Silver Sea Dogs

As I said in the earlier update , these are fairly easy to do once I’d worked out the method.

Firstly I give the Flesh areas a coat of 2/3rds GW Contrest Firesslayer Flesh.

1. I generally check the previous figure on completing one, to smooth out pooling and check for missed bits (there always is)

Once dry I go over any mistakes with GW Corax White, before next stages.

Then I do the hair, mostly GW contrast Basilicum Grey, I prefer it to any of the Black’s as it gives good shading and if not dark enough can be gone over later with GW Nuln Oil.

The obsidian edges and spear heads are done in GW Contrast Terradon Turquoise for the obsidian look.

The nappies this tome I kept whitish using GW Apothocary White, to pick them out from Hunters who had thinned out Skeleton Horde.

The sheild fronts are GW contrast Iyanden Yellow.

I finish off the block painting with GW Skeleton Horde for the wooden sword body, Leather ties for spears and sheild backs.

The Sheild trims and the Mohawk on the guy with the Blow pipe were done in GW contrast Gryh Hound Orange, and Spears in Snakebite leather, then I’ll leave them to cure a bit before the washs .

1. Again I had one of Drr’! moments , which came it tow Drr’!s  when it came to the Mythology for game and how to do a revised beastery list.

• Initially I planned to use the Ghost Archipelago beastery list revised,for Meso-America and use models from my old Mage Knight Collection and use the closest looking to fit the bill. Here I had my 1st Drr! moment after I began sorting out possible suitable figures

• it was then it hit, me , I’m doing a new Beastery and resulting encounter table so why not make both match the figure I had rather than than the other way round.

So as can be seen above I began sorting out the various figures into sections using those trays for themes of monster for the Beastery and table. I had begun a table but was struggling on how to adapt it and what beasts to put in it but, with above done should be able to  begin re-writing it. I originally planned to make it a mix of historical and mythical , and had been thinking of changing it to 2d10 rather than the 1d2o to put in the the bell curve which Silver Bayonet uses, which is why I have picked them as a basis over Frost or Stargrave. It was here I had the 2nd Drr! moment :

• It crossed my mind that anyone who might be interested in this idea may have been put off by the Fantasy Element , historical Grog nards you know who you are, and may wish to use it for a more historically themed/40’s cinematic game. I will at some point be doing some scenarios and certainly the 1st few intro ones will be historical to help players get used to the revised stats and mechanics

So I know plan to do do encounter tables h & m , for those who want to stay historical just use h;

• Anyone else will roll die for encounters any die will do,  evens use historical table ,odd (aptly) use the mythical table.

In the meanwhile on the historical front I have been working on  my 1st group of Aztecs , I started with the basic semi naked natives 1st , as these can be used as native guides for the Spaniards .

Now I did a test figure and did a series of rooky mistakes:

I firstly didnt mix/shake the proposed skin shade bottle , GW contrast Fireslayer Flesh so it dried Gloss , Although I do varnish  matt later find gloss makes it more difficult to see detail.

Secondly I didnt thin it out and it came out a bit darker than I want (though may use it as is for Ghost Archipelago native figures later)

There was an upside though, post matt varnishing the figure to see how it looked found that Army Painter Tanned Flesh works well to lighten tone down .

Anyway here is the finished figure not bad in the end :

With the next figure I initally tried a 50/50 Fireslayer Flesh contrast to water and found it a bit light, and had to build up layers to get it the tone I wanted, it didnt particulalry matter if it didnt match the 1st test figure as people come in different skin tones within the same ethnic group in reality .

Decided post above to try a two thirds contrast to water and it gave the finish I wanted so that is how last 3 figures in batch were done, and am quite happy with the results.

Now if your wondering,  I haven’t forgotten the above  just waiting for the Aztecs to arrive at Asgard.

When I collected them Found a box of Ghost Archipelago,  Savages which will be Amazon tribesmen.

For those Historical Grognards who are wondering that Aztecs had been pretty much wiped out by the time of the Sea Dogs  you are right, as far as we know. Also as the game is based on Silver Bayonet and the arrival of Gothic Horror, if we move that to Mezo America, you have the option of not only the horrors which have travelled over from the Old World but the new Myths and creatures of the New World.

So the idea of a handful of Aztecs holding out In the Jungles and Rainforests is not so far fetched, Currently we have to o ly  look at the Sky History of ‘The Search for Aztec Gold’ to get the idea that some Aztecs escaped to hide goodies . Recently I remember disputed archaeological finds of a Aztec/Mayan human Sacrifice culture that sprung up in Arizona  to disappear suddenly.  The major controversial part was from native American Historians I think horrified by the thought of human sacrifice in Nort America, but it would actually be a noble story if this culture was from Mezo America and I wondered if the Horrified Tribes of New Mexico , Arizona such as Apache wiped them But if some Aztecs moved south into the partly abandoned Mayan territory, plus you have the Mayans themselves who held out till the 17th Century when their last Independent City fell. The Incas who were not found till 20 years after the fall of the Aztecs  and held in  hidden Jungle city that held out tfor a further 30 years and beat the Spanish more than once in battle.

So there is a lot of scope, with the Ghost Archipelago Tribals I intend to build parties of Amazonian tribesmen, who can be scouts or adversaries.

The Inca were actually fighting a war if expansion ( which wasn’t going well) into the Amazon Bason. A natio  an age ahead of both the Mayans and Aztecs for they were bronze not stone age.

On top of this we have the plethora of actual natural Beasties that are trying to kill and Eat the various parties all of the time…some may have mutated into Giants as in Big Spiders and naturally Ants.

MesoAmerican Mythology 

Now as the Silver Bayonet is very much Napoloenic Troops fighting things that men are not to know then we will need to add this aspect to the Elizabethan period, if anything the various combatants would even have more phobias and fears of the unknown than their Napoleonic Bretheren.

The Europeans would have brought over their own myths and monsters and in addition would have begun to pick up the myths and monsters from Mezo-American culture with the even bigger fear of pagan and unnatural (to Europeans) religions .

Vampires

I had a drr moment with this, thinking its a European thing………were are Vampire bats found………

Its just we think its from Europe

to quote as source on google Alexansdra Paleaaz

The Aztecs’ chief god was Huitzilopochtli, also known as the Hummingbird Wizard. They believed Huitzilopochtli constantly warred with the other gods in order to keep the Aztecs safe. He needed constant nourishment in order to keep fighting and his preferred choice of food was—human blood. To keep him fed the Aztecs waged war constantly and sacrificed tens of thousands of people every year, mostly prisoners of war. The preferred method of sacrifice was cutting out the heart, which Huitzilopochtli was said to have favored as much as blood. Even earlier than the Aztecs were the Toltecs who sacrificed countless people, including children, to placate the god Tezcatlipoca. Tezcatlipoca is the primary villain in Evanescence and the father of the vampire race. According to the myths, he too has a great thirst for human blood and is the ruler of the night. When conducting religious rituals for the gods, the Aztec priests adorned their bodies with black paint, matted their hair with the sacrificial victim’s blood, and also filed their teeth to sharp points. Vampire much?

Were Animals

Not totally sure on this ,one apparently they do appear in mexo american mythology , and a google search for Jaguar and Wolf Warriors did bring up illustrastions of each, very possibly skin walker type creatures.

Now there maybe some wondering why I have gone off on a tangent on this project for Silver Bayonet,particularly with the conversion, for those of you who don’t wish to jump from Frostgrave or Frostgrave Ghost Archipelago,  there is a set of Black Powder rules in one of the Frostgrave magazines. Spellcaster 1, available from Amazon.

1. I have a fair few Skirmish Napoleonic figures for Silver Bayonet,  British Army, Navy, Spanish Guerillas , and a small no of French so didn’t need to paint or build anything for that.
2. The Shiney, I liked the ideas that both the Conquistadors and Aztecs conjured up. Kevin’s idea for using Silver Bayonet gave me the excuse , plus figures can be used for Border Reavers for the Spanish  , and for Raiders of the Lost Ark for the Aztecs (Again I have a fair few Pulp Figures for that)
3. It was a period I knew little about  I find a lot of the fun with a new period or Genre. I have been enjoying reading up and watching some bloke on U-tube.
4. It’s been fun getting help off the Community from Discord with the Standard and Warrens been using his new AI arty friend to produce me some images.
5. It will use my Star Wars Legion Scatiff terrain
6. I brought Ghost Archipelago and finally get to use some of ideas in it.

So let’s see a more graphic view of my idea.

The Scene:

Capitan Rodriguez de Cordoba de Castallan, de Deguella ( goes on for 5 mins) and the San Paulo Guard., are taking the shipment of King Philip (the whatevers) gold and silver, graciously donated by his loyal subjects of New Spain( as in stolen from, tortured from , plundered and raped, and those were the nice Spaniards) and is taking over land to the Port of Vera Juan, unluckily for them Captain Blunt and the Good( start cheering) crew of the Unicorn have got wind of this shipment and intend to relieve the Spaniards of this task and give the hoard to Good Queen Bess (after taking a small finders fee).

Picking a suitable place to discuss the matter with Capitan Rodriguez (etc) ,they make use of the local fauna for recreation whilst waiting for the Spaniards,  unaware of how well it hides them !!!

Notes on above, the Pack mules are old Redoubt minatures from their Napoleonic Range strangely enough. The Jungle Terrain was built originally for Star Wars Legion, the Columns are Egyptian,  and  the ruins are from Monolith.

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.