"28mm Indian Ocean swords-and-sorcery pirates - suggestions?" Topic

I'm suddenly feeling a lot of enthusiasm for reviving old projects. One idea I might return to is gaming 28mm swords-and-sorcery adventures in an Indian Ocean-like setting – it's such a perfect focal point for swords-and-sorcery, what with its blend of non-European cultures and its potential for seafaring adventure. The protagonists of these adventures would be a crew of pirates with a strong Swahili-Arab-Indian-Malay hybrid flair. They would be my "Pirates of the Lemurian Sea".

I never got around to acquiring miniatures to represent them, though. Originally I'd been planning to convert them out of Foundry Darkest Africa porters – replacing their arms at the shoulders, removing their baggage and putting turbans on their heads. The loincloths-and-turbans look appeals to me, and combined with scimitars or machetes/falchions and ornate shields it would capture the "exotic pirates" feel really well, all the while not looking like either Chinese pirates or Barbary pirates (which I'd want to save for possible inclusion as adversaries/allies at some later point). I might still go ahead with this idea, but in all honesty, it's precisely this kind of elaborate conversion projects that bog me down and end up being mothballed sooner or later.

So, I'm looking for suggestions for alternative figures. They don't have to fit the loincloths-and-turbans look described above. They just have to pass for exotic pirate/bandit types conducive for a swords-and-sorcery visual, and not require too much converting (some head swaps and the like might be alright). What I said eariler about not wanting Chinese or Barbary pirates is not a hard and fast rule, either. No suggestion is "too creative". I don't need a lot of figures, about 6-10 should suffice, and they don't all have to be different poses. I have some Copplestone Castings Somalis and Foundry Baluchis that might fit the bill, but I'd been meaning to use them as adversaries/allies for the pirates.

While I'm at it, if anyone has suggestions for Lemurian soldiers/guards I'll gladly take those as well. Lemuria in my world would be kind of like Clark Ashton Smith's Hyperborea but in the southern hemisphere – an exotic city-dweller culture that doesn't quite correspond to any real-world culture (admittedly Smith was extremely vague about cultural details, being much more concerned with magic and monsters), on a tropical-subtropical-temperate peninsula jutting out of Antarctica. My best idea so far is to use something like Sassanids, Egyptian Marines, Hittites, Israelites or even Incas with some major conversions, but that's nothing I'm very attached to.

Have a look at Indus miniatures. Great looking minis, plenty sword wielding turban and loin cloth clad. Fancier ones to captain your crews too.

link

An example of the Indus figures:

link

Look at black hat for Chinese fantasy and Pirate fantasy figures.

blackhat.co.uk/online_shop

I'm on my phone eight now so can't call up the search, but if you check TMP for "Indian fantasy" you'll find a thread I had a few years ago that covered a lot of what's available for India. Since then I would add Harwood Hobbies and Crocodile Games have added to the list.

Redoubt Wellington in India have some packs of loin cloth Indians, but they are on the large scale of 28mm
I also use Incas as generic ancient warriors.

Essex makes pre Arab conquest in kilts figures
Curteys makes Burmese in loin cloths
link
Tékumel miniatures might be an option too

scheltrum.co.uk 's Dyaks {Borneo} may fit scheltrum.co.uk/dik28.html as might their Wako scheltrum.co.uk/wako.html (Japan)

x42

Thank you all for the suggestions so far!

I definitely want the Curteys Burmese now I've seen them (they must have been released during one of my hiatuses from the hobby, they're completely new to me), but I'm split as to whether to use them as my hybrid-culture pirates or as the soldiers of a Southeast Asian-style kingdom to oppose them. I have similar thoughts about the Indus figures. Can't remember what I was originally meaning to use as Indian-style soldiers, but the Indus ones would do fine if I don't use them as pirates. Ditto for the Scheltrum Dayaks as Malays/Austronesians although I'm apprehensive about the quality of the sculpts. Maybe it's just the photos not doing them justice. Come to think of it, I have a vague recollection of having a pack of them stashed away somewhere – I've certainly ordered something from Scheltrum at some point, but I can't remember what.

Basically, assuming I revive this project at all, I'd want every Indian Ocean culture (in broad strokes, plus my Lemurians) represented with 4-10 soldiers/guards/warriors, a few villagers/townspeople and a special personality or two (princesses, wizards and the like). Those, plus the pirates and some other fairly generic swords-and-sorcery archetypes (cultists, urban rogues, well-armed mercenaries, etc) would comprise a self-contained project of less than 100 figures overall. Damn, 100 sounds like a lot, actually

Gripping Beast Desert Frontier spearmen

I'd second (third?) using Tekumel as Lemurians. They have a perfect 'non-western' look to them.

-Will

Forge of Ice make some snake priestesses, they are only on Facebook and I havn't ordered from them yet so I can't say how good they are.
Amazon Indians from Copplestone and Eureka as primitive natives?
Harwood Hobbies Kali Cultist

link
Wako pirates

Eureka make great Dayaks link
They also do some nice warriors from Lombok but I can't find them on their site.
LB

I'd originally planned to use PNG native infantry with spears and bows from Brigade Games' WW2 Pacific range as tribal natives for that more Austronesian look, but on second thought four poses might not get me very far. Then there's the Pulp Figures Melanesians of course, and plenty of sub-Saharan African tribals.

some Sudan ranges have early dervish troops called Nile or river Arabs they are usually only wearing a wrap around robe

Eureka had Barbary Pirayes.

RSM has some Nalksn figures in its SYW range.

Thanks for all the further suggestions. I think I'm going to get quite a few of the suggested figures for various cultures in this setting (and I have a few of them already, some of which I forgot I own until seeing them suggested here). For the pirates themselves, I'm still on the fence but leaning towards Sudan Mahdists, like those from Perry Miniatures, but with some head swaps to make them appear more multi-ethnic. I like the way their outfits have a running theme but don't all look the same. Some of them are even wearing vests, which to me reinforce that sense of swashbuckling panache. The absence of archers is a downside, but I might be able to convert a few riflemen to be holding crossbows, or just go for javelin-throwers instead.

Come to think of it, somewhere in my lead pile there should be a pack or two of Perry Kordofan spearmen which I'd been meaning to use as Swahili Coast-type city-dweller soldiers/guards (I know that's probably a bit culturally ignorant, but besides those and African mercenaries for medieval Andalusia there aren't a lot of figures that are suitable for sub-Saharan African non-tribal city-dweller civilizations). IIRC, they're slightly smaller than what would have been ideal, but I can live with it.