Helopolis Tower

[Roland Fricke]

Anybody have some good ideas for making the surface of the Helopolis seige tower. It was covered with iron plates to provide protection against Rhodian return fire, (literally fire - since Demetrius had the tower withdrawn when a few plates got knocked off since he was worried the tower would soon catch fire). I finished a scratch built tower but I don't have a good method for getting the surface to look like iron plates.

I tried scribing lines onto styrene sheet, cutting into strips and then gluing to alternate the edges of the plates but getting the scribe lines and the cuts to be the same every time is difficult. Commercially available styrene brick sheets are too big in scale and are rectangular. The John Warry "Warfare in the Classical World" book shows the plates as square. Are there some better methods to simulate this ?

I haven't added any catapults or ballistae - my tower only has 4 stories - the real one had 9 stories and something like 20 ballistae/catapults on it. If I can scratch built a few smallish catapults/ballistae I may but right now I want to finish the surface of the tower first. Right now it stands 3.25 inches tall and is exactly 39mm square on the base. Wish I have made it slightly smaller to show a little more ground around the base.

I'll post a photo to Chris when it's finished if I can get access to an electronic camera at work.

[Dhingis Khan]

Cut paper squares, glue them on, let dry, varnish, paint?

[Roland Fricke]

I've reduced the scale to about 1/350 to fit onto a 40x40 mm base. These squares would need to be about 2-2.5 mm square but I could stretch it. Problem would be it would take about 1200 (rough calc) squares to cover the three sides of the 3.25 high model. I think the best thing is to

A) carefully scribe lines into .005 thick styrene, carefully cut strips and glue them on. Staining will bring out the lines. Tough part will be getting even strips.
or
B) simply draw in the tiles with fine tip marker and a straigt edge. (Not as nice)

[Chris Brantley]

Here is an alternative approach.

Check out the Xyston ancient ancient galley with tower in the catalog listing at:

http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/Bazaar/xyston/xystonships.jpg

I bet you could detach the tower from the galley (if it is even attached in the first place) and have a perfect sample.

[Roland Fricke]

That photo was what got me motivated to make the model. I think I'm going to get some thin styrene and try to scribe/cut the rows of plates.

[Badger]

Before going to all of that effort, you might try contacting some of the companies that make high-end wood (basswood?) models for model railroad layouts (just find an issue of "Model Railroader" magazine) and contact them to see if they make paper shingles of a size/scale you could use. It might save you a lot of time.

Alternatively, you could find some 1/10" grid graph paper (I think that's 2.5mm, isn't it?) and then cut out the squares from that. You might want to try painting/finishing the back side of the paper before doing the cutting, of course, to save painting tiles individually! :D

[PV]

I used paper squares for the surface of my helepolis, painted them in gun metal colour, and it works. I placed a little strip of card board at the bottom, so that the first row would look slightly inclined. And worked my way up, row by row, overlaping the previous one.

[Ed Dillon]

Have you considered using chad from computer punch cards? They aren't really square, but they might be close enough. That assumes that you can find a card punch. The old IBM punches caught the chad in a bin beneath the desk, to the left side. Some had the option to punch out a lace card, which was a card with all possible spaces punched, just in case you find the bin empty...
(Ed is feeling like a dinosaur <sigh>)

[Paul A. Hannah]

Originally posted by Roland Fricke:
I'll post a photo to Chris when it's finished if I can get access to an electronic camera at work.Roland, did you ever get your scratch-built Helepolis photographed?

--He and I were chatting about this last night at our DBA Game Night. (Roland was in Seattle on a business trip.) I had entirely forgotten that there was a WWg in among the Successor armies (II/16b).

Here's that great picture in John Warry's "Warfare in the Classical World" of how it may have looked: http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/Castle/9645/Ogre/Helepolis.html

Hmmm... Looks like a fun, scratch-building project.

[Roland Fricke]

Paul,
I did finish it. Just the tower. The base is somewhat bare but I'll eventually put something on it (not like there isn't enough space). I'm going to look for some 6mm crew and ballistae to add at some later point. The elephant is a Chariot Miniatures - a very nice elephant if anyones looking.

Photos should be here.
http://members.cox.net/cgc-minis-sched/111_1163.JPG

and

http://members.cox.net/cgc-minis-sched/111_1164.JPG


I took these with the 2.0 megapixel Canon A60 in macro mode, handheld with the autofocus on.

[ March 20, 2004, 10:02: Message edited by: Roland Fricke ]

[Ed Dillon]

You can play this as a WWg or a BUA... Are you planning to bring this little beauty to Historicon?

[xeswop]

Ed,
Are you going to bring yourself to H'Con. I had your Sportsman award, renemed "Best DBA Attitutde", for you at CW, but I could not find you. Too delicate to mail.

[Paul A. Hannah]

Roland, what a great looking model. Inspirational... I'll try to resist starting in on a Helepolis, and the rest of an Asiatic Early Successor (Demetrios) army, for myself, until after Enfilade. --Gotta finish some other projects first.

[ March 22, 2004, 22:06: Message edited by: Paul A. Hannah ]

[Roland Fricke]

I may bring it to HCon - maybe for midnight madness where I like to bring armies I would not usually play. The army is Littoral which adds interest. Might have to make the littoral version that preceded the land version. Some one stop me.

After reading the link below I'm thinking I need to add a flooded/muddly ditch such as the Rhodians used to mire the Helepolis and stop its advance. Maybe add that in front on the base since the base is sort of bland.

[Paul A. Hannah]

Thanks, Chris, for creating that separate "Eye Candy" category for those wacky war-wagons. At your convenience, do please drag Roland's "Helepolis" WWg from the Camp Eye-Candy section over to your new WWg / Lit section. Thanks.

[Ivan]

Hey Paul-

Great Cyropaedic war wagon!! Very cool, certainly the best one of those I have seen.

[Paul A. Hannah]

Thanks for the kind words, Ivan. --Funny thing is that that WWg had lain half-done in my miniatures closet for easily ten years before I finally got off the proverbial dime to finish it.

The tower had had the hides painted only on two sides and only a single team of oxen pulling it. The added depth given to WWg elements, a few editions ago now, gave me the space to consider a second team. When I played around with that, it suddenly looked right and I got motivated to finish it (just before last year's ENFILADE).

Four chariot models gave their lives for the effort :D as I needed four doubletrees to hitch the teams.

But, really, Roland's Helepolis is a much more involved bit of fine modelling (heck, my tower is just four small slabs of matte-board). And, I'll bet Roland got his done in far less time, than my slothfullness in completing the Persian WWg.

[Ivan]

Let us all spend a moment in silence for the brave sacrifice of the 4 chariots.... ;)

10 years? That completely beats my 7 year record.

My two longest running projects were two of my first armies, Low Countrie and Samurai. I painted the 2 Kn elements and a Crossbow in '93, then the project lay unfinished until in '97 I finally found some Rank & File pikes and got the thing finished.

My samurai took even longer, I painted two elements in '93, and only finally got around to painting the other 10 in 2000. Then the list got changed, and I still haven't managed to paint up the two cavalry I need to make them legal again....

[Paul A. Hannah]

Roland, do you have more pics of your Helepolis (http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/eyecandy/warwagons/ww03.html), that impressive War Wagon tower in your II/16b Asiatic Early Successor army?

Django, a newcomer to the NAGS empire, was asking about how to go about building one at a DBA Game Night recently. I had two words for him: "Roland Fricke". I was actually even able to pull up a wee photo of your mighty WWg (the one above) on my BlackBerry for him. Here's hoping you have more all-around views of it for him. (The links you reference at the start of this ancient thread no longer work.) Thanks.

[Roland Fricke]

Paul,
can't find the pics but I'll take some new ones and post in a few days. The plates are actually printed from an Excel spread sheet I formatted to look like tiles and then filled in with pencil rubbing. If I find that I post it as well to you.
--RF

[Roland Fricke]

Paul,
heres a rear shot of the tower. Basically don ewith craft sticks and styrene sheet. The railings were made from fiberglass wall joint tape. I did buy some 6mm ballistae to add ar some future point.
http://members.cox.net/cgc-minis-sched/100_0153.jpg

[Paul A. Hannah]

Roland, inspired by your fine model of the same, I finally got around to starting a Helepolis Tower of my own. It is, of course, the WWg for Demetrios' army, II16b. Here are a couple, in-progress, shots of it.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0002.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0001.jpg

Posing for the photo-op on the upper deck are some old MM Macedonian staff-slingers and gastrophetoi (belly bowmen), the machine's future crew.

It's 68mm (2.75") high, and the "skirts" just push out beyond the 40mm base. I think the biggest challenge will be to depict the the metal plates, as you did so well on your model.

[Paul A. Hannah]

Got back around to this project during the good hockey games over the weekend. Here's another, in-progress update on the progress of my Helepolis model, the WWg in Demetrios' II/16b AES army.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0020.jpg

Another view here (http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0021.jpg). The unfinished ballista and crew are Mikes Models. Should be ready to roll in time for ENFILADE, but 3 weeks away.

Got any suggestions on what, if anything, to put on the open-ground area of the 40x80 base, fore or aft of the model?

[Tony Aguilar]

Got any suggestions on what, if anything, to put on the open-ground area of the 40x80 base, fore or aft of the model?

Corpses of those that got too close.

[Tony Aguilar]

For a future project I was wondering if anyone has tried using one of these?

http://i583.photobucket.com/albums/ss271/TonyAguilar/anc10013.jpg

I can only imagine that the hulls are removable leaving the tower by itself, which should be about the right size to fit on a 40x40 stand (in case the WWg get changed to that size).

Sure it is out-of-scale, but so are most camps anyway.

[Paul A. Hannah]

The recently-finished Helepolis tower I scratchbuilt for Gary Pomeroyq's "Seige of Rhodes" DBA scenario game got in plenty of action this past weekend at ENFILADE. Here are a couple of pics:

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0042.jpg


http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd69/Paul_A_Hannah/Helepolis/DSCF0040.jpg

It's crewed by Mikes Models Macedonian staff-slingers and gastrophetoi. MM Macedonians also make up the rest of the II/16b AES-Demetrios army, and the Rhodian Greeks (II/5i) in the distance.

Gary Pomeroyq created the scenario and all terrain, and said he owes the inspiration for this from the "Fall of Rome" scenarios, created by Messrs. Kuijt & Schlanger, that David Kuijt presented at ENFILADE 2008.

[Gregorius]

Hi Paul,

Very nice indeed. The overall effect is very pleasing to the eye.

Cheers,

[Hannibal Ad Portas]

The tower never got much closer to the walls of Rhodes all weekend!!! In true historical fashion, Demetrios failed in each and every attempt.

[Jeff]

Truly awesome effect. Totally love the finished product. Get it onto the fight.

Jeff

[Paul A. Hannah]

The tower never got much closer to the walls of Rhodes all weekend! In true historical fashion, Demetrios failed in each and every attempt.
True, the Helepolis was a colossal bust; it never reached the Rhodian walls all weekend, but Demetrios did stage something of a comeback on Sunday. They split the 10 games played of Gary's scenario; AES-Demetrios 5, LHG-5i-Rhodians 5.