#siege engine

Trebuchet – WIP! After weeks of working on hedges, trees and stone scatter, I wanted to challenge myself with something more precise and mechanical. So I decided to scratchbuild a medieval trebuchet, inspired by both the Lord of the Rings setting and the Games Workshop model.

Working with balsa wood was a new adventure for me. The material is soft and easy to cut, but fragile and sometimes unpredictable — I had to re-cut some parts more than once. You definitely need to learn how to use it properly and in which direction the cuts should go. Still, shaping each beam and frame piece by piece was really enjoyable. Everything is glued with PVA, an obvious choice for this kind of project. Some smaller details were made using Milliput and thin cardboard.

There’s still more to do: I need to add a chain, a sling with a stone, and then move on to painting. I’m curious how the final look will turn out once the weathering and wood tones are layered in.

It feels refreshing to build something “engineered” rather than organic. Terrain pieces like trees and rocks create atmosphere, but war machines bring a different kind of presence to the table — like something epic and heavy is about to happen and you should be prepared for everything.

💬 Question for fellow makers: do you know any good (and cheaper) substitute for balsa wood? I’d love to hear your ideas.

You got it, dude! Today You Learned about the Warwolf!

This siege engine, a trebuchet, was called 'Loup-de-Guerre', sometimes shortened to 'Ludgar' (maybe that makes sense in French?), was one of the largest of its kind. Wikipedia says it was the largest trebuchet ever built, but I don't know about that.

During the Scottish Wars of Independence, when William Wallace was in hiding, and Edward I of England had Scotland pretty much all in his grip, he besieged Stirling Castle in 1304. The Scots in the castle held out for months, but Edward had brought with him/had built a butt-ton of siege engines, including this monstrosity, which he was proud of enough to give a name.

[Note: the photo above is a reproduction. Obviously the original doesn't survive today.]

Sir William Oliphaunt, who held the castle at this point, actually surrendered before Edward shot off this thing. But Edward being, y'know, the kind of guy who drives really slow in the ultra-fast lane, decided he wasn't leaving the siege until he got to shoot the Warwolf.

So he did.

And he broke a hole in the wall of Stirling Castle.

After that, Edward I accepted the surrender of Stirling Castle.

Class act, this guy.

This sequence is depicted in the first scene of Netflix's film, The Outlaw King, about Robert the Bruce's fight against England.

The Warwolf and the Siege of Stirling Castle

After the final defeat of William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk in 1298, English King Edward I led an army across Scotland to quell the various uprisings across the country, which would take some time as Scotland was not so much a united kingdom, but a collection of Scottish clans who liked to fight a lot. In 1304 Edward and his army laid siege to Stirling Castle, the last large bastion of Scottish Rebels south of the Highlands.  Besieging Stirling Castle would prove difficult as it was one of the largest fortifications in Scotland, with thick walls, large stores of food and water, and doggedly determined defenders.

For a month the English pounded the castle with a dozen catapults and trebuchets with little effect. At first they used stone balls, then iron balls and Greek fire. They even tried explosive shells filled with a primitive form of gunpowder. Nothing seemed to work.  However, King Edward and his chief engineer had a simple solution; MOAR TREBUCHET!!!

Five carpenters and forty nine laborers began work on a mega trebuchet.  It took three months to complete the mega trebuchet, which at 400 feet tall (about 122 meters) was the largest trebuchet ever built. It could accurately hurl a 135 kg (about 300 lb) projectile 200 meters. The builders of the machine named it the “Loup de Guerre” or “The Warwolf”. Upon seeing the monster trebuchet being built, the Scots surrendered knowing that further resistance was pointless.  King Edward must have been super bummed to build the largest trebuchet in history and never use it, lame.  Not to mention with medieval logistics it was often easier to torch a trebuchet and build a new ones from scratch at the next siege rather than disassembling them, moving them, and re-assembling them somewhere else.  As my grandma once told me, never let a good siege engine go to waste.

So Edward refused the Scots surrender and bombarded the castle anyway.  They don’t call him “The Hammer of the Scots” for nothing. When he finally did accept the defenders surrender he let them all live and return home, only throwing the Scottish commander of the garrison in the Tower of London and executing the English commander who originally surrendered the castle.

Opening scene from the 2018 film “Outlaw King”