Build unto me...

 ... a temple of epic proportions!

Well its a start anyway!

So Christmas proved fruitful in Wargaming terms as my family kindly clubbed together to get me 8 molds from the fantastic Hirst Arts.

As you can see I've had a go at casting my first blocks and they came out rather well. Might have to track down a local source of Cristacal R (the high strength plaster I'm using) though as the postage cost me about the same as the 5kg bag I bought...

The molds I went for include the Egyptian Tower Mold #93, Wood Shingle Roof Mold #240, Wooden Plank Mold #220, Wizard's Tower Mold #50, Cracked Floor Tiles Mold #203, Octagon Tower Mould  #63, Dragon's Inn Mold #51 and the Wall Builder Mold #200.

Other than the Egyptian Tower Mold (more of which later) I figured they'd give me lots of flexibility in building Old World style buildings from cottages and Inns to Towers and additional fortifications for my Mighty Fortress, and maybe even some dungeon tiles...

The blocks I've cast up are from the aforesaid Egyptian Tower mold and the Cracked Floor Tiles mold because I want to build this...

...to include the Rigg's Shrine scenario from the Second Citadel Compendium in my Return of the Magnificent Sven campaign.


Spot the similarities?

This is going to be a rather massive build as I intend on constructing all six floors that are detailed in the floor plans included in the scenario.

The Ground floor may prove a little tricky as it is actually below ground level...

The instructions for the Egyptian tower say you need to make 18 castings of the mold to have enough bricks - judging by the picture it looks like this might just about comprise the top couple of floors of the four towers of the shrine! Guess what I'll be doing in between waiting for paint to dry on whatever minis I'll tackling over the next month or so.

I've yet to work out dimensions for each floor but the idea will be for it to comprise most of the playable area on the table. I'll be constructing each floor as separate pieces with some way of allowing miniatures to be placed on different floors simultaneously. It'd be great to do this with each floor stacked up to form the whole building but I haven't really planned out how I'd do this as yet. The alternative of course is to make the floors stackable but lay each floor out side by side on the table during play so on multiple levels can be used at the same time - not as visually striking but a lot easier to build.

Suggestions and any experiences you have had with similar projects would be most welcome!

I may attempt something a little smaller like the Wizard's Tower while I'm casting up enough blocks and assembling sufficient slaves to allow building on the Shrine to commence, as a way of familiarising myself with working with this new medium...