1 : The Musketeers

Anyone who has enjoyed the BBC TV series The Musketeers must have spotted the game potential of getting Captain Treville and his musketeers – our heroes, Athos, Aramis, Porthos and D’Artagnan – on the tabletop, fighting to protect King and country.

The sets built for the television series certainly got me working on sketching out ideas for model buildings. Although set in 1600s’ Paris, the series was largely filmed in the Czech Republic. In the production, Treville’s men have a headquarters called the Musketeers’ Garrison. A building frontage for this was constructed within Doksany Convent, not far from Prague. The frontage was built to form a courtyard together with convent buildings on the other three sides. The convent’s quad had been grassed over. There was no original paving for the courtyard set. The grass was very much trashed and covered over for filming – with 1600s’ looking dirt!

The Musketeers’ headquarters was quite rightly the starting point of the storyline of D’Artagnan and the Three Musketeers’ adventures. It seemed a good starting point for me, too.

My plan is to design a model of the Musketeers’ Garrison courtyard. The garrison building itself will be based on the building constructed by the set builders. The surrounding buildings will be inspired by, rather than accurately represent, the architecture of the convent buildings.

I’m going to design these models as a series of modular building frontages. The modules will be able to line streets and form courtyards. Much like how the TV sets used existing and built building frontages to create courtyards and streets.

Like the action of the series, much of the gameplay can take place outside in the courtyard areas and streets. Unlike the TV sets, though, all the upper floor rooms need to be accessible in some way to allow for interesting scenarios. Even if only for access by ladder to an open window for a valiant rescue attempt! There is an important difference, though. While some of the TV sets might have been designed to blur into the background, my miniature designs must benefit as much swashbuckling gameplay as possible!

So, I’m happy with my design brief. Now I have to get on with the build!