Comrade's Wargames

Recently my buddy Vincent was doing a purge of excess gaming stuff, and he very generously gifted me with a Dwarf Stronghold resin terrain kit by Scotia Grendel. It was brand new, still in the bubble wrap, and I was excited to get started on it. I seized the opportunity provided by this nifty terrain pieces to bring to life a key location from my old Savage Worlds fantasy game. It’s always more fun to work on a terrain piece that has some lore associated with it, right?

Bayard’s Holdfast guards the main pass through the Vogale Peaks, serving as the last bastion of rugged civilization for travelers heading east into the goblin-infested mountain range. The dwarven garrison at the Holdfast are renowned mountaineers and mount regular patrols along the snowy trails in search of wayward travelers or encroaching goblins.

The Scotia Grendel kit is scaled for 25mm, which is just a wee bit small these days, what with all the “heroic 28mm” and even 32mm figures that are commonplace on most battlefields. So I decided to “build up” the central drum tower a little bit. I added a cylindrical core from a plastic snack container, then encircled the new core with XPS foam bricks.

The extension added about 5 or 6 inches of height to the central tower, which really makes the whole terrain piece seem a lot more bulky and imposing. You can see where I started my custom brickwork, so it’s not 100% seamless, but I think it looks alright with a lick of paint.

In my lore, Bayard’s Holdfast is build into the side of a mountain, so these fortifications just represent the “upper works” of the fortress. The rest is buried in the rock. About 40 dwarves are garrisoned inside.

Here are a few more detail pics.

This was a heavy, nicely sculpted resin terrain kit. Everything fit together well with a minimum of filing and sanding, and even my modifications were easy to accomplish.

I’m a complete sucker for classic medieval stone castles and fortresses, so this piece will doubtless hit the table in a lot of games. Until then!