Sunday, September 3, 2017

Siege Lines

I'd always thought of gabions as being an 18th and 19th century thing. But really, basket weaving is an old skill so I wasn't all that surprised to learn that gabions were used at least as far back as the Middle Ages.
Image result for wicker gabion medieval
If we found a carving showing Romans using gabions during a siege I wouldn't be surprised either. They were quite familiar with using baskets to move dirt, so it'd be the next logical step to make bigger baskets and stack them up to protect you from enemy arrows.

The wooden bases I got at Michael's a few weeks ago prompted me to finish up the Renedra gabion set I got at Hotlead. So I fixed them to bases, making two gun positions and three sets of wall to set around bigger mantlets. For the gun positions I closed the gap with a rough box made from match sticks and coffee stirrers. The inside of the box got a chunk of foam to fill it and then covered with sand.



The large mantlets are from a children's toy. The  awkward onager was cut off and the dorky shield got covered in more coffee stirrer planks.

Other mantlets are from the old RAFM Siege Equipment line, some resin cast hide pavises that I got from somewhere and more scratch built from popsicle sticks.
RAFM swinging mantlets with RAFM large bombard

RAFM mantlets

Resin pavises

Popsicle stick mantlets

Now I just need a better castle to lay siege too. Nothing too big, since I don't see the siege itself as a game, but all the actions around it; sorties, foraging expeditions, relief attempts etc. which could all be played out with Lion/Dragon Rampant.

4 comments:

  1. Useful and beautiful siege elements, well done!

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  2. A good looking set of gabions. I am about to do my first ever set so I shall pinch some of your ideas.

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  3. Hi James! Nice blog you have here!
    I'm working at a Medieval museum in Linkoping, Sweden and I'm looking for figures to our model of a fortress from 1480. The problem is the scale 1:50. Do you know where look? Our webb adress is http://lsdm.se/
    Please visit!
    Best regards Charlotta Franzén

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hi James, nice Blog you have here!
    I work at a medieval museum in Linköping, Sweden and are looking for medieval figures in scale 1:50 for a model of bishops fortress from 1480. This scale is the big problem and I wonder if you can help me. Do you know where to look? Do you perhaps have any contacts?
    Please visit our website
    http://lsdm.se/
    Best regards from Charlotta Franzén/ SODOM

    ReplyDelete