2 warbands for Saga age of Vikings

For some time i had the idea of a watch tower in my head, distracting me from actually painting my vikings. The concept is: it is used by vikings and the fundament of the tower is built on an older fundament, in my mind the fundament of an old roman watchtower. Where it is primarily in theme for my vikings the tower can be used in more games.

I like making my buildings so they can open and I can put models inside. In practice I found it had little use in gaming, but it is kind of hard for me not to do it (one might call it obsessive). So with that in mind, this tower should be made in such a way that models can be placed inside so the inside of the tower must also be done.

Materials I have to build this tower are:

• balsa wood (different sizes)
• XPS foam
• chipboard
• gypsum casting powder
• a3 foamcore boards

The first step was cutting a piece of foamcore ( 9×9 cm) and stick it to a piece of chipboard (12x12cm)

After that I’ve started drawing the stones into the piece of XPS foam. Done with a pencil and drawn over with a pen. Next up was the ball of aluminum foil rolled over the stones to give all the stones some texture. Next some individual stones were cut on the sides with a craftknife and then pressed deeper into the XPS to make it looked like the tiles were stacked and give it a more “old” appreance.

Now it was time to build some newer walls on the old foundation. For that I used the foamcore cut to 10cm H to 8cm W.

Not shown in these pictures, but the piece not attached was fitted with small magnets so it can be removed from the rest of the structure

The structure like this was on my desk for a few days while I was looking for more inspiration how to continue next

Now the first floor was up. I finished the lower half of the building with some stones i cast out of plaster from a homebrewn template and used wallfiller to give the walls a bit more definition.

The piece of the tower where it can be removed from the rest of the building is the “back” of the tower so it was fitted with a door where the occupants of the tower can enter it.

I also made a wooden platform out of balsa and that will be the top level of the tower. There is a 28mm archer on top for scale

And finally a shot of how it would fit with the walls that are also in a semi-build state. The tower can be used as coner piece for the walls and gate.

The next steps in this project will be building up the top floor with wooden coffee stirrer sticks so it looks like wood paneling and probably find something to do on the top level of the tower. After that the interior of the tower