WSS: Sieges? - Shopping List for Starters

 I still have a couple of units to paint, but the completion of the Hessian Horse marks the Official Unofficial End of Phase One-B of my WSS Project.

Next on the agenda is to put together enough kit to add siege warfare to the period. I have siege rules (at least 2 sets, one of which is almost certainly the starting place for The Game Which Is To Come), I have fortresses in two different styles, and boxes of buildings; I have trenches and gun emplacements and all sorts - what I need now are siege artillery, gunners to man the stuff and some engineers.  

 

Bags of stuff

My WSS infantry units comprise 3 bases each; to make them suitable for siege duty, each unit needs only to give its command base the afternoon off, so they can operate on a compact frontage, without some daft wazzock riding a horse or waving a flag. You see? - I have already thought about this!

I already have numerous field guns, in national colours, with gunners in the correct uniforms glued to the stands. To try to extend this system to siege guns would be folly, so I shall go for a studied (though dirty) compromise. I shall paint up mortars and siege guns in a boringly neutral scheme - brown wood carriages, bronze barrels, black ironwork, and I shall field small gun crews, dressed variously in blue uniforms or grey uniforms, sometimes with red cuffs, who will be based singly, and will be grouped in 2s (for mortars) or 3s (for battering guns) around the non-specific guns as necessary.

One of the beauties of the 2 and 3 man crews is that I can omit the man with the rammer, which is inappropriate for a mortar and ludicrously short for a battering piece. If anyone is puzzled by the uniforms, then I shall claim that there are Dutch gunners at work, or Walloons, or possibly militia, or whatever suits the occasion. In a siege it is very clear which side each unit is on, just from their position, so the uniforms should not constitute a problem. Anyone who is still unhappy is obviously just trying to be difficult.

I'll come back to the guns themselves in a minute. I have oodles of spare gunners, some of them painted, some not. The broken ones can be converted into engineering and sapping roles, and I shall make as much use of pre-painted ones as possible.

 

Eric's home-brewed sappers (ex ECW)

I have a good number of odd officers, in odd uniforms, who can be handed out as senior engineers to all comers. Some work will be necessary to fudge together some actual engineers and sappers, but I'm off to a flying start since I have a group of converted sappers from Eric Knowles' mighty collection, which I propose to polish up a little. I don't care for the hardboard bases, so will attempt to remove them, though I fear this may risk damaging the conversions, in which case I shall stop very quickly. Gunners and engineers will be based singly. I think this will all be fine.

 

Another survivor from Eric's armies - he could be surprised to find he's an engineer

 Which brings me back to the heavy ordnance. I have a good selection of mortars of various sizes, most of them from Lancer Miniatures 20mm SYW range (which I think may be OOP now, replaced by 18mm). I have a good number of suitable biggish field guns in the pile already, which should help, but for yer actual 24pdr battering guns I need to think carefully. I have a few hefty guns, mostly 25mm Hinchliffe pieces, which are quite nice and might do the job, but I think (if I can still get them) I'll try to get 4 of the Marlburian siege gun from Miniature Figurines - catalogue number is MALA 3 - which I used to equip my Napoleonic French siege train. 

 

Minifigs MALA 3 siege guns, in use with my Napoleonic French siege train

I would also like, if they are still available, some garrison-style guns for the defenders, which are especially useful as they have a small footprint. I have 2 such guns in the spares boxes - I think they are Hinchliffe - they are not ships' guns, because ships' guns have solid wooden wheels. I'm checking these out.  

 

Hinchliffe spares - garrison guns on the left - I need a few more

I am disappointed to note that the old specialist artillery makers in 1/72 and 20mm seem to have disappeared - Finescale Factory have gone, and Art Miniaturen seem to have cut back on their more obscure artillery offerings. On the other hand, there must be a world full of guys making 3D-printed masterpieces which might be just the thing, if I only knew they were out there. That's the main reason for this post - to see if anyone has any good ideas about this 3D world. My soldiers are small 20mm - bigger than 18mm, but smaller than 1/72. I would happily use a 25mm scale model as a honking great gun, but it would have to fit the period pretty well.

Any thoughts?