Silver Sea Dogs

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 .