How to: Easy Colonial Fort

Hi, I've finally managed to write a new tutorial on how to make a fictional colonial fort, illustrated with lots of pictures! Some loyal blog followers and visitors may have already seen these pictures on the blog but now I will also give some more details on the construction of this powerful fort. The fort is based upon some of the massive blockhouses you could find in North-America and South Africa but isn't a historical copy as my wargame setting is Central Africa. There for I simply gathered the nicest features of all sorts of colonials forts and added them to my wargame fort Henry. Enough talking up to the terrain making!

Step by step

The first step of the build was to saw the hardboard base and sand the edges with some medium graded sanding paper. After the base I've added the light brown wooden beams with some dots of hotglue. These beams will support the entire construction of the fort and must be secured extremely well. Then I've added the darker wooden beams which will form the skeleton of the fort and will be the support of the wooden planking of the fort. I've also added extra beams to support the two doors of the fort, one door which leads to the exterior artillery placement and the other door is the main entrance in the front of the fort.

After the base of the fort was built I have cut up a large amount of wooden planks which will be used as the exterior facing of the fort. At regular intervals I have added some shooting holes for the defenders. The placement of these wooden planks is the most laborious job of the construction and will take several hours of carefully cutting out the planks and glueing them in place with either hotglue or woodglue.

The following pictures shows the fort from another angle so you can clearly see the entrance door to the artillery emplacement and the scale of the fort by looking at the added 28mm miniatures. I have decided to enclose the artillery emplacement with a wooden palissade.

After you have finished the exterior you can now add the second floor and the roof of the fort using a cartonboard base with wooden planks glued on it. Don't forget to first add the door of the first floor! On the roof I've also added a small tower which will act as the entrance point for the roof. When this is done you can texture the base with woodglue and fine white sand.After that' s dry you can paint the fort and base. The base was painted with a light brown basecoat that matches my other terrain pieces. The fort was basecoated with a craft paints which is an exact match of Gamesworkshop's Scorched Brown and drybrushed with several mixes of this paint and off-white.

The piece is now almost ready to be used. All you now need to add is a corrugated steel roof for the small tower and paint it in a medium grey color with several drybrushes of a lighter grey. To further enhance the roof I've also weathered it a bit with Games Workshop's Devlan Mud. You also need to drybrush the base with a cream color. Now that all the painting is done you can add some static grass, flock and aquarium plants or what ever fits your terrain piece! Then the fort is officially finished and ready for some tabletop action!

The fort with a partially removed roof to show the bare interior, now you can add some beds, cabinets, weapon racks, etc On the picture you can also clearly see the weathering of the corrugated roof.

I have also added some pictures of the fort in use during a colonial re-supply scenario wargame in which a small british column was trying to reach the fort under attack of some african tribe.

More tutorials can be found here