Pirates of Cathay

It's holiday time again, which means that I have been working on a few more conversions... As some of you might know, I am looking into playing a game of warhammer or two, which means that I need to extend my existing two pirate warbands (Redbeards Crew and the River Strigany) - initially, I just wanted to do some handgunners and a hellblaster volley cannon, but the more I though about it, the more I found the time was right to work on some Cathayan pirates. The result of a weekend full of modelling (so much, in fact, that I didn't even get a chance to apply some greenstuff, yet) is what you can see below.

First, the Captain, Zheng Shenzhi - as you can see, I don't think Cathayans are interested in the firearms of the Old World (as the fluff of the Sartosa warband would suggest), but are rather far advanced in this area themselves. Usually, if you hit the gunpowder storage of a Pirate ship, it will explode. With the Cathayans, you get an explosion as soon as you shoot at one of the fighters.



Next, the first guy of a litte family reuinion - John You, nowadays called Lin Feng, father of the terror of the seas of the old world, Jack "Redbeard" Johnson. He went to Cathay with his fleet, taking his son with him, then they split up, and now as he is aged and his fleet got minced by the Cathayan Navy, he decided to join the crew of his old friend Zheng.



THen, we have some more heroes (yet unnamed). To the left, the second part of the big family meeting, Jiang Zhi, twin brother of Jiang Wei. Then two gun freaks, the one in the middle additionally armed with some grenades (as you can guess from his leg, he wasn't always that fortunate with them).



Then, some swordsmen. They look a little weird as they are all former fishermen, but like most of the rural population of Cathay, they are trained in some martial art or other and thus use a variety of weapons and fighting styles with similar effects to the swordsmanship of the Old World.



THen, we have some gunners:



A Cathayan Pirate Ogre (a must!)



And, of course, the Hellblaster (yes, already invented in Cathay 500 years prior to the Academy of Nuln).



THere's still one hero missing, but he needs quite a lot of GS and doesn't look like much yet. However, I do have a sneak preview at a much larger project which should be revealed in the weeks to come, a Priest of Strohmfels, Shark God of the Pirates. The thing he is holding in his hands will become a hammerhead shark mace, holy weapon of the Temple of Strohmfels in Sartosa.



C&C welcome And thanks for bearing with all the text,

Your models look awesome, I especially like the Shields. I can't wait to see them painted!

VERY COOL LOOKING conversions...you're making the most of your free time.

Nice start to the warband, can't wait to see these guys painted up! If your previous pirates are any indication, this warband is going to be awesome!

Ah crap! Totally forgot to send you those Greatswords legs, I'm sorry man..

These fella's are looking awesome btw, really dig all the different characters - great choice of parts also. Now, paint them!

Thanks for the comments, folks. There is a Japanese film festival going on this week in Frankfurt, so I don't know how much time I can spare, but hopefully, they will all be greenstuffed to be ready to get painted soon

@Pfreck: Don't worry about the legs, as you can see, I still found a pair and the other projext got scrapped anyways due to the fact that I decided on converting a lot of new pirates

Wow! Looking good! You are a very creative fellow Eliazar. You seem to manage to make something different each time you kit bash - inspiring! There are so many good models I can't even bother to mention one. Gotta get going on my own Cathayan pirates soon, but there are so many other projects that I've embarked on... sigh. Well, soon summer is here, hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a few weeks of modelling and painting then...

Lovely work so far!

Really looking forward to the tattoos that ogre MUST have!

haha, love the hellblaster crew dude (with the beard)
and great to sse you pulling up a little army as well! nice to play some big battles when the next meetup happens!

Great and inspiring minis.

Hope you will not be dissappointed about playing Warhammer.

But with these minis it will be awesome.

Blimey, you have been creative and productive in equal measures this week sir!

Might be a good idea if I was to complete the first draft of the 'other' pirate themed warband list I was talking about.

Alright, long time no see, but with university, social life, and some other projects, I didn't really find the time to sit down and sculpt a lot... however, this all changed today, and I finally managed to almost complete the pirate conversions. Also, I got myself a new camera, so after another hour or so of additional GSing, I'll take some pictures for you before I undercoat them all and start painting

Woop! Looking forward to that.

Ok, I noticed that I forgot to fix the shoulder of the one with the claw and that there's a picture of John missing (didn't really do much to him, so no worries), but apart from that, here they are ready to be undercoated (I didn't bother to bluetack the shield to the models):

First of, Cpt. with Ogre



Heroes:



Swordsmen:



Gunners:



Volley Cannon Crew with silly hat engineer (ancient chinese people always wore silly hats, and that's the one I could find a decent picture of and which looked recreateable for tabletop):




After this wasn't too exciting, I still got two additions to the crew.

First of, Princess Sela:



And the one I was talking about earlier, Gan Ning.

Wikipedia wrote:

As a youth, Gan served under the warlord Liu Yan but revolted when the latter died. After his rebellion failed, he led a band of bandits carrying bows and crossbows to wander the lands. They wore bells about their waists and bone ornaments in their hair as a mark, causing commoners to either run or hide when they heard the ring of bells. He kept looting, robbing and killing until he decided to pursue scholarly arts.

Once I find the time and manage to finish the other things, I'll give a wild haired version with bones instead of skulls a go, but for now, dreadlocks chaos dwarf style have to suffice

I hope you like them, C&C appreciated. I will not immediately start painting them, as there is still one more model missing for my Strigany starting warband, and some Priests of the Empire are waiting in line already, too Ah well, perhaps I'll paint a hero or two and check out the colour scheme... Can't resist

Very nice miniatures you got there mate! Love the silly hat engineer, nice expression on his face too

What about adding a large/fat crew member? I remember seeing one in PotC 3 as part of Sao Feng's crew..

I am already working on a fat guy for another warband, but you're right, he would fit very nicely. You can never have enough swordsmen! I need to check my random bits I brough to my university flat, my big bitzbox is at home, where I won't be until September, I think

Perhaps I need to check out the PotC trilogy (and the new movie!) for some inspiration. Love your little guy (and will likely steal the idea at some stage )

Fantastic conversions and kit bashes here.

I shall likely be making a few 40k pirates soon to go with a red corsair
I made, shall be stealing a few ideas from this thread when I do

Haha that's great! looking forward to your edition of him

You're developing a real feel for the exotic with your pirates. EXCELLENT WORK!
Note: we Ancients do love our silly hats.

A warband featuring a historic figure (and character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms) such as Gan Ning is a winner with me!

Looking forward to seeing some colours on these guys!

Gan Ning looks great, both the hair and the great weapon. What's your plan for princess Sela? Would be nice with some pics from different angles!

I can take some pics from different angles. Princess Sela is supposed to stay as she is, I swapped her hair with a bandana (looks a little better now after filing it down, though I might need to improve it a little more still) and exchanged the witch elf dagger for a cutlass, that's pretty much all I wanted to do with her. She'll be either Cabin Girl, Swordswoman, or something completely different once a couple more Marienburg warbands are finished

And thanks for the comments everyone.

5pointer wrote:

A warband featuring a historic figure (and character in Romance of the Three Kingdoms) such as Gan Ning is a winner with me!

Looking forward to seeing some colours on these guys!

I second that, 'Three Kingdoms:A Historical Novel' is among my top pieces of literature, only second to George R.R. Martin's Song of Fire and Ice series (Also a great source of mature fantasy inspiration!). There is a wealth of awesome character ideas you could rob from both!

@Eliazar: These are some really great minis you've crafted here, you should be proud!! Looking forward to seeing them painted up.

Hey hey. While I am currently studying abroad without having been able to take my paints, I did create an additional warrior for the crew - a "cianty style" warrior monk that can be used with the Pirates of Cathay rules of the Sartosa supplement:

Are awesome the ideas for this type of warband, miniatures modelling is so good!