Roman Fort Scratch Built

After a few Napoleonic naval games earlier in the week testing out some rules, the Punic Wars armies returned to the tabletop. The scenario I was planning required a Roman marching camp. Rather than build a new one from scratch, I decided to try and repurpose the walls from a French and Indian War fort I had made back in 2017 (see link). To give the fort more of a Roman feel, I decided to add some simple tents and watchtowers. As with most of my terrain, I like to keep things straightforward, MDF and blocks of wood, as everything ends up thrown into storage tubs after games and therefore needs to be sturdy.

The Roman fort in use on the tabletop.

The rest of this post is a quick step by step for the making of the tents and watchtowers.

1. Cutting the shapes

The basic wooden shapes were cut out first. A mitre saw makes this much easier and keeps angles clean.

The wooden shapes are cut out. 

2. Priming

Both the tower blocks and tents received a coat of gesso to seal and prime the surfaces, which can be quite rough even after sanding.

Watchtowers and tents get a primed with Gesso.

3. Base colours

The base colours were added next. Bone colour for the tents and light-brown of the towers.

The base colour is painted on. The wooden towers look a lot darker in the photo than that actually are.

4. Tent details

A few loose lines were painted on the tents to suggest folds and stretch lines. I am not aiming for accurate details, just enough detail to give the impression of material.

Some of the folds and stretch lines are painted on the tents.

5. Softening the highlights

Using the original tent colour lightened with white and watered down, I brushed over the tents to soften the lines and add some colour variation.

The base colour is lightened and watered down, then roughly applied to the tents.

6. Painting the towers

The wall section came from the original French and Indian War fort, so I had used it to match colours. The openings were painted with a slightly watered-down black, helping to give a slight variation of colour, rather than a flat, solid colour.

 The openings are painted with a watered down black so it is not a flat black and has some variations.

7. Timber effect on towers

Using a mid-brown, I brushed on stripes to represent the wooden timbers, not being particularly precise. A darker brown was then added in places to break up the pattern and add variation. Finally, a watered-down light brown (which used as the base colour) was used to tidy up areas where the stripes overlapped too heavily. I also added a thin line around the black openings for definition.

Mid-brown paint strips a roughly painted to represent timber.

Adding a few strips of dark-brown strips over the existing strips. In the photograph this is not that obvious, but the tower on the right has had the darker brown applied.

Using the base light-brown paint again, a few more stripes are added to tidy up areas where the previously painted strips have overlapped too much.

8. Upper tower structure

The upper superstructure of the towers was painted in dark-brown, then a light-brown was brushed onto the tops of crossbeams to give a sense of thickness and highlighting.

The upper tower superstructure is painted using the dark-brown colour.

Light-brown is painted on the top of the cross beams to indicate some depth.

9. Finishing off the openings

A watered down mid-brown wash was applied over some of the black areas to break up the uniform colour.

The watered down mid-brown painted on parts of the black break up its solid appearance.

10. Sealing

Once all the paint had dried, everything received a final coat of PVA glue to seal and protect it.

Once all the paint is dry, a final coat of PVA glue is used to seal it all and give it a glossy look that I like.

All up, the tents and towers took just under two hours of actual work (not including drying time) to make. Everything was finished in a single day and was ready for use on the tabletop that evening. While simple, they meet the wargaming tabletop three-foot rule, giving a clear of tents and towers, providing you do not look too closely. Also, I will be able to mix and match for other periods and I do not have to worry about them getting damaged when they are thrown into storage tubs with the rest of my terrain.

Another setup of the fort.