Fall In! 2005

One of the things I like to do at Fall In! is to display current projects to show people how they too can build models like mine. John Hutt of Precision Products ives over to me a game size table in front of his stall to do this. This year I elected to display a Viking Settlement that I will use again at Conquest LA January 2006.

I required some preshow photographs of the settlement so that people deciding on going to ConQuest LA will get an idea of what will be going on. I will also be putting on a Siege of Troy game too but I think you can see plenty of photos of that on the site already. I would also like to mention that I will be at Strategic LA in February 2006 doing Siege of Tyre and Siege of Valencia.

Over All View of the Settlement

Above is a general view of the settlement. It is designed after the Viking or Norse Settlement at Hedeby circa 900-1000 A.D. As you can see the basic two building materials used were wood and earth. The entire settlement is executed in a half circle earthen rampart with circuit towers. The settlement sits on the shores of a small bay that was excessible only after navigating a mile or so of a island studded inlet from the sea. So a portion of the defenses were natural. This model is a scaled down version of what I will be setting up at ConQuest LA. I can make the model as big as I want by adding or subtracting sections of ramparts and additional towers. Here two rampart sections have been removed as well as two towers reducing the model to 5 running feet. The final model at ConQuest will be about 8 feet long.

The long ships are simply run ashore here which was quite possible in early settlements of this type. In the final expanded model I will include the docks. otice that there are a number of different tpes and sizes of home. Many are taken from the Bayeux Tapestry and others are from the book The Viking which has some great line drawings to use as models.