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.

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.