Mortar and crew, Bicorne Miniatures

I picked up this pack (Code: BIC-ECWG018 - Mortar & 3 crew) at the Alumwell show (WMMS) earlier in the year, it consists of the mortar and three crew but not the barrel. The set is nicely cast and is easy to paint up.

The plastic barrel is from Renedra. The slightly dodgy joint lines which I've tried to cover over with greenstuff. g greenstuff I made the leather bag from greenstuff.

Roaring Meg

I had assumed the model was based on the only surviving large period mortar, know as Roaring Meg, which is currently on display inside Goodrich Castle. I now think it is based on the cover of Osprey's 'English Civil War Artillery 1642-1651' book and that the illustration was based on the original piece. The figures look very similar to the Oprey book.

Siege Sap, scratchbuilt - Part 1 of 2

These two posts will detail models I've made to represent a sap and a mine entrance for my historical games. Until I make (if ever) a form of trench system (and work out rules for siege warfare at a skirmish level) then I will probably use these as objective markers with medieval and English Civil War (ECW) games, hence the labels.

An interesting approach to siege rules can be found at the following blog, details here: [Siege Testing]

This form of siege work was often used to advance a trench so that mortars could brought into use against heavily defended fortifications, such as a castle. Once mortars were within effective range castle garrisons normally quickly surrendered as there was no real defense against such weapons, as witnessed at the siege of [Goodrich Castle]. I will detail a model mortar in a future post). 

The base for both models is simply a CD with 20mm thick extruded Styrofoam (or Blue Foam as most people seem to call it) glued onto it.

The sap was cut out with a sharp craft knife and lined with horizontal coffee stirrers and vertical barbeque sticks. Gaps in the foam were filled in with DAS white modelling clay.

Sap work from the enemies point of view.

The figure is from Wargames Foundry. 

The gabions, from Renedra Ltd, were placed along the top of the sap. This is based upon an illustrations (link below) that shows the practical way to dig a siege work and remain relatively safe.

The Attack of Fortresses

Sap

To achieve the same look I added the wicker base of the horizontal lying gabion using greenstuff.