King Golden Cap is currently one of the two Native American Legendary Commanders in Blood & Plunder. One of the fun things about Legendary Commanders is they get their own special sculpt. Today we have a quick showcase and painting guide for the King Golden Cap miniature in Blood & Plunder.

King Golden Cap Blood & Plunder Miniature

This is the second time I’ve painted the King Golden Cap model, and painting the resin version was a delight. The detail and clarity is excellent and a noticeable step up from the metal model I painted a few years back. If you get a camera really close, you can see some weird layer lines from printing on this model, but it’s still several steps better than metal.

King Golden Cap’s Historical Background

While King Golden Cap was an important figure in his place and time, he is remarkably difficult to find information on, especially on the internet! The best source for information on him is Benerson Little’s write up on him in the No Peace Beyond the Line Blood & Plunder expansion!

Golden Cap, or Sombrero de Oro in Spanish, was a leader among the Cuna tribes in Panama. He may have been son of the “Emperor Don Andreas” (also in Blood & Plunder) and he and Emperor Andreas worked closely with Bartholomew Sharp, Lionel Wafer and company in 1680.

In the buccaneers’ account, Golden Cap is described as dressing to impress! Wearing a large white linen garment uncharacteristic of his tribe, and a large headdress decorated with gold, Golden Cap stood out to the buccaneers. He is also described as wearing a string of jaguar teeth, a large gold plate from his nose, and as wielding a sharp “lance.”

This is a stark contrast to the rest of the tribe which Dampier describes as “almost naked, as having only a sharp and hollow tip, make either of gold, silver, or bark, into which they thrust their privy members.”

He is recorded as behaving very generously with the Buccaneers, but showed himself ruthless when fighting the Spanish who forced his people to work in their gold mines.

Golden Cap is featured in the Buccaneer’s Companion Blood & Plunder campaign that tracks this South Sea Adventure. In scenario 3, Santa Maria, the Buccaneers and Cuna attack a Spanish outpost and rescue one of the Cuna king’s daughters (presumably King Golden Cap’s daughter).

You can find a full 500pt army scale report on this scenario here on Blood & Pigment.

You can read read up on more details on King Golden Cap and his alliance with the English Buccaneers in his bio in No Peace Beyond the Line and these two additional books: Raiders and Natives (discusses him specifically) and A Pirate of Exquisite Mind (covers the Buccaneer campaign in which King Golden Cap participated).

Painting King Golden Cap

I’m embarrassed to say I painted this second copy of the miniature nearly identical to my first copy over 4 years ago!

Overall, King Golden Cap is an easy miniature to paint. His large white tunic is simple and he has relatively few accessories. I won’t go through each step exhaustively, but here are the primary paints I used on my King Golden Cap model.

King Golden Cap Skin Paints

One of the hardest parts of painting Native American models is deciding on a skin tone. I used the Foundry set of 3 paints for South American Skin tone, starting with the Shade tone, then layering over the 119B and then the Light 119C.

This set of paints gives you a deep reddish tone that isn’t too brown, or too “racist red.” I should have done a bit more mixing of the Core Tone with the Light Tone to get some smoother transitions…

I did use Citadel’s Reikland Fleshshade lightly as a sort of glaze over most of the skin areas to attempt to blend things out a little bit.

King Golden Cap Tunic Paints

Benerson Little describes his garment as “pure white linen” so I guess I could have gone whiter here. I used Citadel Ushabti Bone for my base, then layered into Screaming Skull for a highlight.

I didn’t really use any wash at all except for a light wash over the lower portion of the garment.

I actually used the same base tone of Ushabti Bone for the wicker part of the crown, but shaded it more heavily with a brown wash.

King Golden Cap Gold Paint

You got to have that gold crown! I used Vallejo’s Metal Color Gold on this model. This gold tone is much less brassy than the rich gold tone on the Firelock stat card and in the book. I went for a more subtle gold color this time.

I think I like this tone of gold more than the brighter tone I used on my first version I painted, but both look good. Not sure which is more realistic.

King Golden Cap Metals

For the spear point and machete, I used my favorite Metal Color metallic tones of Steel and Silver, shaded with Nuln Oil.

King Golden Cap Misc Colors

For the sash and feathers on the headdress and lance, I used a variety of bright Citadel tones.

Colors include:

• Averland Sunset
• Flash Gitz Yellow
• Temple Guard Blue
• Khorne Red

I did some image searches of central American bird feathers and decided to do one multi colored plume in the hat, inspired by the plumage of the macaw.

Finished King Golden Cap

Pictures from all angles of my finished King Golden Cap miniature.

King Golden Cap in Blood & Plunder

This Legendary Commander has a hatful of Special Rules and he has recently got a point cost reduction so he’s even easier to play now than when first released. The No Peace Beyond the Line errata released in Spring of 2024 reduced his cost from the original 34pts to 30pts.

King Golden Cap’s stats are impressive:

• 3 Command Points
• 12″ Command Range
• God’s Blessing or the Devil’s Luck
• Great Warrior
• Vendetta: Spanish
• Aggressive Commander
• Elan
• Unwavering

This sets him up to be an excellent commander for leading a melee focused army. His Aggressive Commander will provide all units near him with a bonus on their Charges, and his Elan will let him continue to orchestrate his attack while locked in melee. Great Warrior is a great ability that can apply a bonus on any one test during his unit’s activation. If you apply the bonus to the Fight test in a Charge that’s already getting the benefit of that Aggressive Commander bonus, you can make your Charges super deadly. Especially on the units available to his factions!

God’s Blessing or the Devil’s Luck provides him with an extra Fortune Point which every Blood & Plunder player loves! Unwavering bring his unit quickly back into play if he ever becomes Shaken, and his hatred for the Spanish shows up with his Vendetta: Spanish rule that allows all units to reroll one failed die on all Rally tests while fighting the Spanish.

That is an impressive set of rules for 30pts, along with his Legendary level 3 Command Points. His 12″ Command Range isn’t the best, but it is usually enough for most standard games.

King golden Cap’s Factions

King Golden Cap can command the Darien (Cuna) and his special Golden Island Tribe Legendary Faction.

The factions are honestly fairly similar, but his personal Golden Island Tribe is just kind of a bit better!

Darien (Cuna) Faction

The generic faction he can command has one of the simplest Core and Support Unit lineups ever! Warriors and Young Warriors. Both units have the Quick and Skirmishers Special Rules making them fast and dangerous on the board. The Faction Rules force them to be equipped with both Bows and Thrown Weapons, making them very flexible, but also fairly high cost at 5pts per model for the only Core unit. Finally, the entire faction gets the Hard Chargers rule which is kind of a duplicate of Golden Cap’s Aggressive Commander rule.

Warriors have a Fight Skill of 5. Boost that down to 4 with Hard Chargers then boost it again with the Great Warrior/War Captains bonus on Golden Cap’s unit, and you’re down to 3+! And if you miss with any dice, you get to reroll the fails for free with Thrown Weapons! The Darien hit hard when they get into melee range!

Their ranged attacks are decent with 6 Shoot Skill on all units with bows. Sidearm Muskets can be a wise choice as well.

The Golden Island Tribe

King Golden Cap’s special Legendary faction shares most of the same strengths as the Cuna, but it layers on a couple more abilities! If you’re going to play King Golden Cap, go ahead and play his Golden Island Tribe faction.

In addition to the same Bows/Thrown Weapons requirement and Hard Chargers on all units in the faction, the Golden Island Tribes gives all its Native units the Tough Special Rule. Resolve and Fatigue usually a Native faction’s main weakness, and this ability is so helpful in regularly removing Fatigue. The less you have to Rally, the more times you get to shoot those bows and throw those spears in a Charge!

The Golden Island Tribe also has two additional Support Unit options representing their alliance with Sharp’s expedition. They can bring English Freebooters and French Flibustiers for some variety. Watch out because all the Special Rules from that Faction rules only apply to the Native American units in the faction, not these Buccaneer units.

Both Golden Cap’s factions are strongest on land, but can be put into Canoes and Piragues if they need to go punish the Spanish (or anyone else) at sea.

Final Thoughts

King Golden Cap is an interesting historical figure and it’s awesome that he is represented in Blood & Plunder! His unique dress makes him easily stand out as a Commander in your army on the table, and his game design make him a dangerous foe!

If you love the pirate theme of Blood & Plunder but want to try a Native American faction, King Golden Cap is a great place to start! With his close connection to the Brethren of the Coast/English Buccaneers, and his hatred for the Spanish, you can fit Golden Cap and his hard charging horde into your pirate games of Blood & Plunder.

If you’re playing Buccaneer or Brethren of the Coast factions, you can even use this model as a local guide, or a model or character in a Native American support unit.

I appreciate Firelock Games’ efforts to represent the various Native peoples during this era, and King Golden Cap is a great example of how they’ve done that. Go treat yourself to a new miniature and get this guy painted up and on your Blood & Plunder tables!

Additional Golden Cap Content

Related Products

• King Golden Cap Miniature
• No Peace Beyond the Line expansion that includes King Golden Cap and his Factions
• Raiders and Natives: Cross-Cultural Relations in the Age of Buccaneers by Arne Bialushewski