The Siege

I might have pushed it a bit too far this time, but here it is: the result of playing too much AOE II, combined with watching too many 90’s action adventure movies starring Sean Connery, Kevin Costner, Richard Gere and Mel Gibson.

This truly is a Paint Stick War in every sense of the word. I got a little carried away with the depth of the scene tho, resulting in two empty strips of land. But hey it’s still perfectly realistic…

It’s basically a base assault, or rather a castle siege (hence the title “The Siege”, not to be confused with a totally non-related movie)

The scene is really detailed, so you might want to zoom in from time to time (CTRL + scroll). 

Technically this one doesn’t differ much from Gang vs. cops, except that it has much more depth in it, so there’s a lot more going on.

I like the result but after I did the awesome catapult, I just got bored and decided not to draw 50 more sticks.

Enjoy!

The fields will run red today...

Starting from the left, you see the southern tower. The towers both have small catapults on them for delivering long range mayhem. What’s that you say? Where are the ropes and pulley systems for the catapults?! They’re inside the tower, deal with it. The southern tower is also damaged as you can see. (realism +1)

The ramparts are manned by stick archers firing flaming arrows. You can see one of them trying to light his arrow.

Some stick archers are running up the stairs to join in on the killing. It must be fun up there with a complete lack of returning fire, just like shooting ducks in a barrel!

Down on the battlefield I used my extensive movie knowledge to incorporate some classic sword fighting moves! Let’s go over them, starting from the top.

There’s the epic face-to-face power struggle. You need both hands for this shit, so the stick men wisely threw down their shields. You can actually hear the steel grinding. (no you can't)

Next we have some stick guys charging on the defenders, nothing special really.

The epic sword-in-the-air-die-move! This guy is dying and he’s not afraid to show it, probably yelling something in his crazy native tongue.

My personal favorite: the stab-‘n-stick. When stabbing an opponent, there is no cooler way to draw back your sword then by holding the victim down with your bloodstained boot and just pulling back your blade. This badass move is usually executed by the “bad guy”.

The head slicer. Only highly skilled stick knights can execute this awesome move. It takes years of training, excellent timing and the strength of a bear to decapitate the opponent’s head in one swing. Lots of blood!

A standard sword thrust catches one of the attackers off guard. Drop your guard just once and before you can say “What is this I don’t even…” your guts are on the floor!

The berserker I just had to draw, wielding two swords, no armor, this ego tripping maniac is ready to kick some ass! Standing safely behind his fellow knights…

In the middle some attackers are dealing with the constant barrage of fiery arrows, each one in their own special way.

When attempting to take a stronghold, some things are just vital for success. There’s the low tech, yet effective, siege ladder. It can make or break the siege as we saw in numerous movies. Once the attackers are able to take control of the ramparts and the gate, the battle is lost, and the looting and raping begins.

The siege ram and catapult took me right back to Age of Empires II. You can see the siege ram is covered by animal skin (yeah, that’s what that is). The arrows don’t really do any damage, but the tower mounted catapult does. It just missed by a few feet, only to annihilate some poor bystander… (these guys are hardcore! Just standing by while their brother-in-arms dies a horrible death…)

The catapult, now there’s a work to be proud of! Doesn’t it look mind numbingly awesome? The guards, the stick turning the wheel thingy, the “watcher” ready to light the projectiles, the poor stick loading the 50 pound projectiles. They’re trying to take out the southern tower by the way.

There’s also a king… whatever.

Can you spot them?

There’s a stick smoking somewhere…

There’s a spy somewhere…

Well that’s it! My money’s on the defenders for this one.

The defending knights will fall or retreat after doing some damage. The archers will probably wipe out the attacking knights, while the towers take out the siege engines.

Perhaps the spy can even take out the king. He might have a blowgun or something, who knows…

Spread the wars.

HardAtWork