Xebecs, Farsands of 'em!

Well two anyway... I finished up the second Brig conversion. Pretty much the same except I succeeded in giving the Mark 2 more of the tilted up prow and stern effect that I was aiming for. I also did the masts slightly longer  but the overall look does not change much. 

The sails are slightly different sizes and shapes just to avoid the two ships being too uniform. 

I am not messing about with rigging as the cost / benefit calculation doesn't work for me and there is always the chance I will make more of a mess than an improvement!

I now have the ships I need to play the scenario in Wordtwister Publishing's scenario package and the nucleus of a Barbary Corsair fleet to put the willies up the Europeans that I have!

Building Xebecs II

Not a sequel, this just carries on from the last post. I was at the stage of putting together the rigging for the Xebec, so I went back to the reference pictures I had scoured before starting the model. (More accurately I just jumped in and started making the sails and then went back and looked at how they should be!) There seemed to be some disagreement between paintings/ drawings / models as to whether the Xebec sails were attached at the top of the masts or only part way up. The latter allowed room for flags at the top of the mast (which is always good) but did mean my masts were perhaps a bit too short. 

I eventually realised that the reason is that the spar from which the sail hangs is raised and lowered, unlike those of a square rigged ship, so in fact both states are possibly correct. I decided that the Mark 2 Xebec  model would have taller masts to allow for either set of sails. It also occurred to me that is battle the Xebec possibly lowered their sail and mainly used oars for greater manoeuvrability. I like the look of the big lateen sails, so I was going to stick with them anyway. I glued the spars straight onto the plastic sails for simplicity and durability but I am aware that this was not how it would be done in real life...

I had seen quite a few models with vertically striped sails, which does look good and differentiates the Mediterranean corsairs from their boring European opponents. Painting neat stripes should not be too hard? The Airfix plastic sails I am using,luckily have the vertical stripes moulded in but after a large G&T even just following those lines was a horrible disaster! If I was using paper sails it couldn't be easier as I could print out the stripes and then cut out the right shape. Job done! I think a compromise of just the foresail stripy might be the best bet for me.

Remembering my keep it simple, it's a game piece mantra, from waaay back  in the last post, the paint job was a basic mid-brown for the ship's hull and a dark wash (Army Painter Strong tone) to bring out the detail. My instinct was to go colourful with the painting of the hull too but I restrained my self and just added a smart red stripe to the sides. The decks I did a pale colour but the same as the rest is just as plausible as I suspect that Corsairs do not holystone the decks to a perfect sheen every day! 

Flags were knocked together with inspiration from pictures on the Interwebs of Corsair ships in action. I made up some teeny triangles and rectangles on photoshop and added images of crescents and swords that looked sort of similar. Again simple designs suit the scale and the talent levels available!

So here is the A model quickly finished to get the general impression. I am pretty happy with that.  I will finish off the B model with different colours and flags, so that I will have the start of a  Corsair fleet. I am pleased that I was able to throw this together from the bits box (vindicated!) The priciest bit of my ones are probably the Fenris resin bases,which can obviously be replaced by all m,anner of choices (or non.) Next I will start to think about a galley to provide some more hitting power...