Buccaneers vs Spanish for The Pikeman's Lament

Sir Henry Morgan

I didn't list 'Buccaneers' amongst my projects for 2019 as it wasn't current, but I have been giving the idea a lot of thought. Musing about potential projects has always been a big part of my engagement with the hobby - a sort of wargame equivalent of window shopping.

My attraction to the Buccaneer era goes back to the pirate imagery of childhood, the publication of The Pikeman’s Lament, the appeal of the Northstar 1672 range, watching the Versailles TV series (about Louis XIV) and some discussion on the Lead Adventure Forum (LAF). It didn't come together straight away but things gradually fell into place.

In developing the idea I am indebted to Jose Maria Cagiga Mata of the Spanish Lead Painting blog  for help with  figures, costume, background information and ideas.

North Star 1672 matchlock musketeers

For the benefit of those not fully up to speed, Buccaneers were English, French and Dutch freebooters licensed by European powers in the second half of the 17thC to attack and loot Spanish ships and cities in the Caribbean.

I like to hang my model armies on the peg of a specific historical reference point so I'm focusing in particular on the career of the Welsh Privateer Henry Morgan (1635 – 1688) whose English forces successfully raided a number of Spanish cities including Panama City in 1671.

Blood and Plunder Spanish

Despite their exotic and piratical nature, Buccaneers were typically military veterans, fought in conventional military units, and by 1660 were more soldiers than sailors in appearance. So this project will feature fairly conventional pike-and-shot forces rather than the more cinematic imagery of the Golden Age of Piracy. The Pirate actions of the early 18thC were essentially naval actions, while the Buccaneers also fought large scale land battles.

Subject to checking compatibility, I'll be using Northstar's 1672 and Firelock Games' Blood and Plunder ranges, English Civil War figures from Bicorne and Renegade, and some Monmouth Rebellion shot from Front Rank.

Bicorne Miniatures ECW firelocks

The Buccaneers will be flintlock-armed. Opposing them will be Spanish Militia with matchlocks and half-pikes bolstered with some Marines from the Armada de Barlovento and artillery. The Buccaneers totally outshot the Spanish Militia so it will be good to even the sides with the help of some Spanish Regulars.

Although the project is more-or-less planned, I don't currently have the time or space to pursue it, unless or until I have made more progress with the 28mm Reivers.

2019 Interests

GAMES
I didn't actually get to play many games last year, so this year I need to be more proactive. Games I'm keen to play are:

• The Men Who Would Be Kings using my Pathans and Egyptians.
• Lion Rampant using my Late Medievals. 
  
• Dragon Rampant.
• Dux Bellorum using my 25mm Vikings and Anglo-Danes. 
  
• Hammerin' Iron.
• L'Art de la Guerre.

PROJECTS
I've learnt not to over-face myself with too long a to-do list, so while I have a lot of unfinished and potential projects, I'm only going to list (1) major projects which are (2) currently underway and (3) which I seriously intend to progress during the year:

 Timeline Miniatures Border Reivers from Hoka
Hey Wargaming (not my painting!).

• 28mm Border Reivers for The Pikeman's Lament. This is my main painting project for 2019. As soon as they have a basic coat of paint I intend to start using them and will then finish painting them over time.

• 28mm 1798 Irish Rebellion for Rebels and Patriots. I'll continue gradually to collect these. If I complete my Border Reiver project, acquisition might speed up.

• 28mm American War of Indepenence for Rebels and Patriots. I recently bought an ideal collection of well-painted Perry plastic British and am now looking out for a matching force of Continentals. This project will either be realised suddenly or not at all.

• 15mm armies for L'Art de La Guerre. I'm currently reorganising, rebasing and supplementing some of my old 15mm Ancient and Mediaeval armies in order to create paired opponents for ADLG. My areas of interest are the Late Roman period, the Dark Ages and Europe 1250-1300. Rebasing figures and buying painted ones doesn't involve too much time or effort.

So there you have it: a modest range of rules systems (mostly closely related) and a firm committment to working on only one major painting project.

Galleys & Galleons: Name that ship

People get very involved when, in multi-player games, they have a ship each, and I thought it would be a good idea to boost this personal identification by following other gamers in giving each ship a specific name.

So here are the names I've selected. Many of the ships are interchangeable in their affiliation. The Frigate and the Indiaman is actually the same model. Some of the names are historical or modern, i.e. stolen. Others are made-up.

Galleys & Galleons: Wreckage markers

I needed some wreckage markers for Galleys & Galleons. Wreckage and survivors are included with the Peter Pig manned rowing boats. PP also do some empty rowing boats. These would be a liability in combat and would have been towed behind rather than stored on deck. I didn't have any use for them so I threw them into the wreckage to add to the sense of chaos.

The PP bits were stuck onto 40mm MDF squares. Filler was used to level the surface around the markers. You can now get perfectly adequate filler in big tubs from a 'pound' shop.

Galleys & Galleons: Gun boats

It's handy to have a few smaller, cheaper ships for making up points, so I decided to create some gun boats by cannibalising Peter Pig rowing boats. I didn't have any contemporary illustrations to work from but I've seen pictures of later gunboats and used those for inspiration.

The starting point: light gun and rowing boats from the Peter Pig Pieces of Eight range.

Galleys & Galleons: Blockade running

The sloop sets out to run the
Barbary blockade

I fought another couple of Galleys & Galleons playtest games, this time using the Blockade Runner scenario from the draft rules. The forces were a Sloop - the blockade runner - versus three Xebecs and a Jacht.

Readers may note that my Peter Pig ships now have a little more paint on them than the last time they were photographed. The xebecs, of course, come ready painted.

Galleys & Galleons: Waterlining the Pirateology xebecs

'Waterlining' the three Pirateology xebecs was an unavoidable challenge but not one I was looking forward to.

Owing to the relatively delicate and finished nature of the model, I could hardly put it in a vice, but had to handhold it. Luckily it was possible to rest the model on its stern and this provided a reasonably stable anchor point.

I made a nick in the bow with a pair of GW clippers and then attacked the model with a fretsaw. The hull is partially hollow, but there's a lot of thick plastic to get through.

Galleys & Galleons: My totally unoriginal shore forts

Making forts from take-away coffee-cup tops is a brilliant idea but it wasn't mine. I stole it from the well-known naval wargamer and fellow Galleys & Galleons playtester, David Manley. Taking my cue from David's Fort Barrista,  I'm calling them Fort Costa and Fort Nero, though the tops actually came from neither.

Here are some pictures of my own production process.

Galleys & Galleons: The Pirateology xebec

I recently bought three Pirateology xebecs as the basis of a Barbary Pirate fleet for Galleys & Galleons. Sold as a 'Barbary Galley', the ship is nicely modelled and although no scale is stated, it seems perfectly compatible with the Peter Pig 1/450 Pirate ship range. I thought it might be helpful to take some close-ups with a Peter Pig ship for comparison.

Galleys & Galleons: first games

Nic Wright's forthcoming Galleys & Galleons rules are certainly raising a lot of interest and just before Christmas my friend Ian and I finally got round to a couple of playtest games ourselves.

I can only apologise for the photos. The ships are wearing just their undercoats and look like ghost ships, and the photos were taken very inexpertly in the heat of battle. But, hey, it's a playtest. (Ghost ships are actually covered in the rules in a fantasy supplement at the end.)

The seascape in our first game was a little overcrowded with islands and shallows. They were cunningly placed by my piratical opponent, forcing me into a very awkward starting position. Eager to teach the pirates a lesson they would not forget, my ships sped ahead leaving the boats behind. All measurements are made using the coffee stirrers.

Galleys & Galleons: the fleets assemble

My first batch of ships for Galleys & Galleons is now based and primed. The ships are to some extent interchangeable but these photos represent my first thoughts.

The Merchants. From back to front: Peter Pig Large Merchantman, Fluyt, and Small Merchantman. The Dhow (foreground) is a 1/300 Grumpy model with the original crew removed, and Peter Pig crew and guns substituted. I also replaced the supplied but rather vulnerable mast with a stout dressmaking pin. This made it harder to superglue the sail on, but I'd rather cope with a detached sail than a wonky or broken mast.

Galleys & Galleons: making sea bases

I decided to try a new method for basing my 1/450 Peter Pig pirate ships for Galleys & Galleons - aluminium 'turkey' foil. It's said this should be used shiny side up. I'm not sure why but I followed suit. Rather than just crumpling it, I rubbed it over the side of a ribbed tin can. I then varied the angle a little and re-rubbed parts to create a more irregular wave effect.

Galleys & Galleons

Nic Wright's Irregular Wars: Conflict at the World's End reinforced my interest in games which require only small armies and a compact playing area, and can be finished in 1-2 hours. I was thinking about other, similarly compact, land war options, when Nic's new pirate naval game - Galleys & Galleons - impinged on my consciousness. This is currently at the play-testing stage and I have enrolled as a volunteer.

The game involves very modest forces, can be played in a quite restricted area, and promises to be fast and furious. It satisfies all the criteria for a modest, compact and fast game, but what initially attracted me to it were the photos on Nic's blog of his superbly painted 1/450 pirate ships made by Peter Pig .

Work in Progress

My interests have come to settle not only on simple rules but also on small armies, at least with regard to any I intend to paint in the near future. I hope this will make my projects easier to complete and easier to get onto the table. I'm currently focusing on the following:

15mm HOTT
I've always had a strong bias towards historical wargaming, but HOTT is good fun and I've ordered some figures to create an Undead army (Chariot Miniatures) and a Pirate one (Peter Pig).

6mm and 15mm DBA
A recent reintroduction to DBA has inspired me to dig out my old 15mm DBM armies for DBA. The figures are all painted but I will need to add some camps/BUAs.

28mm FUBAR IWI
This project is very close to completion. I just need to varnish the figures and finish the vehicles and buildings.

15mm Crossfire 'Stalingrad'
This project is already operational, but to capture more of a Stalingrad feel I'm reverting to green baseboards with black felt roads and am adding pavements to the buildings.