Norman Castle and Priory

So for Memorial Day my wife and I went to see the ruins of a Norman Castle, Medieval town, and Priory known as Castle Acre.
 The castle was founded soon after the Norman Conquest of 1066 by William de Warenne, the first Earl of Surrey, as his most important estate in Norfolk. The settlement is strategically placed where the ancient track way known as the Peddar’s Way crossed the River Nar. To the west of the castle was a planned town; the whole settlement was fortified.

The Castle

 Artist rendition of what the castle may have looked like at its peak.

Aerial photo of the castle ruins.

The original gate to the walled town

The Priory

1000!!!

reached 1000 views today! First time a blog I have done has gotten that many. As a treat hear are some pictures of some of my projects under way.

First off is my WWI German HMG WIP

I'm starting to dabble a bit in basing units with terrain. I normally avoid this as I think aesthetically it can clash once on the table.

Next is my WWI German Artillery and crew WIP.

I will be re-basing my Russian artillery piece as well as I proffer the round base for such models. 

Lastly here is a piece I am working on exclusively for my WWI Steampunk game based on the Leviathan book series (you can read about it here). Also the picture I'm using as the inspiration.

Hope to get some more lead painted this weekend and will post pictures. I will also be attending a local gaming club (Link) this coming Sunday for the first time and hope to have lots of pictures of our games.

Inspiration

   So I have been reading through a series called Leviathan by Scott Westerfeld, whose site you can find here. The series is set in a steampunk WWI. The nations that make up the axis powers are called 'Clankers' because their whole society revolves around the use of elaborate steam powered machines. The allied nations are called 'Darwinists' because through Darwin they have learned to alter the 'life strands' (their term for DNA) of plants and animals to evolve them into tools.

   I found this world fascinating and a new take on the steampunk genre. I decided to develop some gaming rules that would allow gaming in this world. Using rules from Contemptible Little Armies (CLA) by Christ Peers and Valor & Steel & Flesh (VSF) by Robert Charrette as my frame work and modifying them to suit this time period. CLA offers great rules for the WWI era which the books take place in but as in history the rules lack much in the way of vehicles, thats where VSF comes in since its a rules set for Victorian Science Fiction.

Once I'm done I will put the rules on here as a free PDF download.