Bombardment of Impracticality!

Continuing in the trend of building artillery pieces for Kings of War which, in game terms, are hugely impractical, but which, in visual terms, are absolutely sublime, this week I put together a Bombard...

The problem with Kings of War as I see it, is that despite the nice mechanics, quick play and enjoyable game experience, they have vastly underestimated the base sizes for artillery pieces. In the Kings of War rules book they declare blithely that so-called war engines and monsters should be based on 50mm squares. Bah! Obscene! The rules at this point (the second page of the rules book), are a willful desecration of all that is good in the world. Now, it does, and I say this grudgingly, improve. But that 50mm square business is like an ice-cold shard of tungsten lodged in the eye. One can't just ignore it. One can't see around it. In order to sate the insanity of this rule one needs to start looking at 6mm scale artillery. I can only think that the rules designer, one Mr Cavatore, had a moment of madness and that the thought, later, of rewriting it would force him to look that madness in the eye again and perhaps succumb, and he just couldn't do it. I can, perhaps, forgive him that.

However, I won't pretend for a moment it's ok, people have been flogged for less, but I don't intend to petition Mantic on the subject at this stage, and continuing in this vein will see us on to a blog post of unprecedented length, so... Leaving aside the madness-induced, Necronomicon-inspired, cavalier attitude toward artillery base sizes for just a moment...

Last time we touched on the subject of Artillery and Kings of War I was writing about assembling the hugely impractical but monumentally impressive Trebuchet, from Gripping Beast. This time around the artillery piece in question also required a special base, though not quite so large, and is also impractical. It is the War of the Roses era Bombard, from Perry Miniatures.

It arrived in a rather small box, and my immediate reaction was, 'What ho? The Perrys seem to have contrived to paint me a fool! I thought this bombard was impressively impractical in size!' Despite, however, the diminutive nature of the box, and the number of exclamation marks in my reaction, I turned out to have underestimated the Perrys.

Bombard, replete with crew and mantlet. No, I shouldn't have glued it all down, but my impetuosity got the better of me and once the cap was off the glue there was no turning back.

All the figures are 28mm scale, and the base is something like 60 x 210 mm. Tis a thing to be feared...

The mantlet was so agonizing to put together (it kept collapsing around me), that it very nearly suffered a Terrible Fate. I endured, and with a dozen random items to prop it in place, so did the mantlet... 

The figure at the back is simply admiring the vast worth of such an impressive instigator of impairment.

Trebuchet, bombard and single 28mm scale crossbowman for comparison.

It is a fine model, impractical yes, but a good looking piece of kit for all that. It was a clean cast and easy enough to put together, though I did scratch my head a few times to work out where all the bracing pieces went. The manlet was the only thing that caused me grief, but endurance, pure will-power and a bottle of absinthe later and it's done, the grief forgotten. Next time I'll endeavor to write about the few artillery pieces I did buy that actually fit on the insanely tiny bases demanded by the brilliant, but mad, Mr Cavatore.