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 Post subject: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 12:27 am 
Elven Warrior
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In BGiME, there's a great tower you can build for your modular fortress. I decided I wanted to build one for my fortress, but instead of using drop ceiling tiles, I used plaster and lots of it. This took quite a while to build, just due to having to make so many castings. It was built during much of the Sewers of Osgiliath; it was much more economical to fill all the molds at once. Each piece is 6x6" and 6" tall. The whole thing is almost 2 feet tall, a dominating feature for any battlefield, especially when used alone.

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This is the whole tower from the back.

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The kitchen didn't photograph as well as I would have liked. It will have big double doors when it is finished and is to be the ground floor. There are shelves with all manner of accessories from the Hirst Arts cavern accessories mold: crates, barrels and sacks. The back wall is where the stove is. This design was taken from a piece available from Thomarillion on his website. The right side is a cupboard of balsa and drawers, the left is storage of sacks, barrels and pots. The copper represents a steam hood and was built out of cardstock. The same pattern of stone that makes up the stove top goes up the wall behind the steam hood to form a chimney. The little arch is meant to have a fire lit under it, but I found it too difficult to model one in there, so it's cold food only for the solders of Gondor.

It sucks when even the cook is armoured! The pile of goods in the corner is on a base leftover from Fireforge minis. This can be used in other games. I hope to take some better photos of the kitchen in the future. The ladder is made out of BBQ skewers and matches up with the trap door on the next floor. The shelves were also designed after some Thomarillion shelves, I think they were for the inn.

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The next layer is the lounge. It's not a true lounge, but a place for the men of Gondor to warm up between shifts. That's a fireplace against the wall with a log in it. Different patterned bricks are used for the fireplace. Because the room was rather mundane, I added a staircase. It fit really well with the fireplace. You may notice I made an oops on the staircase, it should be back 1/4" so doors would fit on that side too. These arches are 1.5", an odd size, but it can be used with both the 1" modular fortress walls and the 2" Minas Tirith walls in the works. The doors line up to the tops of the walls. The staircase is made of the same blocks as the corners of the outer walls for visual appeal.

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And the dungeon. We have stairs in our barn leading to a trap door in the hayloft, so I thought this was fair. The dungeon was modeled after the one on Hirst Arts Advanced dungeons, it was just shrunk down. This din't translate over super well, the side cells are quite small. They had to be because of the window placements; it was just strange to have walls in the middle of arrow slit windows. Realistically, Gondor probably would give prisoners waste buckets, but I thought straw made a better visual. The blanket is a piece of old towel.

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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Mon Oct 31, 2016 10:23 am 
Elven Warrior
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Beautiful work here! You really nailed the interiors, pretty hard to do in general, I think. Can't wait to see more! :yay:
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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Thu Nov 03, 2016 4:57 pm 
Elven Warrior
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Finally the roof. This one is only 2" tall at its highest point. Between the floor tiles and 1/4" foamcore, it adds 1/2 to each layer. All I did for this one is make the floor first and then glue the walls around it. It's nice and secure that way. I played around with stacking some blocks before I decided how I wanted to glue them so the defenders could see over the top.

Bristling with defenders, it's a tough nut to crack to be sure.

The Tower of Power does have another layer, but it's not detailed. The only difference is it has windows on all 4 sides. I'm hoping to detail it as an executive room or bunks, but for now I'm plenty happy with the height of it. The ToP doesn't have anything to lock it together. I found that due to its weight, it's actually quite secure. It's not earthquake-proof, but it should stand up to gaming well.

What's next for the tower? Some games, hopefully! The tower will get some staircases leading up to a second layer. Since it's modular, I can switch a layer and stack the kitchen on top to form a basic Isengard. It doesn't really look like Sauron's devices, but it will be fun anyway. The ToP also lines up with my walls, and the modular fortress is almost done, so there will likely be pictures of it coming soon.

Eventually the tower may find itself for sale on Ebay, but buying more closet shelves is on my hobby list, so if I can store it safely, it might just live on in my house for years to come.

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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2016 5:12 am 
Loremaster
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Nice work! I like how you did the corners and the stairs. The floors have a nice balance between gaming and adding detail.

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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Sat Nov 05, 2016 12:56 pm 
Elven Elder
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Very Nice work 8)

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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 4:47 pm 
Loremaster
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Looking again at your project for ideas. I think if you added some shields or banners on the outside of your top layer might add some points of color and would really make it pop! Or something like a flagpole? Getting the size right on a banner or flagpole is hard for me - also I always need to have it removable for storage.

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 Post subject: Re: Tower of Power - Modular
PostPosted: Thu Nov 10, 2016 7:44 pm 
Elven Warrior
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You could totally do that, I'd like to see your take. I guess I'm too influenced by the GW books, where the scenery is monocoloured and used to show off the minis. Plus, this tower is specifically designed to be used as a proxy for the Tower at Isengard, or the tower that the Blue Wizards built in a fan supplement I really want to play through. I'm also planning on using the sections as buildings in Gondor city scenarios. I know they have limited doors, but they'll be great obstacles anyway.

Next on the project list is more Gondor! Osgiliath seems to be like a city of arches, so I'm sketching up options to use up all the extra arches that seem to be accumulating from my walls. I'm trying to figure out how to make a BGiME keep, and I think I'm close to building it. I've also got some White Walls of Minas Tirith in the works.

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