Start of a Roman camp with Principia

[Timotheos]

I've begun work on a Roman camp complete with Principia.

The effort was immediately humbling: I underestimated the scale of a Roman camp (basically a small city) and assumed I'd have the same freedom as I did with my Sheffield manor, which I could fit, fully proportional, on a table.

I've had to settle for a lot of compromises, including assuming most of the camp is hidden off table.

My principia is coming along not bad, but I'm hitting a problem with steck (jagged top pieces).

In this case, I concede that System X would be the better building material.  At the minimum, it would give me a smooth top that looked better if I chose not to support a roof. 

So, I'm weighing whether to migrate the principia to System X on the installment plan.  I bought most of my steck at 50% discount from PM USA, so a full System X upgrade seems a little painful--to consider a single wall composed from six units alone can cost $24 from DS. 

I may still redesign the principia.  A design concession I made was to exclude the atrium that opens to the front door.  Yet, this would look very nice (but not in steck!). 

-Tim

[Jimbo]

 :wow:Great construction job on your Principia!
Now I must look up "Principa", never to old to learn .
Thanks for sharing, Tim.

Best regards,
Jimbo

[Justindo]

You're right in that a true to scale Playmobil legionary fortress would be HUGE, easily the size of a city, as it would have to house 5,000 klickies!  Even an auxiliary fort would be large having to house a cohort of 500 or more klickies.  A fortlet housing a century would be much more manageable yet still challenging and fun.

So far your fortress looks great with everything looking very authentic considering what you have to work with with Playmobil.  Only the scale is off, as the principia is too close to the walls, but that's hard to change unless you have gigantic tables and loads of Steck pieces. 

Regarding System X, I'm not sure it would yield a better result for the principia.

[Timotheos]

Hi Justin,
Yes, you're dead on about the Principia being too close to the wall.  That's another design compromise I'm struggling with.  I created the trench effect for my medieval manor and taped the foam sheets down.  I may have to untape them and scoot the camp forward a few feet.

To Jimbo:
The Principia is the command headquarters of the Roman camp.  The officers conducted business there, and salaries were distributed to the soldiers from it.  In my picture, the klunky extension from the back is supposed to represent the shrine for the emperor's statue and the legion's standards.  Hopefully, once everything is cleaned up and the furnishings are put in, it will look more attractive.

I originally wanted also to fit the hospital in!  Now, I'll be lucky to squeeze one barracks and one stables in!

-Tim

You're right in that a true to scale Playmobil legionary fortress would be HUGE, easily the size of a city, as it would have to house 5,000 klickies!  Even an auxiliary fort would be large having to house a cohort of 500 or more klickies.  A fortlet housing a century would be much more manageable yet still challenging and fun.

So far your fortress looks great with everything looking very authentic considering what you have to work with with Playmobil.  Only the scale is off, as the principia is too close to the walls, but that's hard to change unless you have gigantic tables and loads of Steck pieces. 

Regarding System X, I'm not sure it would yield a better result for the principia.

[Timotheos]

Here's the latest.

I restored the atrium to the Principia but narrowed the cross hall by one unit.  The Tudor style roofs look a little cornball, but better than without the roof.  The three white frameworks beside it are barracks.  A lot of the barracks I see in books are subdivided like that into smaller rooms.  Each billet has a table in the foreroom, then one or more beds in the small backroom. 

In the next three months, I should have the furniture in place.

I had to make a lot of design compromises.  It's an "artistic challenge" to figure out what captures the essence of a building, then prune the rest!

-Tim

[Justindo]

The castra looks much better with the roofs on.  Although with the dormers aren't authentic, the red tile roofs and the wooden framework with plaster is, which compensates.  When unadorned, the structure could look like a Tudor manor house, but when you add the legionaries, auxiliaries, and other Roman props (the statues from the arena and perhaps a fountain?), it's believably Roman.  Interspersing the Roman columns in strategic locations would further strengthen the Roman impression too. 

It is indeed a challenge to make Roman structures look authentic when working with late medieval parts, but I think your results are excellent.

[cachalote]

  great work tim.
the roofs are really a problem - roman used quite different tiles and quite different inclination angles (more flattned).

[Martin Milner]

Those very steep roofs don't appear in the UK either - they're really for countries where a heavy snow load might break the roof, so the angle helps the snow slide off at the least encouragement.

Rome doesn't get that much snow, I'm guessing.

[playmofire]

One thing I've learnt (almost!) with Playmobil is not to get too hung up on authenticity.  Your principia looks great and as Justindo says, once the Roman legionnaires are in place (and some civilians) everything falls into place because the overall effect looks right.

I found this picture of a Roman building on The Museum of London website (http://www.museumoflondon.org.uk/museumoflondon) which shows you're not too far off accuracy.

[cachalote]

  i don't know playmofire, but the picture looks more to me like depicting buildings from a nazi concentration camps...
  if you look closely, there are even some horizontal tiling in the second buiding and what seems to be two metelic roofs.
  maybe museumoflondon should hire a new drafstman...