Silver Sea Dogs

Well after my bit of design and help of Discord , the Standard Bearer completed. Another will be done when I get the Unicorn,  one of the new ships TT combat are producing for Carnivale.

If your wondering why it’s slightly paler than the image, my printer is out of black ink  the new one doesn’t work, and haven’t got round to contacting HP for replacement!

But I think the paler colour works well.

Well with my standard bearer, needed a standard for the ‘good’ crew of the Unicorn, didnt fancy anything I saw online so had a play with merging some images I found on google on the paint accessory and came up with :

After a quick natter of Discord @Sir PK Tin of Spam came up with and I love it

Firstly the last 3 Spanish previously shown, with bases flocked and Tufts added.

I have now Finished Capt Blunt of the Galleon ‘The Unicorn’ a more cinematic crew, with the Captain himself using Sharpes Head from the Rifles Box and a selection of Heads from Ghost Archipelago,  Frostgrave Soldiers and Barbarians.

On of the Figures will be the Standard Bearer for the Unicorn, which I intend to have ago at designing myself.

Tomorrow I intend to show the figures in a more scenic and action setting.

When painting the last couple of Spaniards I also painted up another Sea Dog, all from the Ghost Archipelago box, wasn’t till I finished it that I realised that it was a fairly good rendition of Vincent , proprietor of Asgard Games, well these Vikings get everywhere.

I’ve now amended the Soldiers list and added it below, any comments, suggestions will be accepted.

Will be revised as I think of things plus if Forgot anything

Latest Revision 1/9/22  . animals traits added and some ideas on loot/clues

Having looked through Silver Bayonet,  I don’t much is needed to convert them, for this earlier period.

The idea is that you play a party of Sea Dogs , Spanish or Natives, Mayans or Aztecs fighting in the Equatorial forests of Central and Southern America and the Islands of the Spanish Main raiding or defending Small settlements and gold/silver shipments as the main reason for being, but with added supernatural elements thrown in from both European and Mezo American cultures (such as Aztec Lizard men). Though there is no reason you can’t use it for the Conquistadors period.

The small parties used in Silver Bayonet ( or Frostgrave, Ghost Archipelago , I certainly think you should look at the Beasties in them for inspiration) fit with how the Sea Dogs broke up their crews for raids, I wold suggest expanding your parties to 10. You can either expand  recruitment points or have a freebie type which can make the number up.

As the vast majority of ships crews were inexperienced wanna be adventurers perhaps a generic landsman class with basic hand weapons   no armour , representing the recruit on his 1st Voyage or townsperson press ganged into the defenders .

So for Silver Bayonet.

Landsman

Nationalties :All

Speed : 6

Melee:+0

Accuracy: +0

Defence : 13

Courage :+0

Health : 10

Recruitment: 0

Attributes : None

Equipment :Hand Weapon  Buckler , Musket  ( English only but take 2 actions to reload or full move to reload)

Now for other General Ammendments:

Armour was in greater use than in the Napoleonic period as was the use of Sheild and Bucklers so I would allow an increase in armour class

Anyone with an Armour class Greater than 2 loses an 1″ of movement, anyone +5 2″

With

Leather/cloth Armour +1

Chainmail +1 (Genrally worn with above for Example Gallowglass)

Breastplate +2 (cannot be combined with either above)

Helmet +1

Buckler +

Sheild +2

Not play tested above so it may need to be amended to Armour classes if found to be excessive.

For instance

No Amour +0

Light Armour +1 (cloth, Leather)

Heavy Armour  ( mail/plate)

Buckler +1

Sheild +2

assume helm is part of generic Armour, it depends how you want to flex out you equipment list.

Pistols

The period of the the setting covers  1560 to 1605, which is around the time the 1st Wheelocks were bing introduced  so it up to you if you add them to the mix, earlier such as the Conquistadors period you may want to rule them out  .

Keep stats as in game, but suggest either on shot per game or 2 action to reload as Wheelock were slow to reload ( even if Errol Flynn had repeating pistols)

So far that’s my initial ideas, please make comments if I’ve got anything wrong or any ideas.

I intend to do a revised Soldiers list later in week, which won’t be changing basic stats but will be amended equipment and nationality options.

Biggest problem maybe be the model pistols themselves, , there are non I  the Conquistadors box, and have found non in any of the plastic boxes I have, suggestions anyone?

Having done my 1st party of Sea Dogs it was time to start the Spaniards. Like the 1st group of Sea Dogs these are intended to be more historically accurate with  the Figures pretty much straight of the Conquistadors box.

For the Spanish I went for a more regular look, using GW Gryph Hound Orange and thinned out Baal Red, if anyone noticed  non of the Sea Dogs had any Red on them (Bovis is a Spaniard so his Red Sash doesn’t count). Why Red… I did a quick Google search for Spanish Infantry of 15th Century, and although the colours could vary greatly  it seemed from illustrations to be predominantly Red,  although in the Sea Hawks Movie is in Black and white I got the impression they were red( probably completely wrong)

Also it will help tell them apart from the Sea Dogs.

Block painting completed, I’ll leave them a bit before washs ,detailing etc.

Washs done  some detail to faces and lace, a bit of Necron Compound and I give you them  nearly finished

Capitan Rodriguez de Cordoba de Castallan, de Deguella ( goes on for 5 mins) and the San Paulo Guard.

Well having done some long range types time to pad with melee troops. Must say the nicely detailed faces on all the boxes make the usual hated faces a lot easier to get reasonable results.

Added to these I got to the troops thar @Avernos may be most interested in my converted Gallowglass,  and he does seem to get everywhere, though his hair his hidden here

And here are his supporting cast, I will do finished shots later.

Well finished the batch of six figures earlier than I thought, and wouldn’t have time to start the Spaniards, so thought I’ll do the support figures, as in the Drummer and the forgotten Crossbowman, and with the wonders of Contrast paint and Washs finished them in about 2 hours.

Above is a good example of how using just different heads and arm combinations you can make very different figures.

With this party completed, this band is the more historically accurate band of Sea Dogs.

The 2nd will be the more Hollyweird interpretation,  mainly more bare headed with only a few helms . The 3rd Alice party will be more piratical using whatever I have left for a 9 year old girl (or Warrens) view of history.

Eyes done (  I’m anal I know) some thinned down washs added. A bit of dry  brushing highlights  some lining and detail done.

Finally The helms and metal work given a dry brush of GW Necron compound, and bases given a base coat of GW Ork Flesh Contrast and we are nearly done.

As they are going to be fighting mainly on the Spanish Main and in Rain Forests some scatter and tufts will be added later.

Well block painting done, mainly with various Contrast paints, only none GW was Army Painter Gun metal for armour , helms and barrels/Swords.

Some would be happy here but will carry on.

This project is as much to remind me how I did it as anything. So Having built My 1st batch of figures. I put some textured paint to start the bases, in this case Vallejo Desert Sand, though as I spray undercoat them afterwards the colour isn’t that important.

Now I had planned to use GW Corax white spray can for undercoated, but seems its been discontinued,  so reverted to a wilco white primer, which at least saves me £5 and goes on ok.

I never do masses of figures in a mass production line, as do many as that to me makes painting too much of a chore, so picked out one officer and 4 musketeers to start with  the six figure, was on the table as I was fixing his arm, and what the hell.

To start with I used GW Skeleton Bone, in two levels of thinning out for the leather cotton armour and some if the leggings.

To make up to 10 Spanish militia I used 4 more of the Ghost Archipelago figures, with various heads and wepon selections to make a more lightly armored militia look.

1. As a Kevin’s 9 year old nice will probably want to play I dug through my boxes of Frostgrave female Figures , although not perfect I introduce

…….drum roll please.

Captain Black Alice Baccardi so bad she doesn’t have a parrot but a Raven, which make many believe she studies the Dark Arts.

Having got the 1st party of ‘Heroic’ Sea Dogs I started some more traditional dastardly Spaniards (and for any Spanish reading this having got the party of theiving English Pirates I started some ‘heroic’ Spanish Patriots defending the Crowns Gold)

In this case straight forward use of Conquistadors figures  here 4 men at arms

The Spanish have a lower ratio of long range weapons than the English so so far only done 2 musketeers,  again mainly from the Conquistadors box with only the addition of some pouchs and bags for ammo from the Ghost Archipelago box.

Way back during his review of the Conquistadors,  Gerry mentioned the wars in Ireland and adding Gallowglass as another setting for the range . So I thought why not add some to my crew, plus they could also be mercenary adventurers working for the Spanish. Asking above for advice on figures , he gave me some suggestions,. Which were lovely figures but metal  and I wanted to be able to mix and match with the two boxes I had so went looking for plastic alternatives.  I had thought of Fireforges Varangian Guard, but they are resin, then whilst on there site rediscovered there Scandinavian Infantry  so another box was added to the mix.

With the addition of heads and in one case of arms from the Conquistadors box I was able to quickly convert some to 15th Century Gallowglass.

Last night I rented above on Amazon and naturally wanted to have a Geoffrey Thorpe and his Big Irish 1st Mate Carl Pitt played by Alan Hale ( a sidekick in numerous movies , famously Little John in Robin Hood)

My 1st attempt used a helmet figure from Conquistadors set, which Flynn is seen carrying in the Royal Court scenes, but helmet for Flynn doesn’t work.

Plus apart from his moustache Flynn was Clean shaven, so I rembered I brought Alan tics Rifleman box and thought Sharpe head. For Alan Hale a suitable head was available from Ghost Archipelago and so:

Plan is to make about 30 Sea Dogs from 2 boxes , adding some Gallowglass to crews , which is the theme with Alan Hale with the big sword.

About 10 figures will all the Spanishbtype Helmet and done as Spanish militia for some Central American city.

That is such a good entry title I have to use it again. Plus thank you to Osprey for as usual providing a great little tome to get me started on this project, which is why I use the front cover as the project image.

As usual the origins of this project began in the bar  Asgard Games bar to be exact , after Kevin had just brought a box of Conquistadors from Mr Vincent.

The question of rules came up and Kevin suggested Silver Bayonet,  moved backward in time to the late 14th,  early 15th, he was thinking sort of Conquistadors,  Aztecs and mezo American.myths and Monsters etc.

I immediately thought lets throw Elizabethian English Sea Dogs into the mix ( for the European Beasties French and Dutch work as well) having been brought up on as a wee bairn on Errol Flynn’s ‘Sea Hawks’ and the old ITV series from the 60’s of Francis Drake starring  Terrance Morgan as Francis Drake and a very young Michael Crawford as John Drake.

Having got my own box of Conquistadors,  I needed to add a more nautical flavour to my band, luckily ages ago I got one of the last boxes of Ghost Archipelago plastic figures and decided to mix and match.

I read through quite a bit of the Osprey book which mentions that English crews had a much higher percentage of ranged wpns to melee than did the Spanish  at roughly 2 to one in favour of the former, which I have tried to represent below.

So here are the 1st batch of figures using one sprue from each box.

Most of above are straightforward use  of figures straight from the Conquistadors box, but with the odd head  daggers and pouchs from Ghost Archipelago.

These are are all Ghost Archipelago figures with arms heads and Drum from Conquistadors box, the drummer was the final figure that I wanted to match the Osprey Cover art .