The Wulfenskul Catapult

By John Kadolph

One of the tasks that I engaged upon at Space City Con 2012, in Houston, Texas, was to reach out to other vendors, craftsmen, and artists. In doing so, I was happy to meet Blackwolf and Skully of Wulfenskul Designs from Katy, Texas. Wulfenskul had the most amazing-looking wooden miniature scale catapults I had seen to date. Through some collaboration, I negotiated with Wulfenskul to playtest their catapults with Skirmisher Publishing LLC’s Little Orc Wars demo game. 

By John Kadolph

One of the tasks that I engaged upon at Space City Con 2012, in Houston, Texas, was to reach out to other vendors, craftsmen, and artists. In doing so, I was happy to meet Blackwolf and Skully of Wulfenskul Designs from Katy, Texas. Wulfenskul had the most amazing-looking wooden miniature scale catapults I had seen to date. Through some collaboration, I negotiated with Wulfenskul to playtest their catapults with Skirmisher Publishing LLC’s Little Orc Wars demo game. 

Wulfenskul graciously gave one of their catapults to Skirmisher Publishing editor-in-chief Michael O. Varhola to test with Little Orc Wars for the remainder of the weekend. The catapult was one finely stained and smooth model. It measures about 150mm from front to back and 100mm side to side with a throwing arm 150mm long and is 150mm tall overall. It operates by making use of a single rubber band and is a stationary unit. The throwing arm is uniquely crafted and finely sanded and finished into what I would call “sexy” curves. The basket is narrow and measures 11mm across. 

The Skirmisher demo team decided to place the Wulfenskul catapult into a stationary position atop the mountain on the side of the Orcs for testing. 

I have been playtesting different materials for use as “shot” for the catapults, and at Space City Con was using oddly-shaped plastic boulders, which proved to work quite well. Although the basket of the Wulfenskul catapult is narrow, neither the demo team nor the players had much trouble keeping the shot in place and firing it. In fact, the firing motion of the Wulfenskul catapult, along with its triangularly-designed body made it quite easy to draw back the basket, support the unit, and fire. 

For testing purposes for this review, I was firing the catapult on a tight carpeted floor in my home. I fired twenty shots and measured the results. 

When fired from ground level, the average height of the trajectory of the shot was between two and three feet and produced a beautiful arc, which is very authentic looking and dynamic. The arc height seemed to be slightly affected by the manner in which the catapult was supported; the distance was affected similarly. The shot would fall an average of nine feet from the catapult with one rubber band used and would roll from one to three feet after a four to six inch hop. The distance and arc would increase by adding rubber bands, but seemed to do the trick as built. During the test, I broke a rubber band which was after approximately 50-70 shots of prior use. 

The Wulfenskul Catapult is a sharp looking and accurate miniature siege engine and is fun to fire. In my opinion, the Wulfenskul Catapult makes a great addition to Little Orc Wars and should be considered an “endorsed product” for use with the game by Skirmisher Publishing. 

At Space City Con 2012, I was able to speak with Blackwulf and Skully about their design and suggested that they put together some kits for their catapults. Since Little Orc Wars is based upon H.G. Wells’ Little Wars, which originally encouraged the building of siege engines and other components of the game, I thought this would be a unique way to incorporate the Wulfenskul Catapult for those players wishing to use the original game concept. If possible, this author will try to obtain one of Wulfenskul’s catapult kits and review that for a future article. 

About Little Orc Wars 
In August, Skirmisher Publishing attended the very first Space City Con in Houston, Texas. This fledgling convention hosted some great events and wonderful guests. Michael Varhola, CEO of Skirmisher Publishing being one of the guest authors, hosted a panel to promote the new Swords of Kos: Necropolis novel and RPG soon to be a successful new open-design campaign setting. 

One of the tasks John F. Kadolph of Skirmisher Publishing had over the weekend was to oversee, along with Glen Yarbrough, the playtesting and demonstration of Skirmisher’s upcoming floor game Little Orc Wars (LOW). This is a massive, on-floor, live-fire miniature wargame involving great armies of Orcs and Humans, Elves and Dwarves, Beasts and Giants. All of these are brought to life through the imaginations, strategies and live-fire accuracy of its players. Currently, Skirmisher’s Little Orc Wars rules cover use of miniatures representing Humans and their allies (Elves, Dwarves, Elementals, and Giants) and their special units such as Wizards, fighting against the armies of Orcs and their dark allies (Undead, Lizardfolk, Goblins), along with their powerful special units, such as the Lich. 

The players maneuver their armies around the massive battlefield, which is richly dressed with castle walls, a village, farm and cemetery as well as a forest and is bisected by a long, winding river which can be crossed by use of a bridge (until it is destroyed). The players begin with their base armies and supporting siege engines, namely catapults and ballistae. Positioning and accuracy is a major part of Little Orc Wars and that means that appropriate miniature scale siege engines are necessary for gameplay to be accurate and more importantly, FUN! 

Currently Skirmisher uses miniature catapults and ballistae made by Papo but, as this article indicates, is actively researching more options for the players.