300k Page Views

It's good fun to acknowledge little achievements like these. Whilst the high-flying hobby gurus are racking up 500k or even a million page views, my little blog continues its consistent plod, recently passing 300k page views – very exciting indeed.

Thanks to everyone who has visited the blog over the past five years, it's quite a buzz to know that people are actually reading what I have to say and even commenting. Things have slowed on the hobby front as my time is taken up with other things, but my hobby enthusiasm is overflowing in spite (or because) of this.

The coming month is going to be an odd time as our baby son is due imminently. My hope is that the blog will continue to be my hobby outlet, although I may struggle even more for genuine content during this initial 'newborn' period. Whilst surrounded by all things baby-related it will be nice to have a hobby harbour to shelter in.

But what blog stuff is on the horizon…?

On the top of the list is to continue coverage of my Castle exploits. I hope to finish building the kit and have some images of the whole thing together, with miniatures to give people an idea of scale.

It would be my ultimate goal to get my gaming board done and find a permanent home for the castle – and paint it all – but I think this will remain a long term goal for now. This may actually be a blessing as TW have hinted at their castle gatehouse release in the new year. What an addition that would be. Very exciting!

I also intend to finish my Rulebook Design series with a look at some rulebooks that I think got it right, as well as a couple of classic examples to examine.

I'm hoping to introduce some videos into the mix and expand the YouTube channel. Obviously this will require quite some input so another long-term goal.

Needless to say there's no end in sight for the blog!

TW Plastic Castle – Wall Gate

So, having already looked at the Tower and Fortified Wall kits, we come to the last piece of the TW Castle puzzle – the Wall Gate. I was very much looking forward to seeing this!

The box contains four sprues of two different designs and another instruction sheet. I was very keen on not messing this one up so read the sheet carefully before I started.

The kit follows a similar theme to the Fortified Wall. The ground floor is a little different as when complete it's made up of two pieces with the doors attached.

MISTAKE #1
I did make a mistake here and stuck the end pieces (that the doors clip into) the wrong way around. It's not very clear on the sheet which way round these go but if you remember that the doors go at the flared wall side (rather than the flat inner wall side) you will be fine.

You may find TW's Wall Gate video of help.

The first floor is not dissimilar to the wall – except you have an arch piece that goes in the middle. All pretty straightforward it has to be said. The top of the Wall Gate is identical to the Wall crenulated piece so you've got no excuses for getting that wrong.

When stacked together they look pretty amazing. The one thing to note is that the ground floor (as it's made up of two pieces) was rather loose, so the gate will only be at its best when part of a combined kit. You can't really game on the interior as there isn't enough space, but it's not missed.

The models look very cool when next to the completed kit, and I cannot wait for TW to complete their gatehouse kit.

Both this kit and the Wall kit have connector pieces that allow you to slide walls/gates together, and I couldn't help but give them a try before I packed up for the evening.

The only thing left is to put the whole castle together…!!

To be continued…

TW Plastic Castle – Fortified Wall

For those of you who missed my fun and games with the TW Tower you need to watch the Tabletop Workshop castle videos before you get started and it will save a lot of the issues I had. I didn't watch them in my haste to get stuck in and promptly had all kinds of mishaps. Not a problem though as I will use my first Tower model separately from the castle as an independent watchtower of some kind.


Unlike the Tower kit, the Fortified Wall is unlikely to ever be used on its own.

Opening the box there are four sprues of two different designs – there are also instructions!

Starting with the ground floor, you stick the arches onto the base, followed by the one-piece inner wall.

The outer wall is made up of four pieces of 'flared' wall and checking the illustration on the instructions will ensure you put the right piece in the right place. That was easy.

The first floor is even easier as it's exactly the same procedure except both walls are single piece – the outside wall has windows in it.

The top of the wall is a simple case of sticking crenulations onto a floor piece then adding some pegs underneath. That is it!

The only thing to note is that you will have to shave/file off any excess where the parts were attached to the sprues. If you don't the pieces may not join up snugly.

Once stacked, the joins are virtually invisible.

Your models have plenty of room to fight across the battlements.

The bonus is that the walls are as detailed inside as they are out. If you don't glue your floors together you can lift them off and take the battle indoors (although the model bases I've used won't fit through the doorways).

Another fantastic piece of kit from TW. Only one more element of the castle to go – The Gate – and then I hope to have some images of the kits together.


To be continued…