Who Gives a Monkey a Gun? Well, I guess I do.

Wow, it was back in December that I converted the Reaper Miniatures pirate goblin into a monkey for a simian Cabin Boy for my Privateers for Legends of the High Seas.  And like most projects, if there isn't an immediate need, then it gets pushed to the side.  The campaign got called on account of lack of participation- was a bad time for a lot of people, me included- I had to miss two sessions and next I knew the league was canceled, so as much my fault as anyone else, just didn't have time with work & life.

So the Privateers remained as they were: bases painted and primed people.
Shifting things around I had to move this warband and thought "Wouldn't hurt to have a monkey for Greystoke's Apes for Empire of the Dead".
So he got some paint!

I decided I wouldn't rebase him- he'll stay with sandy beach, And his colorful attire? Perhaps he works as a spy for Greystoke, begging for pence in the street and keeping an eye & ear out about goings-on in the city, and so this outfit helps draw attention and might loosen the purse strings of charmed gentry.

A very quick paintjob for the monkey, and maybe someday his human swashbuckler friends will join him...

before:

Yo Ho Ho & a Bottle of Honey: Dread Pirate Roe Bear :Final LPL

It's over. The LPL has ended.The Lead Painter's League was quite enjoyable.  It's a very different sort of painting challenge, with a steep learning curve.  Still, I came in 5th place of 46 my first year out, so I'm pretty well pleased with that.  A challenge that runs 10 weeks gets in your blood & routine.  I still have about 5 or 6 team concepts that I considered doing, I'm good to go, let's continue! Ah well... next year!

The final round was a bonus round with 60 bonus points on the line if you ticked all elements: a new team, maritime theme, a 2nd team as a rival, and a large item.  I decided to go with something a bit unusual.  Rather than the pirates I'd assumed I'd do in the beginning I opted for something silly: Teddy Bears!

Eureka Miniatures (with a web location in US & Australia) have several ranges of psuedo-historical Teddy Bears: Wild West, Pirates, Seven Years War, Roman & Zulu Wars. Brandishing the excuse of the LPL I ordered some Teddy Bears.  I got 8 British Soldier types, to be a port guard, and 10 pirates.

 V.

                    Dread Pirate Roe Bear                           General Lord Thedius T. Bearnsworth

Roe Bear has spent years eluding Her Majesty's forces in the Carribearan Islands, raiding stores of honey, driving the prices for honest citizens ever higher. 

The loyal soldiers:

The pirate crew:

The infamous ship: The Honeydripper :

General Lord Bearnsworth has laid a trap for him at Skull Island, but only managed to spring the trap on several of the crew, Roe Bear and his officers were nowhere to be found... until their ship skirts through the shoals, to spring their own trap on the would be trappers!

My entry:

I loved working on these. Something very freeing in the whimsical style and bold detail. I painted them a bit differently than I'd normally paint minis, since these are toy bears and I wanted them to stay looking like toy bears. So bold, bright colors, very simple NMM (non-metal metal) painting of any metal parts (since they have wooden swords painted to look like swords).  I love details like the cork-pop guns, and how the captain's peg leg is fake: he has his legbent behind him, resting his knee on a stick to make it look like a peg leg.  This was a pain and a half to photo though. I'd have done it a bit differently if I were to do it over, I learned a lot and got some ideas for scenic picture settings, so looking forward to next year's LPL!

A few extra shots of the action around the harbor:

Inka finds it very disturbing that they don't have pants.
Why shirts but not pants? I don't know, but I think it's ok for teddy bears.

I was thinking next time the Wednesday group runs Legend of the High Seas, I'm playing teddy bears!
Combining these two groups I could have either a Royal Marines force, with the Blue Coat bears as the naval officers and Red Coats for marines, or as a Privateer force, with the Blue Coats as the Captain & officers, pirates as lower level troops and Red Coats standing in for the higher level troopers.  How to explain that they are Teddy Bears? You saw Pirates of the Caribbean... but instead of an Aztec curse to turn them into skeletons, it was an Algonquin curse, for stealing the honey, turning them into honey bears.
Yeah, why not?

A big thanks to Alex for running the LPL, Ray for handling the leaderboard week to week, all the people who participated and all who came to look, comment and vote! 

Legend of the High Seas: campaign starts

The 'every other Wednesday' group started Legends of the High Seas last week, and i've been so busy lately I haven't had time to post anything since then, so I'll correct that now.  Up front I have to apologize that my crew aren't painted- like I said, I've been crazy busy lately, and that's a project that isn't near the top of the list- but I'll be trying to find time somewhere to get to them.

Legends of the High Seas is very similar to Legends of the Old West, which we ran last time (you can find many reports of 'El Rojo's Bandidos' under the old west tag).  There are fewer crew options: Pirates, Royal Marines & Privateers, and the game seems to have less stress placed on characters.  I decided to run Privateers, for no better reason than I always liked the idea of privateers: pirates in everything but name, balancing the distinction with nothing more than a piece of paper to say they can.  Elizabeth was pretty bold and shrewd.  To give them a bit of a different flavor I'm saying mine are Dutch privateers.

One aspect of the game I like is that each Captain can pick a trait, which modifies the rules for your crew.  Privateers have the worst leadership in the game, so I was tempted to take the trait that ups their leadership, but in the end I went for the cash: 2 gold off the cost of everyone on the crew.  That adds up quick, and allowed me to take some decent gear.

My Crew are:

Captain Roeland Vos with sword & pistol
First Mate Cobus de Haan with sword & pistol
Cabin Monkey Chim-chim with hand weapon

4 Mercenaries with swords
5 Mariners with hand weapons
2 Mariners with blunderbuss

My first game was against the Royal Marines, all named from characters from 'Master & Commander'.  The scenario saw us both coming through a town looking for the treasure being guarded by the civilians: 4 buildings had a chest, guarded by a civi.

The Royal Marines were few in number, but well armed as nearly all of them had muskets with bayonets.  But the layout of the town meant there wouldn't be a lot of opportunity to take advantage of the range, if I could keep buildings between us as I advanced.

The coastal town.  I set up along the right side edge, and the Marines along the left edge.

In an attempt to scare the marines my privateers coated themselves in white wash. Clever fellows!
I split into two groups, one led by the captain, one by the first mate, dividing up the crew types as evenly as I could. I made it to the first two buildings and dispatched the chest-guards, leaving some crew behind to guard the booty as the rest advanced on the Brits' position.

On my right flank, all of the British officers had climed to the roof of a building to try to get a vantage with their guns, my more numerous men took the first floor of the building and guarded the stairs, effectively 'treeing' the limeys.

On my left flank, my mariners get ready to ambush the British corporal, there was a fight and soon he and a soldier who came to his aid were brought down without any casualties on my side.  captain Vos managed to shoot 2 soldiers dead: no leading from behind for this captain! Even Chim-chim the Sumatran monkey-boy managed to bring down a soldier.

In the end, I had the chests, and the only British to survive were the tree'd officers, who negotiated for their release: they laid down their arms and were allowed to depart.  This must have greatly displeased the admiralty, because the commander was reassigned to some remote fort in Canada. His luck managed to prevent two of his men's wounds from being fatal, but the loss of all the command meant this crew was retired after one game and will reset anew the next meeting.  ... in game terms: at first i was impressed with the marines' perk that they don't need to spend any of their won booty on upkeep for their crew, like Privateers and Pirates do (their wages are paid by the crown) but if they roll a '12' on 2d6, then the commander is reassigned... and wouldn't you know it? He rolled a 12. Yikes.

For my crew, I won a good amount of doubloons, and since I made sure the chests were guarded by one of each of my crew types, everyone on my crew got a skill roll!  The Captain got an increase in Courage (which I was happy with, since privateers start so low at it) and then both officers and every single crew group all got the same result: +1 attack! wow! So much for guns, this is going to be a run at 'em crew!

I'll hope to get some paint on this crew as the league progresses.

I've just about finished my Blood Bowl team, and the next league game is tomorrow, so look for an update on them soon! 

New & Improved Monkey Pirate! Now with More Monkey Fur in Every Bite!

On inquiry by Alfrik I gave a second look at the monkey pirate and agreed: needs more monkey hair.

So here he is:

If you find hair in your grog, there's a good chance Chim got there first. 

Monkey Pirate!

In January the local every other Wednesday group is starting up a Legends of the High Seas league.
I dug out a bunch of old Foundry pirates I got ... yikes.. 10 years ago? Stripped the ones that had some paint and re-based them.

I think I'll be running a Privateer force... though for the life of me I don't see the advantage... Pirates have good morale and are cheep, Royal Navy gets good marines and can have bayonets. Privateers? lower morale, and more expensive mercs since they're good at shooting and a higher strength... but if you're shooting you're not using the strength, if you're in combat for the strength you're not shooting.. so I don't know what I'm supposed to make of the roster, but I've always liked the idea of privateers, plus the list does have a cabin boy!

Which got me to thinking about adding a mini to the force.. Reaper makes a 'Goblin Pirate' that I have always liked, and I had it in mind to convert him into a Monkey Pirate!

Here is the Reaper mini:

There is a monkey behind him, but I want the goblin to be a monkey... 

Easy conversion: 

1.  Clip and round those pointed ears. 

2.  Build up a face muzzle with green stuff and redefine a nose. 

3.  Drill his backside (OK I've tried a few ways to say this and they all sound a bit naughty) and put a wire in it, bend and dip the end of the wire into liquid Green Stuff.  -Normally i'd use regular Green Stuff, but since I recently picked up a pot of Liquid to try it out, it's perfect for this: Dip & done. 

Here he is:

A curious fellow the crew picked up off the coast of Sumatra... 

is he a monkey? An oddly formed young man? A Monkey man? 

OK, so I've used this song once before... but it's even more appropriate now, and besides- it's not like you can listen to this song too much! 

Enjoy!