Pirates!

This post covers my 15mm Pirate army.  These figures have traveled a long and arduous path to being completed.  The vast majority of figures are from Peter Pig, with a scattering of Museum Miniatures.  I purchased the PP figures at Brookhurst Hobbies in Los Angeles while visiting my brother for Christmas in either 1997 or 1998.  At that time, my gaming group was into 'Fantasy Rules 2', and I intended to build an army for that system.  I painted around 25% of them in the early 2000s, then set them aside.  Meanwhile, FR2 lost its allure and my group switched to the 'Hordes of the Things' rules.  I have never been a big fan of HOTT for various reasons; it just isn't quite what I want out of a fantasy game. 

So the Pirates sat in my closet until 2009, when I pulled them out of storage and decided to finish them.  The last figures were completed in November 2009 and I built the stronghold in December 2010.  I do still have a plastic ship model to use as a HOTT Airboat that I've assembled and put a basecoat on, though I still need to finish painting the details and build a stand for it.  The ship may show up in a future post.  The army is based for HOTT, although I rarely play.  Perhaps they will see action at the HOTT tournament at Siege of Augusta in January 2010?

Click on the pictures for close-ups.

First is the entire Pirate horde.  The entire force consists of 3xHeroes, 2xArtillery, 2xLurkers, 5xShooters, 1xBlades and 9xWarband for a total of 50+AP in HOTT.

Here are the 5 stands of musket-armed pirates (Shooters).  The front center stand could serve as a General if necessary.

Two stands of ship's cannon (Artillery):

 Blackbeard, accompanied by a female pirate, serves as a Hero General.  Blackbeard is taller than all of the other PP figures which makes him suitably imposing:

Another Hero stand.  These are both Museum Miniatures.

 The left-hand stand is another Hero; the right-hand one is a Blade and could serve as the General if so desired.

I photographed the nine stands of common pirates (Warbands) in groups of three.  Here is the first group:

The second group of three:

And the last group of three:

Two stands of shipwrecked pirates with sharks circling (Lurkers):

Last is the Stronghold.  Long John Silver has retrieved the buried treasure and dealt harshly with his untrustworthy shipmates.  The parrot on his shoulder is a nice touch.

 Thanks for Looking!

Jason

Scots Isles & Highlands

This post covers my 15mm Scots Isles & Highlands army,  1050-1493 AD (III/77  in DBA).  It was painted over the summer/fall of 2010.  All of the figures are from Feudal Castings, now sold by QRF.  They have an excellent range of figures for dark age/medieval Scotland and Ireland.  A few of the figures are from other FC ranges such as Vikings.  I purchased some of these figures from Rudy Nelson at Time Portal Hobbies and the rest directly from QRF.  Although almost all of the figures are armed with an axe, there are a lot of variations among the figures and they have a lot of character.  Of the 48 heavy foot, there are 2 poses with 6 or 7 figures and the rest of the poses have 1-4 figures each.  That made them a lot more fun to paint.

The Scots Isles & Highlands army covers the medieval Gaelic areas of Scotland.  For a great historical article on the army, see: http://www.fanaticus.org/DBA/armies/III77.html

The DBA army list consists primarily or entirely of blades and is: 1x4Bd (Gen), 8x4Bd, 3x4Bd or 2x3Bw and 1x 3/5Wb.  These figures will also serve as galloglaich for a project I have wanted to do for a long time, the invasion of Ireland by Edward Bruce in 1315.  I have been working on a scenario for 4 DBA armies a side, and the number of galloglaich I will need is 12, exactly the number in this army.

Click on the pictures for close-ups.

First up is the general's stand (1x4Bd).  Although this is a foot stand, I used a mounted figure for the general.  This is the first time I have done this in a DBA army; I got the idea from a Visigoth army I have that was made by my good friend Mike Demana (see his web page at: http://home.earthlink.net/~mikedemanagames/index.html).  I think it looks good and helps the general's element to stand out from the mass of similar-looking elements.  As a fan of Celtic music I couldn't resist putting a bagpiper on the stand!

Here is the first group of 4 highland warriors (4x4Bd):

The second group of warriors (4x4Bd):

And the last group of warriors (3x4Bd):

Here are the clansmen (1x5Wb on the left, 1x3Wb on the right).  The base on the right is borrowed from my Pre-Feudal Scots army.

Next are the 2 stands of highland archers (2x3Bw).  The base on the right is borrowed from my Pre-Feudal Scots army.

Last but not least is a picture of the entire army assembled.

Thanks for looking!  I'll be adding more posts over the holidays: 15mm Pirates and 28mm UNIT for my Doctor Who project.