'Mercenary' from MilesR: Barbary Xebec

My Mercenary Bonus round entry is a Barbary Pirate Xebec in 15mm scale.  How is this a Mercenary?  Well the Historicon game I'm putting on this summer if a based on a hypothetical invasion of Britain by Napoleon and the scenario is titled "To Catch A King". The British player needs to escort King George off the map and have hired a very fast Barbary Xebec to help with that effort.  More on that topic a bit later.  The Xebec model and Barbary crew are from Thoroughbred Miniatures and are very nicely done.

A closer shot of the ship.  She's armed with 12 nine pounder guns which will provide a nice punch both for long and short range encounters.  The ship will be crewed by 10 stands of blood thirsty Barbary pirates so this ship will be difficult for a single French Frigate to take on.  Perhaps that's why they'll have three in the game?

I really like the look of a Xebec and think she'll be a lot of fun to command on the table top.  As with the most of the previous ships models, the rigging has been left off until I finish play testing so I can figure how easy or hard it is to manipulate crew figures on the deck.

A close up of the crew.  The casting and sculpting of these figures are as good as AB so that's a very high compliment.  They were a lot of fun to paint and I may had said a few "Argghhhhh's" while doing so.

The Xebec fully crewed and ready for action.  Of course the ship needs a name - something suitably Barbary and Pirate-like.  I suck at this stuff so will open it up to this group (yes, even you PeterD).  I'll pick a name from those suggested in the comments.  Let's keep it family friendly as I usually have one or two kids playing in these convention games and would prefer not to deal with reproachful parental glares as little Timmy proudly exclaims "Dad, I commanded the Queens's $^%#& in that game".  Ray, that comment was meant with you in mind.

As for the scenario, it will be for 4-5 players per side with 1 naval commander and 3-4 corps land commanders, each with a Corps.  The British will be defending and their objective is to escort King George across the table, embark him on a ship and get him off the board.  The French are to prevent this.  It will be played on a 6x18 ft table with a 6x6 sea zone.  There will be about 3,000 miniatures involved so it will be a pretty big game.  Of course with King George being THAT King George and somewhat "Mad" he may move a bit erratically as he makes his way with his household to the harbor.  I know it's a very silly scenario but I really do enjoy making the historical purists heads explode at these con's.  It's one of life's simple pleasures.  

This submission does qualify for the nautical challenge and will be my last 15mm-scale ship to be submitted for this year's Challenge.

Points wise, as this is the largest of the ships I've done this year, I'm going to suggest 75 points - she's a beast and is 18 inches long. Points for the crew are much easier as 20 figures gets 40 points! As always, the final point tally is at Curt's discretion, hopefully he makes this momentous decision enjoying some high-end coffee...