Thursday, 5 March 2020

Battle of Shrewsbury 1069; Watchtower Interval!

The Normans within the Motte and Bailey at Shrewsbury in 1069 were safe and sound from the excesses of Eadric the Wild and friends. As added protection and to give early warning of any oncoming attack I am going to include a watchtower on then hill. The piece is too nice not to utilise! Though an imaginary scenario it is not inconceivable that in the three years since the Norman invasion, with much of England only nominally under control of William I of England that early warning outposts would be built to keep one eye open for potential trouble makers. In other words that's my excuse and I am going to use it anyway! :>)

The tower will be under the control on Eadric's Anglo Danish force and manned by his Welsh allies under Kind Bleddyn and Rhiwallon. More on the history of the revolt in a future post.

The tower was painted up in the usual way. The upright wooden superstructure and outer structure of the pieces were painted using a craft paint that is more or less the equivalent of Vallejo Model Colour German Cammo Black Brown (perhaps a little lighter) and highlighted up using craft paint creams and finally with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory. This time I tried having a darker tone on the thatch as I wanted some contrast between the 'painted' wattle and daub and the actual thatch. The wattle and daub is just Miniature Paints Earth (I don't know if they are still around[?]) and highlighted up with Ivory. The spikey bits on the parapets are Vallejo Model Colour Beige highlighted up again with Vallejo Model Colour Ivory.

Hopefully I will have a terrain tile ready at some point to sit these pieces of terrain up in a decent setting.






11 comments:

  1. Nice mate,

    we have the footings of a carolingian watch fort nearby for the river crossing between Francia and Brittany, it is very small.

    Cheers
    Matt

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    1. That *is* intertesting. Are there any artists reconstructive renditions of the fort that you know of Matt?

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  2. Gorgeous, truly gorgeous!

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    1. Cheers Phil. to be honest I just coloured it in. The Grand Manner "Dark Ages" range is superb as i'm sure you know.

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    2. It just paints itself :)

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  3. Miniatures Paints still exist. Recently relaunched themselves with a Kickstarter campaign (not that they went away). Best online source is Magnetic Displays (they are usually at the bigger shows too)

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    1. It's good to know that Miniature Paints still exist. Thanks for letting me know, I'll get in touch with Trevor about them.

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  4. Replies
    1. Thanks Dmitry. It's going to sit on a hill overlooking the Norman Motte and Bailey

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  5. Replies
    1. Thanks Michael. It was a pleasure to paint after all those walls and Bailey bits :)

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