Gabions for Blood & Plunder – Fortifications

/ scarygator

Last Updated on January 10, 2024

I was recently pondering on something to craft for the terrain category in the upcoming Great Pirate Paint Off, when I found some plastic gabions that I had purchased a while ago. When I first purchased them I originally wanted to use them for English siege fortifications. In 1702 the English used them to protect sappers attempting to attack Castillo de San Marcos in St. Augustine, Florida. Gabions were used as a common impromptu fortification tool during the period, so these models will be useful in a wide variety of settings in Blood and Plunder.

Gabion Models from Renedra

For this project, I used Renedra Plastic Gabions. It comes with 2 sprues and is a simple hard plastic kit. Each gabion comes in 3 pieces and you can use plastic glue or super glue to assemble them. Some of these kits are sold specifically for miniature games set in the American Civil War, but gabion technology had changed very little between the periods, so these will also look at home in the 17th or 18th century.

Crafting a Base for the Gabion Fortification

The base material I chose was PVC foam board. It is soft enough to be cut with a knife, and won’t warp. I can’t recommend it enough for terrain bases. You can buy it from the big box home improvement stores. I’ve also heard you can look for a sign printing shop and ask for scraps.  I used wood coffee stirrers for my wood planking and retaining wall. I’ve always thought that these are the perfect size for our scale. I use craft acrylic paint for to paint the gabions and the base. Once that was finished, I covered the tops of the gabions in superglue and sprinkled some tiny rocks in it to make it look like they are actually full of earth and rocks.

Once everything had a satisfactory coat and the paint and the glue was dry, I used a brown shade on the wood bits to stain them and to shade the gabions.

Coastal Florida is pretty sandy, so I covered the base with watered-down PVA glue and sprinkled sand over it. After that was dry, I used the same method to add some patches of grass and rocks in random areas. Lastly, I glued down some grass tufts using PVA. 

Using Gabions in Blood & Plunder

The gun emplacement on page 66 of Fire on the Frontier is what I plan to use this terrain piece to represent. It allows you to add one artillery piece to your list, and with the reinforced floor trait allows a heavy cannon to be mounted. The gabions themselves don’t have specific rules, but I would categorize them as Hard Cover in a normal game.

Final Thoughts

This is an eye-catching and useful fortification for Blood & Plunder. I think it adds variety and historical flavor to the tabletop for minimal modeling effort. So grab some gabions for your table today and lay siege to your nearest Stone Fort!

Additional Reading

Leave a Reply