Medieval Tabletop - The Siege Project

Our gaming group often switches its current interest. Sometimes it is a little bit like a 'mode' sceme. Last summer quite some people were focused on medieval gaming but we didn't find a ruleset of our liking. I convinced them to try Battlelust from Comlumbia Games Inc. to play out some skirmishes. The system was exactly what we were looking for. Detailed but playable and flexible. We spiced it up at some points with rules from HarnMaster Gold from Kelestia Productions. As szenarios we us the many nice ones available with the bordgame series 'Cry Havoc'. Sadly it is no longer in production we could manage to find some material from shops in the web. For figures we use the brilliantly detailed 15mm medieval figures from Mirliton. We learned to know the producer at the biannual miniature fair in Kulmbach and now buy regularily from him. He has simply the best 15mm figures. His 25mm aren't as good compared to his 15's though.

At the height of our enthusiasm I decided to do something bigger for the main convention in out area. So I quickly decided to do a siege. I was clear that the castle has to be built from scratch. I would also need a lot of figures and of course some siege engines. The warriors I bought from Mirliton which I knew would be good, and I painted over 250 in quite a short time. My brother supported my and also painted some 50 figures. The engines were a lot bigger problem. I found only very few suppliers out there. I finally decided to buy Hallmark Figures which, at that time, were sold to an american company. I succeeded in getting my order delivered from Noble Miniatures UK to circumvent the vat tax. Nonetheless be warned the miniatures from Hallmark are superb but extremely expensive! The large trebuchet for example cost me about 25 € alone!! The arrival of the siege equipment was close to the convention date but in the end it worked.

Having to manage a tabletop battle with about 300 single warriors and their machines, it was quite clear that Battlelust wouldn't work as it is much to detailed for such an undertaking. So I and my friend started to dig up our old stuff and finally a friend came up with the Tactica rule book. It is an amazing booklet with falls into three parts: a ruleset for medieval field battles, one ruleset for sieges and finally also a campaign system. The siege rules were extremely simple: both figures in contact roll a d6. Some modifiers depending on figuretype (example: farmer: +0; knight: +3) and circumastances. The looser is killed and removed. OK, admitted, very less detailed but with these simple rules you achive the goal to manage a view hundred combatants on the tabletop in a few hours. Also important was that you do not have to organize your troops into units (like Warhammer, Armies of Arcana,...). Units are simply nonsense when it is about a siege! Here every single figure stand on its own. Sadly also the Tactica rules are out of print but we got two fro Caliver Books after only waiting for half a year or so. I could only recomend them with three rulesets in one book you get a whole lot back for your money.

I wanted to build a castle from scratch. I have never done somthing like that before but was very angious to do it. So where should I start? Obviously I needed a plan of the castle. That was a very small problem. In the years I have managed to get a nearly complete collection of all items published for the Harn RPG. One of the great advantages of Harn are its wondeful maps and plans. The problem was only to choose which of the many castles which were detailed to built. I finally opted for Selvos castle. Originally this castle is located on a island barly bigger then the castle itself. But to lay siege on a castle which is only accessable via a small bridge wouldn't be fun to play. On the pro side: the castle had exactly the right size and layout for my project. So I simply decided to relocate it onto dry land with a small ditch around it.

Having now the plans I needed the material. I decided to do all the battlements and walls with styropor. I would recomment not ordinary styropor but the special hard one. More expensive but also much more durable. The floors would be balsa wood and on top of everything I would modell the bricks on the walls with some modelling paste. All those materials could be found in your nearest super store for construction items. All the construction steps themselves are explained with the following pictures:

(Click on the thumbnails to get a bigger image.)

Here you see my working place. It is always a good idea to have a lot of space available. On the left you can see a styropor cutter. This is a very handy tool if you work with this material as it tends to wear of knifes very fast.

Here are the main materials, from foreground to the back:
architectural card board, hard styropor, balsa wood, normal styropor

On the right side are all other tools: knives, ruler, pens, saws, glue (ordinary white one), ...

The base walls of the battlements were cut from the thick, normal styropor. The crenelle itself has been cut from the architectural card board. To get it bent along the rounded wall small, vertical cuts were done. These cuts are later filled when the structure is aplied.

The smaller houses were cut from balsa wood. Small pieces of balsa are glued on the walls to show the timber framework.

The space between the frames is filled with modelling paste. Modell a unregulare structure to represent the wattle and dub.

The walls of the towers and buildings are cut from the hard styropor. The foam cutter with his hot wire is very valuable to cut away the windows and doors.

The diverent levels of the towers and buildings are modelled separatly. All levels are only loosly stuck on upon another. The intention is that the combat can rage also into the buildings. So you have to take them appart to put your figures into them. After the con I have also modelled the interior of the buildings :-).

OK, so here is the first picture with all the walls and buildings put together. Now the Harn fans will (hopefully) recognice the castle. What is now missing is the brick structure, the paint and the roofs.

A picture of the keep. The roofs are later covered with finished roofs from a train modelling shop. Here you can also imagine the size of the castle with the 15mm figurs in the courtyard. The castle has a diameter of about 70cm by 80cm.

When you look at the big picture you can now see the brick structure applied. All surfaces are covered with the modelling paste and the brick structure has been done with a toothpick.

The roofs of the houses are glued together from normal cardboard. The straw on the roof is modeled in the same way as the brick structure.

Ahh, the first layers of paint!
Everything is covered with a light brown base coat. The joints between the bricks are deepened by applieng a lavish wash of dark brown color. Luckily I have also an airbrush and compressor. This helps greatly with such a great area.

Finally finished!
Here you can see also the roofs for the first time. Before I took the whole project to the con I tested the play balance at home with my group.

In the foreground you can see some catapults and in the background a siege tower. In the test we used only a few figures.

At the con the siege was very well accepted. I found enough players immediatelly and choose the younger ones as cons are always a great opportunity to get fresh blood into the gaming hobby.
For all other I made some private invitations so that in the end and acouple of weekends later everyone who wanted had his part in the siege.

Finally some links relevant for this project: