cool sturdy warband and something completely different then the unpredictive gobbo's. Exploring the possibilities of the dwarfs I found that the warband could contain a slayer. In a far away past I played a trollslayer in Warhammer Quest. So the slayer theme was born. Doing some investigation further I came across some sites of players that already made some experimental rules for a slayer warband. Eventueally the following rules for Slayers in Mordheim seem to fit the best.
So how will the slayer warband look like:

Giant Slayer with 2 dwarf axes
Troll Slayer 1 with 2 dwarf axes
Troll slayer 2 with a 2-handed Gromril axe
Troll slayer 3 with 1 dwarf axe
Clansman 1 with mace and shield
Clansman 2 with 2 pistols

I'm still figuring out how to equip the clansmen for this warband. I've been looking at adding only some slayers to this warband but for the story of the warband it seems better to have some followers in the form of some clansmen. In the future slayers can be added and maybe also a rememberer. Or maybe equipe the clansmen with some armour is also a nice option. Still not sure there. The SLayers also should have some tattoos and/or scars of course. With this list of dwarfs there is little gold left for that. Maybe down-equiping them and adding the tattoos might prove interesting slayers. Even thought of "scrificing" a Troll slayer for more tattoos/equipment.

The miniatures have been bought for this band: Garagrim Ironfist will be the Giant Slayer for the band and I bought the set of boxed troll slayers. Some longbeards will be the clansman and maybe a special character like the Dwarf Master Engineer with Brace of Pistols might be a nice clansman.

The bases for the dwarfs is a bit of dillema. For the gobbo's I followed the "rubble" base technique found on the web. I can't find the link again but it basically is putting some glue on the base, put stuff on it that you have lying around on your modelling area (cut of bits, sticks, etc.) put them in. Then I put them in some very fine sand and let them dry. A quick lick of black paint and highlight with graveyard earth and bleached bone for the good Mordheim city rouble street look and you're done.

For a painting schem I'm also still deliberating. We did some brainstorming on the color of the beards and crests of the slayers. I am doubting between black or the original orange. Maybe the orange will prevail and I have to come up with some cool scheme for the trousers. Still to get a more Mordheimy look and feel the dwarfs will get some more pouches and stuff (dead rats and frogs) and the odd eye patch. Some green stuff challanges there but good fun to create.