I’ve mentioned these buildings a few times on my blog and I thought I’d put pen to paper so to speak and design some settlements for them. I sat down with all the painted buildings I have and mapped out a hill fort and villages.

One of my main references for scenarios for Dark ages battles is the Hail Caesar supplement Shieldwall. It contains a great selection of historical scenarios for the period along with maps for each battle. I noticed that quite a few scenarios contain hillforts so it seemed like a good idea to make one. I’m planning to play games on a 3x2ft table so I halved the measurements for the terrain pieces and drew a rough outline on a pieces of paper in the size of the terrain pieces.

For the hillfort I’m planning two entrances and a rather simple set of defences with just a wall and ditch. I’ll make a lowish hillfort and I can make a separate hill if I want to increase the height and perhaps with another layer of defences.

My remaining buildings will be used for villages and I will make a couple of bases that can join together to make a larger settlement. I also want to leave one edge open so it can be used as a port along a river.

Something I haven’t decided yet is whether or not to fix the buildings down. It is easier to model but it makes putting figure bases inside the areas harder, although now my dark ages figures are on 20mm square bases its less of a hassle. Or perhaps I’ll hedge my bets and only fix down some of the buildings!