From NoelW: The Stones of Venice : Cooke’s Crevasse: (120 points)

A stone’s throw from Hawkin’s Hill is the crooked declivity of Cooke’s Crevasse, where a small village sits, frequently rocked to sleep by the sporadic landslides and rockfalls from the cliffs that lean above it. Some buildings line the valley floor, but others, a little bolder, perch on the cliff-face itself.

Today they’re having some sort of festival or rock concert – I’m afraid I’m igneous of the nature of the celebration – they seem to celebrate rock around the clock, loud music perpetually threatening to make everyone stone deaf. In my view, they should leave no turn unstoned. Meanwhile, not a single villager is stone cold sober, with more than a couple sprawled on the sidewalk, completely stoned.

For some reason the centre-point of the festival seems to be total bullocks, as they’re pulling this elaborately decorated wagon. 

Behind it is a massive great gun, which looks so old it was probably the source of the original Big Bang.

Unfortunately my latest sergeant, Cliff, does not realise the gun is of purely ceremonial importance. In a slightly inebriated haze he lifts one of the mighty stones nearby and  proceeds to load it into the gun. Then, failing to stand well back, he lights the blue touchpaper. With a roar the size of a politician’s ego, the great stone ball shoots out to hit the great stone wall of the crevasse. There’s a landslide-like rumbling which is not, for a change, the sergeant’s stomach, and a headache of rocks tumble down.

In a few moments my sergeant becomes not only Cliff in name but very much in appearance, too.

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In 1853 John Ruskin, artist and art critic, published “The Stones of Venice” a three volume treatise on the architecture of Venice which became a significant stimulus to the movement for preserving Venetian buildings. With sea levels rising, this is of particular concern once again.

Here are my Stones of Venice.

When I was an adolescent, in the early nineteenth century, I’d often walk along Longwall Street in Oxford. It’s one of those picturesque places which feature in TV detective programmes set in the city, such as Inspector Morse, and a nice long walk which pretty much guaranteed I could be late for Morning Assembly. Along that street are a series of buildings painted in pastel colours. I used to wonder who lived there (probably rich Dons) and whether I might grow up to live in such unusual buildings (I didn’t grow up, so I’ve never lived in such a place).

When I bought TT Games Venetian buildings my research into suitable colours reminded me of those childhood walks. Many of the characterful buildings of the Burano district of Venice are painted in distinctive and varied bright or pastel colours, so that’s what I’ve plumped for. I’ve no idea how accurate this might be for the Renaissance. 

These pieces are part of my rather erratic inroads into the Italian Wars. I’d been contemplating the period for some while, working on odd pieces here and there, but largely sporadic, but became particularly keen on it after Yarkshire Gamer’s beautiful work last year.

I began the Carrochio several years ago, but I assembled it badly, gluing the banner pole the wrong way round, and breaking one of the wheels so after a little desultory painting, I gave it up. Similarly, I painted the bombard from the Perrys’ kit, but failed to assemble or paint the mantlet or the crew. So this year I decided to rebegin these pieces. I repainted the carrochio from scratch:

And I built and painted the elaborate mantlet, together with another bombard to use with it, slightly smaller than the original, but perfectly fine.

Scoring is a bit complicated, I guess. Each of the three buildings and the bridge are based on a nominal 3” x 6” x 3” block, but they’re all a little bigger than that in all three dimensions. An earlier post this year awarded the tall building paired with the bridge together 20 points.  So I’d suggest:

28mm Carrochio: 4 bullocks: 20; wagon: 10; 3 devotees: 15; flags: 1 – Total 46

28mm Bombard: 1 gun: 10; mantlet: 10; 4 crew: 20 – Total 40

28mm Buildings and bridge: about 1.6 cubes, so 32 points

TOTAL: 118 points

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You are right that this is a rather eclectic submission with bits and pieces, but they are all really good!

You also forgot to add your 30 points for the map location, so you score has been rounded up to 150 points.

As for the figures themselves, they are great with all the bright colours, as are the buildings which are simple but very effective and will really make the tabletop look alive!  Awesome work!

- ByronM


Edited by TamsinP - the location bonus points were added by mistake (this is Noel's 2nd visit to the location) and have now been removed.