gondorian warhip plans

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Home -> Article Library -> Building Middle Earth -> Constructions [Printable versio

Gondorian Warship

Description Part 1 of a planned Treatise on Naval Miniature Wargaming

Author Grimhelm of Snowbourn

Date

Fri Jul 21, 2006 4:38 pm

Category Constructions

Type ProjectComplexity

Advanced

Viewer Comments [18 - Post your comments]

Gondorian Warship

Part 1 of a planned Treatise on Naval Miniature Wargaming

Note: As should be done with all terrain articles, read through everything beforestarting, as many of the details are optional customisations.

Materials Used

Pink PolystyreneFoam (2 thick, 7wide)Masking TapeThick Balsa wood(1/3 thick)Sheet Balsa wood(1mm thick)Dowel (10mm thick)Paper-clips (or metalrod)3 Barbecue SkewersGreen stuffColoured Fabric(Sails)StringMoria Trapdoor(optional)

Tools Used

Hot-Wire CutterJewellers SawFine SandpaperFilesPVA GlueSupergluePlastic Glue(PolystyreneCement)

Paints Used

Chaos Black SprayChaos BlackBestial BrownScorched BrownRegal BlueSnakebite LeatherGraveYard EarthBoltgun MetalTin BitzChainmailShining GoldSkull WhiteDwarf FleshElf Flesh

Introduction

The Wooden Wall of Gondor

During the War of the Ring, Gondors capital was protected by virtually impregnable stone walls,allowing the defenders to hold out against Saurons forces. But it had a greater asset a woodenwall, holding back the seemingly unstoppable southern tides of war. This wall was none otherthan the wooden fleet of Pelargir, a proud part of her history from the very first settlers fromNmenor. Though they are left out of the movie, had it not been for their defence of the realm, itis doubtless that all maritime regions would have fallen to Sauron: the Langstrand, Dol Amroth,


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perhaps even the Great River Anduin itself;

Quote:

"Look! The Corsairs of Umbar are coming! So Belfalas is taken, and the Ethir, and

Lebennin is gone. The Corsairs are upon us! It is the last stroke of doom!" - The

Return of the King, Chapter Six.

The fleet was crucial to the defence of Gondor's southern coasts, and in many ways, a majornaval battle can have greater effect than a major land battle (it is much harder to rebuild adestroyed fleet than to regroup a scattered army). Ships have inspired artists for centuries, andin my case it is the same. Besides, building a wall of ships makes a nice change from the morecommon siege terrain.

The techniques I used for my flagship can be easily reapplied to work for any Gondorian warshipon a different scale.

Preparation Know Your Ship

The first thing you need to do is do someresearch into the type of ship you want tomake. When the first Nmenoreansfounded Gondor, it is likely that their onlyships were light exploration craft (muchlike the longships of the Viking explorers).However, by the time of the Kinstrife inGondor (1437 Third Age), these had

developed into what Tolkien described asgreat ships. As Tolkien wanted to write aMythology of England, it is certain hewas referring to the Middle Englishnautical term for the medieval "carrack".

Carracks were the first properocean-going vessels, described as the

perfected transport ship; they were alsothe first designed specifically for use aswarships, and their stable castles (raisedsections of the deck) allowed for use ofartillery (in our case, bolt-throwers andcatapults). The two best examples arealso among the most famous ships inhistory (the Mary Rose and the SantaMara), so there is a lot of information

regarding them.

Before designing your ship, remember that this kind of ship predates cannon, so battles will beresolved by enemies boarding your vessel and trying to take control of it! Therefore, it is a goodidea to leave a wide lower deck so that boarding skirmishes can be resolved more quickly ingame terms.

Glossary of Nautical Terms

In the article, I may be using nautical terms to best describe what I am trying to do. If you areunfamiliar with any of these terms, words that appear in this short glossary will be italicised:

Port: The left side of the ship.Starboard: The right side of the ship.Prow: The front of the ship.

Aft: The back of the ship.Hull: The portion of the ship below the deck.Forecastle: The raised section of the deck at the front of the ship.Aftcastle: The raised section of the deck at the back of the ship.Gunwales: The railings on the side of the ship (to stop the crew falling overboard!).Yard: The horizontal cross-beam (perpendicular to the mast) that holds up the sails.Bowsprit: The pointy bit at the front of the ship (used for tying ropes to the mast).Capstan: A machine used for raising a heavy anchorFighting Tops: Also called the crows nest. A lookout point on top of the mast.

Construction

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Step One Shaping the Ship

Once you have an idea of your ship, you may want to draw full scale templates or conceptsketches to work from. As you can see from the diagram, the ships structure is broken up into 3parts of pink insulation foam, supplemented with thick balsa wood. The first part you have tomake is the Hull. Using a hot wire cutter, get a block of pink foam 2 high, 24 long and about 7wide (just over a quarter of its length). Curve the Prowof the ship as shown below:

Cut out theAftcastle (2 high, 7 long, 7 wide) so that it fits on top of the back of the Hull. Cutout the Forecastle (2 high, 8 long, 7 wide), making sure it is the same shape as the front ofthe Hullbeneath it. Before you glue these together, you will have to create a pair of masts toensure everything fits together smoothly.

There is no set height for the mast, but I cut a dowel into two parts a foot high each.(Regrettably, this only allowed me to put on one sail per mast later, so if youre feeling ambitiousId recommend making it another 6 higher to allow for two sails per mast). Both masts will alsoneed a Yard (the horizontal cross-beam that holds up the sail). About an inch from the top ofthe mast, file out a niche for the cross-beam (in my case, I used a barbecue-skewer 7 long).With a Pin-vice, drill a hole through the skewer and into the mast, and use superglue and a pieceof a paper clip (or metal rod) to permanently hold the skewer in place.

Next, you will need to create two holes in the Hullto give the masts a firm foundation, as theyare shown in brown in the above diagram. Cut into the Forecastle with the hot-wire cutter tomake a bay to support the front mast. Mark out a hole on the Hulldirectly beneath the bay with apencil, and put a tiny amount of polystyrene cement onto it.

Be careful at this stage! The polystyrene cement will burn through the pink foam easily,so test it on a spare piece of foam beforehand to get an idea of how much you need touse. The hole should be no more than half an inch deep!

Make a second hole in the same way on the lower deck, about 2away from theAftcastle. You should now glue the Aftcastle andForecastle in place with PVA glue, but leave this to dry overnight,as knocking it before it is dry can cause problems in where itsets.

Once your ship is dry, you will have to raise the deck so that itlooks balanced with the two castles. Using two sheets of balsawood ( thick each), cover theAftcastle so it looks suitablyhigher than the Forecastle. For the lower deck, use a single layerof balsa, ensuring you leave the hole accessible for the mast.Insert the mast through the hole in the balsa, and glue the deckin place.

Now there is only a single mast left to secure in place, but firstthe ship needs to be covered in masking tape. Cover everythingexcept for the tops of the three decks. Once this is done, thereshould be a support against the bay in the Forecastle. Insert themast into this, and holding it firmly in place, and fill the emptyspace left by the mast with PVA glue.


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By the time you go on to Step Two, your ship should look more or less like this (minus a fewdetails such as stairs, which I will show how to make in a moment):

Step Two Balsa Planking

RailingsBegin with the Gunwales, by putting up balsa railings along the rim of the ship. (Assuming, ofcourse, you dont want your miniatures to fall overboard midgame!) For the Forecastle, theseshould be high, but for theAftcastle, they should be slightly higher. Take careful attentionwith the railings on the lower deck, as they need to allow miniatures to move off the ship if it isdocked. Below you can see that mine is properly sized to allow the base from Gandalfs cart to rollon:

Stairs and PlankingOnce the railings are complete, you will have to make somestairs. You will need to glue together 1/3 balsa strips ofdescending lengths so that it creates the step pattern shown inthe picture (right). If the top step is large enough to fit a 1" base,a bowman can be positioned there in games. Alternatively, aladder can be used instead of stairs.

At this point you will come to the most important and mosttime-consuming part of the project: planking. Cut up thin balsastrips so that there are 1 centimetre wide, but of different lengths

to add variety. For the flat deck, the planks can be applied asthey are with some PVA. However, for the curved Hull, you willneed to soak the balsa in warm water for at least an hour, anduse super glue when bonding it. Be especially careful with thefront of the ship; it is alright if the planking doesnt quite join upat the Prow, as this can be tidied up when the figurehead goes inplace.

For the lower deck, optional extras can be added to give more detail than simple planking. Shipswould have a large crew, so they would need a lot of food and provisions kept in the hold.Obviously a model ship designed for wargaming cannot show this because it is just what is abovethe water-line, but the deep curving Hullof this type of ship would often have had as many astwo decks beneath the water-line, and another beneath the main deck for archers. In the bottomdeck, these ships would store a large brick firebox for cooking, but they needed a means bywhich to let out the smoke.


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To hint to the cooking going on below deck, I made a grill out of balsa to show the hold belowdeck. In addition to this, a Moria trap-door can be used to allow the crew to access the hold (asimpler hatch can be made of balsa and thin cardboard can also be used instead if you are notwilling to use the plastic version):

On the back of the ship, leave the surface of the Aftcastle flat and smooth without planking this

will have designs painted on it later. Take a chunk of balsa (3 tall, 1 wide, thick) forthe rudder. Glue thin strips of cardboard to the rudder to represent the metal that attaches it tothe ship. Cut out eight balsa squares (1 x 1) and glue four onto each side of the Aftcastle, torepresent the wooden shutters of the crews cabin. Score the balsa on the shutters and rudderswith a pencil so it looks like it is made of wooden planks.

Finally, spread PVA glue over any planking with exposedpolystyrene beneath. This serves two functions: it partiallyfills in small, unwanted gaps in the planking; it makes itpossible to undercoat the model later using Chaos BlackSpray, thus saving on an otherwise time-consuming process.Now it should look like this:

Step Three Details

FigureheadThe figurehead (the wooden carving at the Prowof the ship) can be done two ways:

A spare miniature (eg. Goldberry) can be converted onto the Prow, with Green stuff to fill inthe gaps.

1.

Green stuff can be used to sculpt a new and unique figurehead.2.

In my case, I decided to sculpt a new figurehead altogether to save money, but unless you arevery good with Green-stuff (which Im not), I would recommend using the first method as itwould be easier and probably produce a better result. Either way, you will need to put a Bowspritabove the figurehead. To do this, cut a barbecue skewer (approximately 5 long), and insert it(with the sharp end facing outwards) into the Green-stuff while it is still drying. Add moreGreen-stuff to the base of the Bowspritto make it thicker and more stable, and find something to


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hold it in place as it dries; so that it wont fall off (I had my Bowspritresting on a stack of books).

Tip: Most ships in naval miniature wargaming have a ballista (Bolt-thrower) mounted atthe Prow, so make sure the Bowspritdoesnt block the line of sight of any siege enginesyou plan to station there.

Anchor and CapstanA Capstan is a machine turned by hand to haul up a heavy anchor out of thewater, to increase the speed rather than doing it manually. While the crudeCorsair galleys probably wouldnt have something like this (they would leavethe work to their galley slaves), the fine engineering of Gondor would suggestsuch a technological advance.

Since I used so much glue in this project, I had a handful of empty supergluetubs. To reduce the amount of waste left over, I decided to use the cap fromone of the tubs, with pieces of metal attached with Green-stuff to representthe handles. This was purely improvisation, so any other suitable materialwould be equally effective.

For the anchor, cut out three sections of balsa wood, with lengthapproximately in the ratio 3:1:1. Glue the longest length onto the starboardside of theAftcastle, and attach the two short lengths facing at 45 degree

angles to that, so that it takes the shape of an anchor. Drill a hole throughthe top of the anchor and through the gunwale above it using a Pin-Vice, andthread an appropriate length of string through both holes so that it attachesthe anchor to the Capstan. To tidy this up, glue the string in place as shownin the picture.


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Masts, Ropes and Fighting TopsTo add to the maritime look of the ship, wind some string around the bottom of both masts andglue it in place, so that it is about high. At this point the ship should look something like this:

For lanterns, drill a hole about 3 up each mast, and glue in part of a paper-clip. Find somethingthat can suitably represent a lantern (I sculpted mine from scratch using Green-stuff and metallengths cut from a paper-clip), and glue it so it appears to be hanging from the mast.

Now it is time to add the Fighting Tops (also known as the crows nest) to the top of the mast.These were used in sailing ships as lookout points for spotting enemy ships, or as mounts forarchers in naval battles. In the film, the Corsair galleys do not have these, but it is conceivablethat the Gondorian great-ships, vigilantly patrolling the southern coasts, would. To make them,cut out a lidless box using thick balsa, large enough to fit one miniature; the size forthe square base of this box should be just over 1 long.

Glue strips of 1mm thick balsa to the sides of each fighting top, to represent the planking. Use aPin-Vice, piece of a paper-clip and superglue to affix them to the top of the masts.

For the rigging of the sails, wind more string around the tops of the masts, exactly as was donefor the bottom of the masts. Glue string from the top of the mast to the edge of the Yard

(cross-beam), and fasten it in place using super-glue, a Pin-Vice and pieces of paper-clip. At thispoint, there is only one step left before painting.


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Doors and PlanksThe door is simply made from a scored piece of1mm thick balsa, sized so that it fits in with the scaleof miniature. The frame and hinges are made of thincardboard, and the door-handle is made from asmall blob of PVA.

Finally, fill in any large gaps in the planking withGreen-stuff. This may not be necessary, as thereshould be gaps between each plank, but if there areunusually large holes where balsa has snapped orbroken, it can tidy up the look of the ship. This

should be done sparingly, or you will waste a lot ofGreen-stuff otherwise.

With that aside, there is nothing left but to paint it!

Painting

Step Four Painting

First, you will need to undercoat the entire ship with Chaos Black. To save time, this can be donewith Chaos Black Spray.

Note: This will not work on any exposed areas of polystyrene ensure you have thesecovered with a coat of PVA first!

Once that is dry, paint all the balsa planks on the ship Bestial Brown, except for the smoothsurface on theAftcastle. For this, you will need a really large brush much bigger than would beused for painting miniatures otherwise it will take a long time to paint.


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PlanksWhen all the planks havebeen painted, paint overthem with a wash ofScorched Brown, so thatpaint sinks in to the cracksbetween the planks. Paint thewindow shutters on the

Aftcastle, the gaps in the grill,the Capstan and the door(but not the door-frame)Scorched Brown. Paint the

hinges of the door withBoltgun Metal, and the handlein Shining Gold. For the hatchnext to the stairs, paintCodex Grey onto the stonebricks, Scorched Brown ontothe wood, and Tin Bitz for themetal frame. Bolts and thehandle can be painted witheither Chainmail or ShiningGold.

Many European warships ofthe 16th century werebrightly decorated. Hinting tothe tradition, one line ofplanks around the edge of the

ship can be painted RegalBlue. This can also be paintedvertically at the very front ofthe ship. Note that this colouris specific to ships of Pelargir,and other fiefdoms wouldhave used different colours:eg. Ice Blue for the warshipsof Dol Amroth, or ChaosBlack for the trade vessels ofthe Harlond.

Masts, Ropes andBowsprit

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