The City of Altheim: Part Two - the walls.

After the basic planning I did in part one, My next major job is to get the wall placement finalised so I can start scribing in and cutting out the paths for the roads. I'll be making the walls themselves removable for easier storage of the boards, but I need to have them lock into position on the board to stop them moving around during play. As well as this, I want to make the walls look a bit less 'uniform' than they currently do.

With that in mind, here's the river end of the wall:

More info and photo after the cut...




As you can see, the Old River Tower is in a ruinous state (it  will eventually jut into the river, and the foundations have been water damaged over the years), but the top floor has been shored up and a fire beacon placed at the top. This is to allow the harbourmaster, who lives in the next tower along, to light a warning fire for incoming ships in foggy weather. The Harbourmaster's office is on the ground floor of the next tower, with his living accommodation above and in the adjacent wall to the east, the windows of which can be seen here:

You can also see an old repair to the wall, done at some point in the past.

The Harbourmaster is responsible for collecting all of the docking fees as well as duties payable on goods entering the city, so being located securely within the walls themselves is a great advantage. I've not yet picked up a suitable model to portray the Harbourmaster, but expect him to crop up at some point in the future when he arrives.

Further along is the Nordgate, or Northern Gate. Leading to the north as it does, and the bandit-infested forests heading towards the coast, this gate is specifically used to display the bodies of criminals caught and tried in the city.

Inner view, showing that the pikes to display the heads of criminals can also be seen by the city's inhabitants.

Outer view, showing the Coat of Arms and the city gibbet. 

Next up, the Ostgate, or Eastern Gate. I've finished detailing it, and it now looks as follows:

The culvert that the river will flow through can be seen to the left of the gate. As regards the inside of the gate, I've added another couple of statues to detail it, as can be seen here:

As regards the outside of the gate, I've added a bunch more detail as befits the main city gate, including a shield depicting Emperor Karl Franz.

Another detail of the wall showing some long-repaired damage.

All the walls are now finished, construction-wise, and fixed in position using a system of mdf pieces that sit inside the tower bases, so they can't move laterally, but can be lifted off to allow for easy transportation and storage. Now that part is done, I can move on to the placement of the roads.

Overview of the wall placement

Here you can see my start on laying out the roads. They'll be 10cm/4" wide including the curbstones, which means I've got a hell of a lot of cobblestones to make in the near future!

So, with that in mind, I'm off to do some casting!