Hello everyone!

Since launching our Desert Guard tower using our own funding sources and having successfully sold the tower to many customers around the world, it is now time to let the world know that our next project's sculpting is complete and we are ready to tell everyone the details about it.

I am very happy to announce that Steepled Hat Studios is moving one step closer to launching its next major product. We've been working for some time on this one and we're pleased to share with you the results of our hard work. Here's the latest of our current WIP: The Barbarian's Farmstead.

Our current project goal is to produce a simple, practical farmstead - one that can be used for those interested in wargaming in the Iron Ages as well as a myriad of other historical and fantasy settings. The project's content consists of a simple wattle and daub walled hut with a thatched roof. In addition there will be options to add a wooden granary and wattle fence section.

We have designed these buildings based on the homes that dwellers from rustic settlements of the Iron Age populated. However, we feel that such buildings could easily be used for many different groups of people and cover a variety of eras throughout the ages. Dark age settlements could easily make use of these building methods to create similar looking farmsteads. There are still tribal groups today making use of the same techniques to make homes and structures and wattling is still practiced throughout many parts of the world, and thus these structures could be used for many scenarios covering ancient up to modern times!

And, since we also support T9A it should go without saying that these farmsteads make perfect homes for fantasy world peasants as well as your more wild folk such as chaotic barbarian tribesmen or fierce northmen of the Wastelands. The way we've designed these structures allow for a plethora of different uses and we believe that our creations can easily be used in both Fantasy and Historical settings.

So without further ado, here is where we are at with the project's sculpting. Please note that these are still WIP and the odd bit, piece, and sizes are subject to change. We are working on producing our first resin cast pieces and their images should be released soon as well.

The Barbarian Round House

For centuries the round house was used (and is still used!) as the primary housing for many tribal groups all across Europe and many other places in the world! Made of wattle and daub, Iron Age Round houses like this were commonplace, especially in ancient Briton.

Our round house will be cast in one piece. It will be light and hollow inside. This allows for ease of storage and transport. It has a generic boarded door and a tall thatched roof. There are no windows! Although designed with inspiration from Iron Age Briton and Celtic homes this hut can easily be used to represent the homes of other historical peoples, such as those found in Africa or other parts of Dark Age Europe. It can also be used to represent Fantasy Barbarian hovels.

Size wise, the hut currently stands at roughly 11-12 cm tall and has a diameter of about 12-13 cm. The sculpted figure seen in front of the door in the above picture stands at about 30 cm from base to head.

The Granary

If you are going to have livestock wandering around your farmstead and need to feed them or harvest grains of all sorts you are going to need a way to store all of the grown plants that you have sown. This is where structures like the granary come into play. Granaries have come in a variety of shapes and styles throughout the ages and are an absolute essential for storing animal feed.

The granary we want to produce is based off of the Iron Age raised variant. Standing on four legs, made of wooden boards, and containing a thatched roof, you will not have to worry about water damaging your harvest nor water ruining your corn!

For its current dimensions, the granary is about 8 cm tall, and sits on a 7 cm diameter base.

Wattle Fences and Gate

Wattle fences have been weaved (wattled) together to box in livestock since neolithic times! These organic fences are a perfect addition for the Iron Age farmstead and easily fit in with all eras and settings of wargaming.

We plan to make our wattle fence set in three pieces - a gate, a wall, and a corner piece. Each piece has a sculpted mound of earth at the base. Our fence posts were made to be impressive and tall, and the actual wattle itself sits fairly high. We want to keep the toughest of beasts in their confinement and force the enemy to have to work their way through these fences if they try to invade!

The gate, corner, and wall piece are all simple modular pieces that can be moved and placed about in any amount or shape that one wishes. By placing repeating pieces next to each other one could make quite the impressive wall, but we plan to release a minimum of 10 pieces in a set to give a decent size to the fenced off area. This of course can be increased and modified by getting more pieces!

The gate piece and the wall piece are about 2 inches long, while each length of the corner is roughly an inch. The tallest posts on the wall rise up to about 2.5 cm.. but the actual wattling itself only reaches about 2 cm tall, allowing 25 and 28mm figures to easily see over the fence!



Pledges

So how much will this cost ye pledge wise?

We are still in the process of deciding on favorable and affordable prices and shipping costs for these structures. For now we are simply grouping together the finished sculpts in their current forms and sharing them with the fantasy and historical miniature wargaming communities, like T9A, to get some feedback as well as announce our planned Kickstarter campaign early on before it begins. If our Kickstarter funding is successful we plan to release fully painted, poly-resin structures that can be used immediately upon opening their packaging (The option for supplying this terrain pieces without the paint job for backers who wish to paint the farmstead in their own way is also being considered!).

We will be combining a combination of these items in more than three simple pledges. It would be silly to offer only the round house, fence pieces, and granary as separate individual choices. There will be the option to choose pledges that allow one up to all of the items included in this kickstarter (so you can choose only the Round House if you only want a Round house... or the Round House and the Fences if you wish, and are not in anyway required to get the Granary if it doesn't interest you! There will be a few combinations for one to choose!)

The funding goal involved in this Kickstarter will be used to cover any shipping, casting, production, sculpting, painting, Kickstarter fees, and other costs involved with packaging and preparing these miniatures. We have a minimum amount of each piece in mind that we plan to produce and are working with the same people who helped design our Desert Guard Tower. We are a very small team, but we have access and connections to sculptors, painters, and casters that regularly mass produce all sorts of high quality resin pieces.

We will update pledge amounts, types, and funding goals as soon as we are able.. but just to give you all an idea of what the retail prices will be like - we currently offer our Desert Guard Tower for 35.99 Canadian on Etsy. On top of that there is a 20-25 dollar shipping fee to most places in the world (many international locations do not get tracking). On eBay our tower is being sold for 67.00 , which includes the shipping fee (and we have a great sale on right now! The tower is only about 53-54 Canadian!)...
So.. since this is Kickstarter, we're planning to give all backers a better deal than the retail price we'd roll with normally! And as these pieces are smaller and lighter than the Desert Guard Tower we are of course, expecting cheaper prices!

To see what we're currently selling, please check out these links below!

etsy.com/ca/listing/619200577/…rrain-desert-empire-guard

ebay.ca/itm/Desert-Guard-Tower…4ccc2a:g:XWQAAOSw0rRbe7IO



Stretch Goals? Add-Ons? Challenges?

Yes! We are also considering Stretch Goals and Add-Ons as well. The only challenging thing about these two categories is the time involved with producing any additional content. We have quite a few little extra pieces on the drawing board that we think would make our little farmsteads look absolutely complete, but we are still in discussions about these pieces and they would most likely be given as concepts during the Kickstarter and sculpted once certain stretch goals are met.

As for overall challenges, the hardest part about this will be time management. Depending on how many backers and pledges we get the fulfillment time and amount of actual time needed to create all of these products will vary. For now we have not yet announced a deadline for all these products, but that too should be more clear to us too once the first resin castings and painting is all complete.


That is all for now! Please feel free to ask any questions or discuss anything you'd like to say! And we would be eternally grateful if any of you could also help spread the word about our project! The more people that know, the more likely we are to launch the Barbarian Farmstead!

Best Regards and thanks to all of you!

Those look nice. How do they compare size wise with the Hovel Celtic farmstead?