I've long wanted to build an Ethiopian army for Hordes of the Things. Recently, I've been doing some research into what such an army might look like. I ended up reading about "Sebastopol", a huge mortar commisioned by Tewodros II in the 1860s.
The gun weighed 6.7 tons and could fire around half a ton of ammunition at a time! Although an indication of its power, Sebastopol's great weight was its undoing. As far as we know, it was never fired in battle. It was simply to heavy to be mobile.
A contemporary illustration
The barrel of the mortar today
A replica Sebastopol, now on a roundabout in Addis Ababa
"Sebastopol" is a strange name. It refers to a city in Crimea, but I couldn't find any information as to why a mortar was given this name. Tewodros fought against the British, who had previously besieged Sebastopol. However, this was a British victory, so the name of the weapon probably wasn't ironic or insulting.
This history is very inspiring, so I started thinking about how I would include it in my future army. It will be classed as Artillery, possibly as a General element for extra power. I imagine that as being Tewodros cheering on his creation!
I remembered I had a 28mm scale mortar I got free with some Alternative Armies figures. I checked it for scale beside some 15mm figures and it was quite accurate to the size of Sebastopol, so the conversion work began!
I added extra bands around the barrel using Milliput, then cut the base down into a square.
I used some old matchsticks to make the undercarriage
One thing became clear to me at this point :I needed wheels! This is a challenge, as spoked wheels are not easy to make from scratch. I just got a Snotling Blood Bowl team in the post today, and one part stood out to me. As you can see in the picture, the box contains spoked wheels.
I wanted to copy this part using a Milliput mould. First, I covered the wheel in some talcum powder, then I pushed it into Milliput. The powder helped me to pull the wheel out again. Once the putty hardened, I had a perfect impression of the wheel! Using talcum powder and Milliput again, I stamped out copies of the wheel on old wet pallette paper (another material Milliput won't stick to).
I'm really happy with how they turned out! But I had lots more to do before finishing the wheels. Two of Sebastopol's wheels are slightly wider than the others, so I had to use a different method. I gave sculpting them by hand a try.
I used a paint bottle lid to stamp out a circle into epoxy putty, then hollowed out the middle with a sculpting tool. I carved some wood texture into the wheel.
For the spokes, I took a toothpick and drilled evenly spaced holes around it with a pin vice. I used these to attach paper clip wire. Then I cut the wire down to size and glued the whole thing into the wheel. They took a long time to make, but I'm happy with them.
I sanded down the backs of the wheels and glued them on. They're not as straight as I'd like, but I'm really happy with how the model turned out! I put it on a 40mm square base for Hordes of the Things. Lastly, I added two matchsticks on the carriage to be more accurate to Sebastopol's shape.
I might add some chains around the wheels later, but for now the construction is done. I have a lot of other projects at the moment, but I'm looking forward to painting this one!
