Architects of War scenic pieces: Donkey Mill, Well and Pig Poke

I try to spend October concentrating on terrain since I'm invariably distracted by modeling men, horses and vehicles during the rest of the year. This October was crazy and I had to put most of my wargaming and painting projects on the back burner.

I'm itching to paint up some medieval crossbows, giant Martian war machines, and dungeon beasties, but I'm going to focus on those lingering terrain projects throughout November.

First up are a trio of small scenic pieces by Architects of War. These were great, well sculpted, full of detail, affordable, and generic enough to be used for wargames set across the last few thousand years.

Donkey Mill

I painted up each of the Donkey Mill pieces separately, and assembled them once finished. Everything went together like a breeze, and despite the tiny connection points between donkey's hoofs and base, the addition of the mill crossbeam keeps everything secure.

Pig Poke

The Pig Poke is a simple piece, depicting a dark ages animal pen of wooden beams and a wattle gate. There are some nice touches even in such a simple piece; miniature piglet hoof prints and a furrow where some happy hog likely wallowed in the mud. It also comes with a pair of porcine residents which I'm saving for another project.

Well

The Well is probably my favorite of the bunch. The stone well and wooden support structure are aces, but the kit also comes with a ladle, two buckets and a length of twine. Tying tiny knots in the bucket handles and draping it realistically gave me some trouble until I dribbled water and thinned white glue over the twine. After the twine dried and I applied a few more drops of white glue to secure it I added a thin coat of mustard yellow and finally a brown wash to complete the rope.

Overall a fun set of terrain projects that I'm looking forward to fighting over soon.