Building a Harbor

Black Seas from Warlord Games is a 1:700 scale Age of Sail wargame, and Warlord produces some beautiful ships to sail on the high seas. Great looking miniatures deserve great looking terrain, so we decided to create a harbor - mostly scratch built with a few commercially available scale building models.

The harbor started with just an idea of what a harbor from that era may look like, and we wanted to include certain design elements: lighthouse, Martello Tower, a trading area and governor's house plus vegetation and palm trees.

Next, planks were carved into the base to make the docks look as if they were made of wood, and a basecoat of paint was applied to all four sections of the harbor. Terrain pieces were temporarily placed to help finalize the layout.

Some foam was used to make slight elevation changes, and then trees and flock were added to create the natural look of the harbor. Since this is a wargaming piece, the flock was added by applying white glue, then the flock, and finally coated with a sprayed-on coating of matte medium to help lock everything in place.

Below are some photos of the finished harbor on the game table.