Friday 14 February 2014

Siege Weapons - Catapults, Pavisses and Towers


Sometime ago I mentioned that I had managed to secure an absolute bargain on ebay, namely the purchase of a siege tower and three boxes of siege weapons. All manufactured by Zvezda. I already had one box of the siege weapons (making a grand total of four) and had constructed the catapult. It is a little small against a 28mm figure but it does the job.

 previous LINK:http://shedwars.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/an-e-bay-bargain-is-won.html


This little lot cost me £6 - bargain

 

It was only when I was clearing out the shed at the weekend that I’d realised that I hadn’t actually got round to posting the finished articles. Here they are in their full glory.

 

Four catapults, constructed and ready to go.

 
A 'battery of catapults'

These will make perfect ornaments for my castle walls.

A top a GW tower

Defence for the Keep


 

In addition to the catapults you also get some mobile pavisses. Again these are a little small for 28mm but will work if you believe hard enough – each box comes with three sets, so I have a grand total of 12 of these units.

 
9 of the 12 Pavisses

Finally we come onto the siege tower. Sadly this is a little small for my walls, however I have a cunning plan. More on this in a second. The picture below illustrates the tower against a wall of my castle (scratch built) with 28mm figures on board. I can't reduced the height of wall but could I increase the height of the tower?

 
 
 



A few weeks back I bid on a GW siege tower and rather surprisingly my bid won (£6 as well).

Although I haven’t got round to fixing this up this is as you would expect perfect in height. It is also significantly taller than the Zvezda unit – its also has much larger wheels.

 
Still needs painting

My cunning plan – put bigger wheels on the Zvezda unit. My current thinking is to purchase some mdf circular 35mm bases from the next show I visit. I’ll drill out the hub and score the bases to give the wooden plank effect. A couple of glued matchsticks for supports should create the wheels I am looking for. Adding these new whhels over the existing should lift the unit at least another couple of cm and raise the drawbridge platform closer to the height of the castle walls.

 

Fingers crossed

8 comments:

  1. They look great to me the size I wouldn't of even noticed tbh if you hadn't of mentioned it. Great job!

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  2. Perhaps ask Warbases if they could custom cut wheels for the tower?

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  3. They are excellent, look fine to me! A bargain too, what's not to like?

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  4. Proper bargain, very nice looking pieces of equipment.

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  5. That's really nice! I wouldn't have thought the 1/72 stuff would fit that well. You could also glue a slab of balsa or MDF underneath the tower and cover the additional height with an entrance ramp like on the GW model (and then put the larger wheels underneath the slab).

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  6. I would suggest standing the tower on some books or something until you get the tower to the height you want then measuring the distance from the axle to the actual board floor to get a better idea of what size wheels you want. Looks like 35mm would be better being at least 40mm to me from the photo.

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