Constructing a Medieval Bombard on the Cheap

While I have purchased a few of the Zvezda medieval artillery kits, and a few others, the relative high price and fiddly-ness of some of them had inspired me to try and create my own - and I am happy to say I have had some success. Very much inspired by Paul of Paul's Bods (my efforts fall far short of his craftsmanship, as does my photography) I feel they will work just fine on my wargames table.

I began at the local hobby store, where I found some very small wood thread spools and related bits and pieces, usually bagged, these can be purchased ata relatively cheap price and a couple bags will furnish a fairly substantial artillery park. I glued these together to make two different sizes of cannon, one "large" and the other "very large" and added bits of matchstick to create some type of supportive framework or cradle.

At the time, ha had no dedicated artillery crews, so I simply utilized some Airfix Robin Hood figures and an old Giant knight recast that I had available. One of the Airfix had his staff converted to a ram, the other had weapons removed and looks as if he may be directing fire, and the knight's lance was removed except for the left-hand extension, to which I added a small gob of something and painted it to look like fire.

The photos may not do full justice to the finished piece, and I have detailed them a little further, but I am quite happy with the results so far. I expect them to be quite useful against castle walls...