Welcome to my blog, the story of my continuing journey into the World of Zombie Wargames.

Monday 8 August 2016

Muskets (Pirates 3)

All 60 (ish) of my 'musketeers' - bring on D'Artagnan
So in my continuing audit of my Pirate forces I'm  slowly sorting them into various groups and  musket armed figures are in great abundance as can be seen from the photograph.
Worst case of chest-foot ever?
They're quite a mixed bunch in both quality and armament, despite being meant to be musket armed.
There are a few that have carbine length 'muskets' and others that have attached bayonets (? - yep, I know -wtf?), but I'm happy to say most have a chunky  weapon that looks like the length a musket should be (- I get a bit annoyed seeing muskets that appear to be short.)
Amongst the 'shooters' (I've omitted pistols from this category) I came across several of the more esoteric (read Hollywood) weapons that manufactures have produced in their foundries (teehee).
Of course there is also the poor chap that's cursed to carry around a chest on his foot for the rest of his career. I know that manufacturers love to do this sort of thing but it does annoy me, especially as he's not the only one that I have!
Not quite so annoying are the lookouts who are pointing one way whilst looking the other way and presumably shouting something akin to "Sails ahoy"



"They're behind us to my front"
Some 'blunderbus' armed figures (BG 2nd from the left)
 Some of the more usable shooters are armed with the inevitable "Blunderbus", another favourite of both coachmen and Hollywood.

 (It was sorting through these that I found my "Ben Gunn"
They vary greatly in the quality of the representation of their armament as the actual weapons were in reality.


"I thought we were robbing banks"
Along with muskets and blunderbusses I have what appears to be a shot-gun armed pirate, no problem normally as shotguns are really just another form of musket, but this guy has a double-barrelled one!

Adding to the mix there is a figure armed with a multi-barrelled firearm, I presume loosely based on the Henry Nock Volley gun (late 18th, early 19th century) as used by the Royal Navy.
"I'll get the seven on the right, you get the other four"

I'll leave this post with a few pics of the more esoterically armed figures I have (and have no idea what to do with.)
"And the salesman said this is what all the cool pirates are using these days"
"You're no, wrong there laddie" 
"When he said hand-cannon...."
"It looked smaller in the catalogue"
That's it for this week and I'll be continuing to post about my Pirate figure collection next time (sorry).

Thanks for taking the time to visit and as always your comments are both welcomed and appreciate.


26 comments:

  1. Fierce looking buggers! Love the hand cannons - magnums of the seven seas.....

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    1. Thanks dGG, I really don't know what I'm going to use them for, but they do look intimidating

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  2. How strong must you be to use one of those "Hand Cannons?"
    Nice to see a real horde of pirates must be a few crews worth there.

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    1. I have to agree Clint, unless of course they're faked.
      I think I set off originally to make about 4 crew of about 30 figures each.

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  3. A charismatic group of scallywags!

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    1. Thanks AL, but 'Charistamtic' wasn't the first word that sprang to mind with these chaps and 'scallywags'is possibly a bit more fitting.

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  4. Colourful and characterful stuff Joe. I love some of the firearms and your little pic headings had me roaring with laughter - "It looked smaller in the catalogue"!!! :-)

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    1. Thanks Blaxx, I hated having to paint all these at the time - give me a uniformed army any time (coming soon)

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  5. Wonderful Joe, you wouldn't want to cross that little lot!

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    1. Thanks Michael,I guess you're right especially with some of the firepower they apparently can use.

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  6. Aaarrrr! What a hearty bunch of scurvies! *hic*

    Noice poirates mate :)

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    1. Thanks Tamsin, I think mine may be land-bound for a while yet, so hopefully no scurvy.

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  7. Do I *have* to be the first to point out there's a Joe among those photos?

    The post had me thinking, however - is there any estimation how many pirates would be armed with muskets? They are "usually" portrayed having a cutlass and a pistol.

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    1. Thanks for that Mattyoo (I think).
      I think that pirates would grab as many muskets they could, useful for long range shooting and of course in taking cities, town etc. For boarding actions they'd probably revert to sword and pistols, but a lot of ships would surrender before pirates boarded.

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  8. I think you should just mix them and treat them as 'firearmed' Joe. Great captions!

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    1. THanks Colin, I reckon I'll probably have enough normal armed musket figures without having to resort to using the 'specials'

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  9. You've certainly a lot of pirates, and just with this collection alone you've got more painted figures than I have in my entire lot!

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    1. Thanks Roy, that comes as quite a surprise to me; I have an equally sized force of Imperial Romans too who also haven't seen the games table.

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    2. I sold off a lot of my painted items when I stopped being a member of the local GW clubs, so that's one reason why I don't have much painted anymore. A lot of what I now paint ends up on eBay, so its like the saying with the cobbler - His shoes get fixed last.
      One of the reasons why I play play-by-mail, pen and paper games, and am now getting into the pre-painted Star Wars games, is this issue of never having anything of my own painted and ready for use.

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    3. I too have sold off many Armies in the past, which I don't regret much. Compared tomany I don't really have that much lead left to paint, (but stilll enough) even if I could. I get most of my wargaming enjoyment from the computer Total War series - hundred of figures on a huge 'table', all painted and yu can't argue about the rules!

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  10. Thats a lot of guns! Beware all merchants and traders!

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    1. Thanks Brummie, I'll eventually get around to showing the forces that will be defending said merchant and traders.

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  11. A lot of firepower. Lovely pirates and a fearsome bunch of chaps.Nice to have that many and fill the gaming table with more fractions than one.I am planning myself to play with a least three gamers in one pirategame.Do you also use headhunters, sharks when gaming?

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    1. Thanks Ptr, I think I can fillmy table easily enough with four to six factions of about 30 figures. IAs I gave up on this project before it really got underway I haven't much ein the way of 'extras' like sharks etc. - but I have thought of it. I do have some Pygmies and Zulus though!

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