"Old Glory Armoured Moros" Topic

I have all the ingredients for an early/mid 16th century spice islands campaign: the Foundry conquistadors, and the Old Glory SAW Moros and Pirate range Cannibals. This means I potentially have Spanish/Portuguese adventurers/explorers and their Malay allies and enemies, and Aboriginal natives.

I have a qyestion for the omniscient TMP ubermind:

I'm hoping to be able to use the armoured 'Moros' as Malay mercenaries because they're depicted in quilted armour, with some wearing a local imitation of a European helmet. Does anyone know if such equipment is at all accurate for such troops in this period?

For simple, fun rules I'll be adapting the Chris Peers El Dorado variant of 'In the Heart of Africa', published in antiquity in WI.

I found an old two-part article in WI by Chris Peers on the Spice Wars. I was surprised at the degree of similarity he demonstrates between the tactical environment of the New World and the Indian Ocean/East Indies. The Portuguese colonial forces faced comparable numerical odds, and the relative effectiveness of the opposing colonial and native forces was consistently on a par with the Americas right across the theatre, whether the locals were Arabs, Indians, Chinese, or Malays. This means that the El Dorado combat rules can be used virtually as is.

Taking another, closer look at that painting in light of my internet research into Malay armour, it's possible to make out what looks like lacing connecting a couple of individual sections, so it's more likely supposed to be to be segmented 'hard' armour. The colour suggests horn or bronze. Unusually for armour in this region there's no mail underlying or connecting the plates.

As sculpted on the OG Moros there are distinct gaps between the plates that don't occur in the Brassey illustration (and therefore presumably, on the real thing), which render it sufficiently ambiguous that I still think you could paint it as quilted cotton armour if you wished to.

You may be interested in 19th century Philippino armour of vegetable fibres, by Albert Racinet. There is also fish-skin leather armour from Borneo.

Druzhina
19th Century Illustrations of Costume & Soldiers