Blue pirate crew

I have fancied playing pirate games for a long time but never really got on with that. A few years ago I bought the Old Glory created ‘Bluemoon’ 18mm pirate range of figs when they first came out. I had no idea what game to use them for but bough them because these are really nice figures and there is a nice variety of poses – in fact there are more poses than in most 28mm figure ranges.  So with the the uptake in Pirate style games I thought I’d paint the figs I have up before doing anything else. I’ll see at some point what game to use them for.Above you can see the ‘blue’ pirate crew.  These are 21 unique poses. I found that with the 2 bags of pirate crew I have, plus a the pirate captains bag, I can make the figs into 3 crews – Blue, Red and Green, obviously each will have a colour theme. Each crew will be made up of unique figures so no repeat poses in a single crew unless I mess up.  These, along with the naval pack should allow me to host various ‘medium scale’ pirate games with 4 or 5 players. Oh and yes I do have 28mm pirates to paint but I’m not doing multiple crews in that scale.

So below are some close ups of the figs. I’m sure others would do a lot better than me and these are done at a wargame table level not for display purposes. The aim is to have reasonable figs to play games with. The first 4 crewmen even has an eye patch ( the second from the right) which I think you can make out in the first picture. I believe you can see the colour theme works for the force but also that not only are the figures all different but I have tried to give each unique paint finish. This seems to work as they are all different but at the same time made them obviously all a single force. The sculpting on these bluemoon figures is really nice and allows even a reasonable painter like me an easy time of painting them. They also have loads of character for 15/18mm figs which is really nice. I’m still a little undecided what to do with the bases. I’m thinking to leave them very much as they are – maybe with a little touch ups around the edges etc. That would allow the bases to not stand out either onshore or when the figs are on boats – Oh and yes I have some real boats in this scale to paint as well. That’s the nice thing with the Bluemoon range. Lastly, there are the captain and sub-commanders/leaders of the group. These figs have ‘more style’ than the above pirates and so likely will be use for such positions. I may as well put some specific colours on the base edges to highlight these figs are different depending on the rules used. So there we are. I will add magnets under the pennies that the figs they based on to help make them stable in transport and also enable easy ways of them to be picked up in play. But suggestions on anything to be done on the bases is welcome as well.