Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor (Citadel Terrain)
Posted by
MortiS-the-Lost
–
MortiS-the-Lost
–
It's been a while since Citadel made something I've really wanted, but this month they did it! (please note I started writing this 2 weeks ago and since then my computer has been trying it's up-most to prevent me from getting it finished and posted) Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor are 2 new additions to the current plastic Citadel Terrain range and they look bloody nice, I will almost certainly be adding these to my terrain collection!
at £18 RRP Dreadstone Blight is the cheaper of the 2 and certainly the best value. As you can see it's the ruin of a large round tower, which would make a great addition to anyone's terrain collection but I think will be most appealing to Mordheim players.
It's a quite large, multi-level building with plenty of places to stand your miniatures in on each level. The ruined walls would provide good cover and places for for troops to hide, the stairs (which you don't see that often on terrain pieces) provide a logical way for your troops to get between the different levels, while the windows would make ideal sniping spots. What's more it's be designed to be assembled in a number of ways, so you can probably get quite a few different configurations out of the kit with little work.
The details are excellent, there's lots of little stone carvings, iron rings attached to the stone work, and skulls all over the place (check out the iron gate, skull filled arches and hour glass and book in the niche too).
The base of building has a nicely detailed magic circle, bedecked with the runes of the 8 Lores of Magic around it's edge and some kind of arcane mechanism in the middle, the baroque (almost steampunk-ish) gears of the mechanism won't be to everyone's taste but could easily be covered with a piece of plasticard if you should so wish).
Around the outside of the base are 4 plinths, which support 4 ornate buttresses on the Witchfate Tor model, but could equally be used to stand the statues from the Warhammer Chapel or LotR terrain set on or the pillars from the Arcane Ruins, to give a building a slightly different look. In fact the whole thing is very nicely detailed but for a small culvert at its base which is little more than a drain, which just lacks the detail of the rest of building and would require a little work (perhaps adding a few bars) to bring it up to standard.
Witchfate Tor is pretty much an intact version of the same building, it looks like contains many of the same components (the base is certainly the same piece and probably some of the wall pieces are the same too). At £40 RRP it does seem rather expensive, but it is a rather large piece of terrain (about twice the size of Dreadstone Blight) so your probably getting something near to your money's worth.
All of what I said above about Dreadstone Blight applies to this piece too, nice details, adaptable kit, very useful terrain piece. One of the great things I really like about Witchfate Tor is the interior detail and the fact it's been designed so you can keep the level separate to allow you to move your miniatures around inside and explore the building.
I'm not sure if I like the ornate ramparts on top of Witchfate Tor though, the individual details and features are really nice, I like the ornate crux and other empire symbols carved into the floor, I also like the arched windows and skull details, all very 'Warhammery' but it seems a bit too busy, compared to the rest of the tower.
If I get Witchfate Tor I think I'd do something a little different with the top, one thing I'm considering is fitting the ruined walls from Dreadstone Blight on top of Witchfate Tor to make a much taller ruined tower which may have once been a lot taller.
I'd also probably want to deck out the interior with HeroQuest furniture or sets from Scotia Grendel, given enough money I'd be tempted to buy 2 Witchfate Tor kits, fit one tower on top of the other to create a really huge tower and detail each floor with all different wizardly paraphernalia like Yaztromo's tower in Fighting Fantasy
In fact the components from both kits open up lots of possibilities for modelling projects. The buttresses from Witchfate Tor would for instance could be used along with parts from the Warhammer Chapel and other bits to make a Sigmarite cathedral, the base could be used with the pillars from the Arcane Ruins to make a round variant, the magic circle would make a nice bit of dungeon terrain (if it comes separate), the walls would be a useful starting point for a round room for a 3D dungeon or any kind of round structure. Although I have built 1 or 2 castles out of various sizes of cardboard tubes in my time, In my experience round buildings like this are pretty hard scratch build, especially if you want to do a detailed interior. Also the brickwork kinda reminds me of Citadel's Ruins of Osgiliath, which could work quite well with Dreadstone Blight to make the ruins of a square building with a round tower.
As usual with my reviews I'm going to show you a few similar alternative products, but to be honest there's not that much out there that's particularly similar to these sets so all I really have to show you are the Round Tower casting kits from Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture
Because terrain made using the Hirst Arts is practically built brick by brick and you can cast as many parts as you like, the kits are very customisable, you can build a round tower of any hight and even make a ruined version very much like Dreadstone Blight with no difficulty at all. The mould are quite expensive for what they are, but after you've built a few buildings they pay for themselves. The only down side to Hirst Arts is the vast amount of time involved, not only in constructing a building brick by brick, but also in casting enough part to build something of a reasonable size
at £18 RRP Dreadstone Blight is the cheaper of the 2 and certainly the best value. As you can see it's the ruin of a large round tower, which would make a great addition to anyone's terrain collection but I think will be most appealing to Mordheim players.
It's a quite large, multi-level building with plenty of places to stand your miniatures in on each level. The ruined walls would provide good cover and places for for troops to hide, the stairs (which you don't see that often on terrain pieces) provide a logical way for your troops to get between the different levels, while the windows would make ideal sniping spots. What's more it's be designed to be assembled in a number of ways, so you can probably get quite a few different configurations out of the kit with little work.
The details are excellent, there's lots of little stone carvings, iron rings attached to the stone work, and skulls all over the place (check out the iron gate, skull filled arches and hour glass and book in the niche too).
The base of building has a nicely detailed magic circle, bedecked with the runes of the 8 Lores of Magic around it's edge and some kind of arcane mechanism in the middle, the baroque (almost steampunk-ish) gears of the mechanism won't be to everyone's taste but could easily be covered with a piece of plasticard if you should so wish).
Around the outside of the base are 4 plinths, which support 4 ornate buttresses on the Witchfate Tor model, but could equally be used to stand the statues from the Warhammer Chapel or LotR terrain set on or the pillars from the Arcane Ruins, to give a building a slightly different look. In fact the whole thing is very nicely detailed but for a small culvert at its base which is little more than a drain, which just lacks the detail of the rest of building and would require a little work (perhaps adding a few bars) to bring it up to standard.
Witchfate Tor is pretty much an intact version of the same building, it looks like contains many of the same components (the base is certainly the same piece and probably some of the wall pieces are the same too). At £40 RRP it does seem rather expensive, but it is a rather large piece of terrain (about twice the size of Dreadstone Blight) so your probably getting something near to your money's worth.
All of what I said above about Dreadstone Blight applies to this piece too, nice details, adaptable kit, very useful terrain piece. One of the great things I really like about Witchfate Tor is the interior detail and the fact it's been designed so you can keep the level separate to allow you to move your miniatures around inside and explore the building.
I'm not sure if I like the ornate ramparts on top of Witchfate Tor though, the individual details and features are really nice, I like the ornate crux and other empire symbols carved into the floor, I also like the arched windows and skull details, all very 'Warhammery' but it seems a bit too busy, compared to the rest of the tower.
If I get Witchfate Tor I think I'd do something a little different with the top, one thing I'm considering is fitting the ruined walls from Dreadstone Blight on top of Witchfate Tor to make a much taller ruined tower which may have once been a lot taller.
I'd also probably want to deck out the interior with HeroQuest furniture or sets from Scotia Grendel, given enough money I'd be tempted to buy 2 Witchfate Tor kits, fit one tower on top of the other to create a really huge tower and detail each floor with all different wizardly paraphernalia like Yaztromo's tower in Fighting Fantasy
In fact the components from both kits open up lots of possibilities for modelling projects. The buttresses from Witchfate Tor would for instance could be used along with parts from the Warhammer Chapel and other bits to make a Sigmarite cathedral, the base could be used with the pillars from the Arcane Ruins to make a round variant, the magic circle would make a nice bit of dungeon terrain (if it comes separate), the walls would be a useful starting point for a round room for a 3D dungeon or any kind of round structure. Although I have built 1 or 2 castles out of various sizes of cardboard tubes in my time, In my experience round buildings like this are pretty hard scratch build, especially if you want to do a detailed interior. Also the brickwork kinda reminds me of Citadel's Ruins of Osgiliath, which could work quite well with Dreadstone Blight to make the ruins of a square building with a round tower.
As usual with my reviews I'm going to show you a few similar alternative products, but to be honest there's not that much out there that's particularly similar to these sets so all I really have to show you are the Round Tower casting kits from Hirst Arts Fantasy Architecture
Because terrain made using the Hirst Arts is practically built brick by brick and you can cast as many parts as you like, the kits are very customisable, you can build a round tower of any hight and even make a ruined version very much like Dreadstone Blight with no difficulty at all. The mould are quite expensive for what they are, but after you've built a few buildings they pay for themselves. The only down side to Hirst Arts is the vast amount of time involved, not only in constructing a building brick by brick, but also in casting enough part to build something of a reasonable size
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Re: Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor (Citadel Terrain)
Re: Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor (Citadel Terrain)
Re: Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor (Citadel Terrain)
Re: Dreadstone Blight and Witchfate Tor (Citadel Terrain)