Rigged Sloop and more French for B&P

More painting has been done. This time, I've finally managed to rig and set sail to Jeanne de Flandre, my (nominally French) sloop for Blood & Plunder, as well as paint some more frenchmen (also for B&P).

First up, sails on the horizon!

 She's surprisingly tall, which means that my usual photographing table needs some more work before I get a nice even background...

If my sources are correct, that is (going from back to front) a gaff sail, a staysail and a jib. All I know is that they look sleek and pretty.

Surprisingly simple and goodlooking rigging to her. Some time in the future, I might go over and do a more advanced rigging, but for now, simplicity, speed and easy access to the decks are my prime motivations.

All the swivel guns on the ship are attached with magnets, making them easy to remove when you do not want them all mounted and, once removed, with no obvious stuff missing.

The cannons are also held in place with magnets, both to keep them in place and allow for easy removal when they're not wanted (and/or has been destroyed).

The magnets sit (more or less) flush with the deck, and are surprisingly well camouflaged when not under a cannon.

The magnets also allow for silly stuff like this. Yes, the ship is laying on her side, and the cannons still stay in place (reducing damages to both the resin ship and metal cannon carriages in case of light jostling)

The only problem with the magnets, is that I mounted them a bit too far back, making the light cannons most often mounted being situated a bit far back. Oh, well, learn and adapt, the next ship will have them mounted closer to the edge even if it makes it a bit trickier to figure out exactly where to mount them. There is a some margin of error anyway.

The ship has a tiller to steer by, the wheel not having been invented in the 17th century. This could be situated either on top, on the open deck, or down below (trading vision for a bit of protection from the elements).

It has, of course, been secured by a magnet, allowing it to turn and, more importantly, be removed if necessary...

Such as when a large unit of Flibustiers are occupying the deck and space is at a premium.

The flag (and flagpole) is only attached by gravity and friction, and can easily be removed for storage, transporting and to replace the flag in case she's been "borrowed" by Spanish, English or pirates. Additional flagpoles are on the workbench.

For ease of transport, the mast as well as the bowsprit can be removed. However, they're still attached by the rigging, which provides some limits, as do the huge gaff sail it has. But at least the ship is much shorter now, and will hopefully be easier to transport without damages (no, I haven't actually figured out how to transport her).

Some more frenchmen has also been painted.

First out, the French Legendary Commander, Jean-David Nau, better known as Francois L'Olonnais. Equal parts Inspiring (for his friends and subordinates), terrifying (for his enemies) and badass (in general), but above all and by all appearances a functioning psychopath. I like this model much more than the standard French fopcommander, and will most likely use it as a generic commander as well.

Then, there's been some more Flibustiers, bringing the first unit up to 8 strong. The sharp eyed will notice that a few of the models doesn't look like standard Flibustiers. They would be correct, but I had 4 Flibustiers less than I needed, and 4 English Freebooters more than I needed. And the main difference is the number of pistols they carry. Done and done, painted as frenchmen and nobody the wiser (except everyone, since I told it on my blog...)

The second unit of Flibustiers also got reinforced to 8 total (with english replacements as above).

Finally, an additional 8 Boucaniers, all of them in dirty, bloodstained clothes. Must say, I'm impressed by how fun these were to paint, as well as by the bloodstains. Simple stippling of a reddish brown, add some brown wash (which has been used in abundance anyway), and done.

Luckily for me, some more frenchmen has now arrived, sailors and militia both, so there's no need to worry about running out of stuff to paint in the near future

/Fool out, time to paint more bluecoats (except very few if any of their coats will actually be blue)