Partizan- The Bastle and Barmkin

 

Partizan- The Bastle and Barmkin

Oh what a great name for a pub! The Bastle and Barmkin, I bet they serve a lovely brown pint of traditional bitter and chilli Hoglumps.

A Bastle-Illustration from the Reiver website

The characteristics of the classic bastle house are extremely thick stone walls (about one meter thick), with the ground floor devoted to stable space for the most valuable animals, and a vaulted stone or flat timber floor between it and the first floor with internal access such as a stairway or ladder. The family's living quarters were on the floor above the ground, and during the times before the suppression of the reivers, were only reachable by a ladder which was pulled up from the inside at night. The windows were small or even only arrow slits.

Bastle houses have many characteristics in common with military blockhouses, the main difference being that a bastle was intended primarily as a family dwelling, instead of a purely military fortification. They were often built in a compound with large wall, the Barmkin, encircling it

Chris Bailey the printing wizard found a bastle and printed it! It was excellent, it was realistic, it was impressive, it was…  massive! At two feet square and twenty inches high it would take up a quarter of a normal Ruckus board. It would certainly attract attention at Partizan. When I started putting it together however, I could see that it was possibly a little over scale. The steps were over two feet high! The wooden beams in the roof were a scale six foot across!

the Bastle dwarfs the 28mm Reiver next to it

It would not do, it was just too big. I told Chris who bless him did not mind at all and found and knocked out a new bastle and a Barmkin wall to go with it with a very grand gate 

 This time I chose not to spray and undercoated with a slate grey. I have found that painting these prints seems to require a lot more paint than I would expect, I did it twice before I achieved an adequate coverage.

I used the same paint scheme as the Tower but in lighter shades

I painted the roof grey although they are clearly pan tiles not the flat slate that I would have expected

The interiors of these buildings are excellent, with some great detail and are fun to paint. I used a similar scheme to the Tower. 

The walls received the same black/ brown undercoat only this time I used Army Painter Primer first. I found that priming the walls made a huge difference and that I used a lot less paint to get the same coverage after priming. 

I used increasingly lighter tones on the walls and picked out the occasional block in a mid-brown or a light brown. Then I dry brushed with Citadel Ushbati bone. 

Then I used Citadel washes, Seraphim Sepia, Agrax and Fleshtone on the odd block to introduce a variety of hues

The Gate 

I decided not to use the impressive gateway that came with the wall, it seemed a bit out of place for what I imagined the Bastle to represent

  So I made one using 3 layers of walnut veneer glued together and pressed to make the correct thickness. I used four strips of 3mm walnut strip glued together to make gate posts. (The wood came from Antics)

I made the gates to the height of the wall.

I scored the gates to represent planking and the used the 3mm strip as rails. I cut some small triangular blocks to mount the cross bar on. I fixed these with Evo-Stick

I mounted the walls on thick card and varnished them. 

I like the small details in these projects so despite being pressed for time I decided to create some hinges from plastic rod and whisky lead foil for the gates

I am pleased with this, they will paint up well enough, although something seems to be missing…some little detail…

I took some 1 mm plastic rod and shaved off some tiny discs…

the fiddly bit! I found it best to drip very small drops of super glue on to the hinges and pick up the discs on the tip of the knife. It really only needs a smear of glue for each as they are tiny so I would carefully dip each disc into a drop of glue before placing it on the hinge 

The finished gate. The hinges have been painted black with Citadel Dark Reaper highlights. Some of the clumps of vegetation are little bits of the test piece I used for the mat

The outer aspect of the gates. The yellow shrub Forsythia? came with a terrain pack that I bought from a German company many moons ago. 

A wall corner piece. The moss is simple flock.

I like the shooting slit idea

I used a lighter shade of flock here, on top of the flat green to give the moss some highlight.

I am considering using some moss on the house but really can’t decide. I have two days to go and still quite a bit to get finished, the house looks ok as is so probably won’t get mossed!

Wednesday! On to the Hills!

The Long Road to Partizan-The Tower

 

The Pele Tower

Pele towers are small, fortified medieval tower houses built between 1350 and 1600 along the Anglo-Scottish border and in Northern England. Designed for defence against Border Reivers, these three to four -story stone towers featured thick walls, barrel-vaulted  basements for livestock storage, and flat roofs for surveillance.

                                                                                                                                                                      

They served as safe houses for the local people and sometimes as homes for minor gentry. They were built to withstand short sieges and provide quick refuge against raids.

They often have flat roofs for watchmen, crenelations for defence, and sometimes, iron beacon baskets on top to signal when attacks occur. They are found predominantly in Northumberland, Cumberland, and Westmorland (modern-day Cumbria) and Dumfries and Galloway. Many churches in the region built these towers for protection, particularly in Northumberland such were the extent of the depredations of these “accursed people”

There are two structures that define this period of conflict, the Pele Tower and the Bastle House (more about that one later) and I wanted both in our game. My initial idea was to create them from XPS because I do like making things that way and I haven’t done so in a long time. I liked the thought of the challenge. However, I now know a 3d printing wizard Christianus of the Bailey, and he suggested using this instead.

https://www.myminifactory.com/object/3d-print-small-scottish-bastle-house-28-32mm-486865

It’s obviously strongly influenced by Smailholm Tower, it looks pretty much identical. And it is perfect for our game. This link has some drone footage of Smailholm

https://fabulousnorth.com/smailholm-tower/

I am a complete newbie to this modern 3d printing newfanglery and I was very impressed. It is printed in plastic. It has lots of internal doors which can be hinged and my first thought was “we could play a whole game of Ruckus INSIDE this building!”

  And so there will be such a scenario!

I sprayed it. I never spray anything. I used a rattle can. It was quick but smelly. I don’t know what the paint is, it certainly isn’t acrylic, cellulose?

whatever it was it was cheaply bought from Craft and More. It did not take paint well on top of it, I think I may have been better to have brushed acrylic on as an undercoat as it took quite a lot of painting to cover this rather bright grey.

A very dilute mix of cheap black and brown acrylic paint as a heavy wash over the vivid grey.  Can grey be lurid? This one was. I had to paint over it twice! 

A heavy dry brush with a cheap brown. I watched my friend Martin Brooks (7^th son wargaming) video on how he painted his castle, for inspiration, you can see it here

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QNymSvkhOHo

 

I then lightly dry brushed it with Citadel Ushbati bone. I was aiming for realistic rather than dramatic  

tis a messy business! 

The doors and floors I painted with AP Fanatics Banshee brown

The Upper Floor

the tower has removable interior walls. Some of the wood here is quite rough and has an unfinished unplaned look, it got the Banshee treatment.. 

The wood I highlighted with Citadel Baneblade and Gorthor Browns. The hinges I did in black and highlighted with Citadel Dark Reaper

The internal door frames I painted to match the stonework

 

the frames are cleverly printed with a hole for a rod to hinge the doors on! That we should live to see such times! Glory be! 

Cue brass rod and wire cutters!

Ta dah! Very satisfying 

They even remembered a little hole for the front door, so clever…

The cellar doors also are hinged. I am not sure how historically accurate this is, but it is there so…

Finished! I used a different series of greys for the flagstones and the slate roof tiles.

The basement! I wanted it to look a bit lived in and, if I am honest, to hide some of the slabs, which because of the printing process look a bit odd when washed.  I used Krautcover soil and some brown ballast, the “straw” I have had for many years, I have no idea where it came from. It is very fine almost like hair. 

I found the sconces on eBay . March of War! And very nice they are I bought 30 for £10!

The top floor! The interior walls are painted with Citadel Steel Legion Drab , Tallarn Sand and Karak Stone. The OSL effect was achieved with a light yellow and a mid-orange diluted with glaze medium.

The planking is done with the same recipe as the doors but highlighted with Citadel Ushbati Bone and then glazed with sepia ink. 

Hooray the doors open! 

this well-kept property features many modern conveniences…or …the dunny!

The first floor. The Tower has one removable external wall on each of the two middle levels which I think will look great at Partizan. 

The first floor with the interior wall removed. The interior walls are another impressive feature of this tower, each has its own opening interior door.  Each is finished with rough wood and stone on one side and smooth planed wood on the other. Brilliant! 

the removable interior walls are identical on each level and feature an opening door

the second floor, but where does that door lead? 

A second convenience! This is a posh Tower

The OSL has to laid on much thicker than I would normally do so on a figure. Ink disappears into the stonework, so I used diluted paint.

 Hooray! I am quite pleased with this. I think we will leave these walls off at Partizan and fill the Tower with interesting members of the household and a few pieces of furniture.

The tower comes with magnet holes which I filled with 5mm x 1mm magnets however they seem to be unnecessary as the walls fit so well  and simply click into place. 

They are a scrappy lot, these Reivers, Always fighting! 

Bloody Peasants! Who let them in?

The view from here is worth the climb! 

There we are, my very own Smailholm, although, in our game it will be known as Braepistle!

 

One step further on the long road to Partizan.