"16th Century Malay Mercenaries in Spanish/Portuguese Service" Topic

As the previous attempt garnered no response, perhaps a rephrasing of my question will produce better results.

Given that they're depicted in quilted armour, with some in locally produced imitations of cabacete helmets, could the Old Glory armoured Moros from the SAW range feasibly be used to represent such troops?

Wow, good point! I'd say yes, looking at figures from that range.

Is that meant to be quilted armour? I assumed it was mail-linked plate, like most of the pics that come up when you google "Moro armour". But it does look as if it could be painted as quilt, at least.

However, I know of no indication that Malay troops of the period wore much armour at all.

The figures are based on an illustration in the Brassey SAW book that appears to show the armour to be quilted fabric of some sort.

So assuming the painting is based on accurate information, it would seem that tribesmen in the Phillipines, at least, had a history of wearing such armour. The question is how far back the practice dates. 16th century Spanish and Portuguese troops were certainly equipped in this fashion (pun intended) in the tropics, so that's more than likely its source. The use of imitation Spanish helmets supports that viewpoint.

Whilst I haven't seen any evidence of the issuing of quilted armour to native auxiliaries in other colonial theatres, if purely tribal forces were in the habit of wearing it it doesn't seem outrageously implausible to depict better organised and supplied colonial units in it, and to imagine that its distribution to them might have been more regular. I've floated the idea here just to see if there's any screamingly historical objection to it.

Anyway, the campaign would be centred on fictional islands located vaguely between the Phillipines and Indonesia, with local forces represented by generic Malays not pinned down to any particular historical model, so there'll be room for some creativity in their depiction.