To this date, this has been my most ambitious stronghold for Hordes of the Things. I created it for the Leonine Army that I won as a prize in Dave Zecchini's HOTT Wax 36 AP Tournament at Wexford Hill Hobbies in December of 2006. These gorgeously painted and amazing figures were donated by Splintered Light Miniatures. When I saw them, I simply knew I had to give them a stronghold worthy of their detail and beauty.
The fact that I planned on creating one was actually a slight bone of contention between me and my buddy, Zeke, the Event GM. Zeke had put together a cute "Kitty Condo" as a stronghold for the army. Those who know me understand that I am not a fan of whimsical or silly fantasy. I prefer mine gritty and a tad more grim, ala The Lord of the Rings. So, there was no way I could play such an incredible army and toss out a playpen for Tabby as the stronghold. I simply couldn't do it...which upset Zeke a bit. He'd put in some work on the "stronghold" and I'm certain he felt it was wasted.
Anyway, my stronghold for the army was a LOT more work than I thought it would be. I started with the bridge, which is actually a piece of styrene spanning two balsa wood blocks. I glued a JR Miniatures stone wall to either side of the styrene, and then strips of wooden craft sticks in between the walls to make the bridge planking itself. The skulls at its corners are Halloween Skull beads with a lead spear head glued into the top hole.
The round tower gate was an experiment that turned out fairly well, I think. I pulled out my tub of brown aquarium gravel and fished out a handful of relatively flat sided small to medium sized stones. Then I took a strip of masking tape and plopped the stones onto it, leaving intervals between the stones so when I curved it around the tower's core, they wouldn't rub and pop each other off. For the tower core, I took an empty Advil bottle...yep -- it's a bottle of headache medicine! I glopped epoxy on real thick, then took the masking tape and wrapped it around the tower, stone side against the surface of the bottle. The stone free sections of the tape held the heavy strip of masking tape in place while the epoxy dried.
I
admit I was a bit nervous when I pulled the tape off, so I let the epoxy
set overnight before I tried it. Off came the tape...the stones stayed attached
to the tower -- it worked! I'd been a bit conservative on the number of
stones and left bigger gaps that I'd needed. So, I had to find tiny ones
into the spaces between the rocks. After it all dried, and I admired my
work, I smacked my forehead and did a Homer Simpson, "D'oh!" You
could see the writing on the bottle in the gaps between the stones! So,
I painted the gaps with watery black acrylic paint, which gave the final
rough hewn touch. I then cut out craft sticks to form the wooden platform
atop the tower, epoxying some final stones along the rim as a tower wall.
Now it was time for the other side of the bridge. I cut a rectangular section of foamcore board to create the outer city wall. With an X-acto knife, I thinly sliced the line of the seams between the stone blocks forming the wall. Then I took a black ball point pen and scored the slices into deeper grooves. Next, I cut craft sticks to form the gate and epoxied them to the foamcore. For the stone carving of a lion's head above the gate, I took a plastic lion from a kiddy package and sliced off the front of half of his face. I epoxied this to a square of styrene, then glued that to the foamcore above the gate. The gallery was created by epoxying wooden dowels as columns -- two shorter ones actually "drilled" into the foamcore wall, and two longer ones along the balsa forming the back edge of the guard's walkway. The giant bronze Lion statue was the easiest part. I took another plastic lion, painted him black, and drybrushed him gold. I then glued him to another rectangle of styrene, followed by glueing this section to a larger rectangle of styrene which would form the roof of the gallery. The short columns supporting the roof are fancy red beads. The wooden planking of the floor of the gallery is craft sticks, once again.
Next, I carved
away sections of the balsa blocks that formed the ground the bridge spanned
between, crafting an irregularly formed cliffside. This was further given
an irregular form by epoxying medium sized pieces of aquarium gravel as
boulders. Once satisfied, I plastered the balsa cliff surface with Liquitex
modeling paste, partially covering some of the stones and giving it a rough
look. Then I gave it an even more uneven surface by gluing in railroad ballast
as small rocks.
And finally, it was time to paint! The cliff face was done in Polly Scale Sand Yellow with a black wash over it. The stones of the round tower were given only a black wash. The stone gate walls, city walls and slabs of stone forming the galley roof were painted a base "terra cotta" color. I then drybrushed it with Khaki, and applied a black wash.
The guards are one of the stands of the army painted up by Splintered Light. They are their Panther Stalkers, which I believe were meant to be an element of Sneakers. Since I abhor that troop type and refuse to use them, they were drafted to be the Walled City of Leon's fanatical Black Panther guards. I placed one in the round tower, one on the bridge and a final one in the gallery.
I was definitely pleased with how this stronghold came out, and in the end, it was worth the hours and hours of (very addictive) work I put on it. Hopefully, now, Zeke forgives me for shunning his Kitty Condo...