By Josh Shivak

So, as all good things tend to start out as, this list started life as a joke. I won the Summer of Plunder 2023 big prize ship, a mighty 6th Rate Frigate, and I had wanted to come up with a fun list to be annoying and have a good time showing it off on the table. You see, there is this little faction within Spain that does some really fun things, but it’s not really well suited to winning battles on land. I am speaking of course about the absolutely wonderful, if not full of awful units, Spanish Mission Garrison. 

Force Special Rules:

• » If this Force’s Command unit includes a Spiritual Leader or Mission Priest Character, the Commander gains an additional Command Point (to a maximum of 3).
• » All units armed with Bows gain the Rain of Arrows Special Rule.
• » Soldados de Avanzada in this Force gain the Support: Milicianos Indios de la Florida Special Rule.

Like I said, this list started out as a joke, as a meme. I had been playing around with the Mission Priest, and I’d like to believe I started the annoying trend of yelling Santiago! at the conventions. So having a list that encouraged me to bring awful units, and be annoying? Sign me up! 

In the first appearance of this list, I decided to have all the Natives be armed with Muskets, and just live with slow reload. It was afterall not supposed to win, everyone was supposed to look at it and just put it out of its misery. So then it just started to win. In 2024 I took it to Adepticon and went 2-1. The only loss it suffered was because Tyler Stone took one look at it and decided it wasn’t even an option and sailed away from it (I had to try and get upwind of his way more maneuverable Balandra).

Why was it working? While the 3pt Milicianos Indios de la Florida may not have good stats, they do have an excellent 6+ Shoot save. Put those natives on a ship and they are making saves on a 5+. Now we have natives with a purpose in life. Intercepting enemy fire for the more important Soldados!

Speaking of the Soldados… Has anyone noticed that having a 5+ Fight that drops to a 4+ when Ruthless is activated, is good? If it hasn’t been written down anywhere before, people should take note. They also have an excellent Fight Save, so can take some punches.

Bringing it All Together

But how does this all come together and make the list good? The man of God, our dear Padre, the Mission Priest. The annoying yell that beats the bellows of the Orks from some other lesser game system. 

Extra Abilities: “Santiago”: The ancient battle cry of Iberia: once per game, this Character may call on Santiago to inspire his Force to greater efforts. Once per game, during your command units activation, all friendly units within the Mission Priest’s Command Range may receive a Command Point action. (This counts as receiving a command point action for this turn.)

The Mission Priest gives out a Command Point to all units in 12”. The list all of a sudden has 6 Command Points to be spent at the most crucial of moments. I typically will save this moment for when the grapples need to be tossed. Keep attempting throws until you succeed and then start to soften up the foe with whatever fire you can onto the deck you are boarding. Bonus points if you can make them go prone and be ripe for the slaughter.

I know Joseph just recently took it to Adepticon, and played it in the land tournament, but that’s a tale for another time. Everyone here is just itching to hear about the full unlocked power of the Mission Garrison.

Presenting the 3rd place, 3-0, Spanish Mission Garrison

Spanish Mission Garrison 250pt Sea List

So what’s different? Well lets start with the commander. Father Miranda is a great choice, but you really want the 20pt Seasoned Commander.  Inspiring is covered by the Mission Priest, so lets talk about my two choices.

Swordsman – It’s pretty simple, you don’t want to be hit. So pick this trait. Countering Hard Chargers/Ruthless bonuses is golden. I also tend to pick this just for personal reasons. A few nights a week I spend teaching people the sport of Fencing. So ya, pick it, it’s good.

Delay Tactics – A free bonus action to shut off the enemy commander from giving Commands on a 7+ roll? Yes please. 25% of the time, it works 100% of the time! This seemingly throw away choice on the Commander actually does a lot to your opponent. If they know what’s good for them, they will rush to activate their Commander even if they don’t want to, just so they can’t be denied the chance of using their command points. So it’s going to affect their game play some, even if it never goes off.

Your commander has 3 Command Points to yell at the Natives with, this will become important for later. He has the additional command point because you have your Mission Priest tagging along with him.

Adding the Hidalgo

Our next big change is the addition of the Hidalgo. Another source of Swordsman (to live in the other unit of Soldados). Remember Swordsman applies to all units fighting in a section, so your Natives will be harder to hit as well once the boarding starts to happen.

Milicianos Indios and the Return of the Bow

The biggest shift is that the Milicianos Indios de la Florida have dropped their guns and returned to traditional bows to take advantage of the faction rule Rain of Arrows.

• Arrows impose –3 to the enemy Shoot Save
• Ships often add another –1, totaling –4
• Even with good saves, 1s and 2s still happen, and you will be rolling a lot of dice
• Opponents will not enjoy the steady stream of Fatigue Tests

In practice: Once you close with the enemy ship, activate them with a Diamond, use Rain of Arrows, and hit on 6+ with Ruthless, rerolling misses. It is extremely efficient.

Commander’s Role

Your Commander is going to spend all his time yelling at the Natives to keep sending volleys over, because bows don’t pick up Reload markers. The aim of the game is to drown your opponent in so many Resolve checks that their sections will be panicking and prone. Ripe for the Soldados to charge across and mop up.

Another new addition, and possibly my favorite change to the list, is the Milicianos Artilleros. 2pt models with Artillery Crew and a better Fight Save than the Milicianos Indios de la Florida? Why Yes, I do in fact want that unit manning some swivels and beefing up my model count but also able to do my best shooting!

How did it perform?

Round 1 – Control the Field

Michael had brought a French force on a resin Sloop. Four units of very well trained and armed Frenchman. Michael ended up winning the roll off to go first, I became the Defender and had to try and get upwind of him. I had flashbacks to Tyler Stone and my loss from 2024. His sloop was loaded down with 3 pairs of medium cannon and he wanted to make sure I felt them.

Sailing skills at work…

With my Windward penalty, I was only going 3” in a straight line along the path of Windward/Eye of the Wind. I figured he had to eventually match me and collide with me, or I would overtake him.  Which is what ended up happening. We go to the point of a possible collision, and I chickened out (it would have bumped him 3” further upwind). I popped my Santiago! on turn 2 and started the boarding process.

I failed like 3 Grapple attempts, but eventually landed it on his cannon deck.  At some point in turn 2 here we heard Jason call out 12 minutes left in the round, and I was flabbergasted. Where did the time go? Neither of us were being exceptionally slow. So we just finished up round 2 with me boarding his boat, him giving me a Strike Point because he was upwind, I giving him a Strike Point due to model loses. I didn’t have the time to clear his deck, so I picked up a win based on points killed.

Round 2 – A Wanted Man

Well, you can watch it here, for those interested in taking a looksie.

Ken and his Dutch. Ken is a regular of mine so we have had this matchup before. Sometimes he wins, sometimes I get the upper hand. His list is very, very musket-heavy and effective. Ken was also rolling super hot. I’d have to go back and look to be sure, but I don’t think I was able to start really making any significant kills until the third turn.

Though that might be jumping the gun a little bit.  The scenario we were playing was A Wanted Man. The Defender’s board edge is impassible, and had he been able to just turn and scroll, and keep firing his musket firing lines on me, it would have almost certainly gone his way. Luck was on my side, kind of, in that I got to be the Attacker.

Sail and board!

So back to the same tactic: sail at him and board.  I was taking some withering fire.and making some good Saves, but I was losing the shooting war. I had to get in there and board. Once I was finally able to get on his boat, I managed to clear a deck and give him a Strike Point for a moment. He was able to rally and cause enough fatigue for my units to make them fall back to my ship, and he was able to reinforce his decks. The game was called on time and I was ready to call Ken the winner. We ended both with the same amount of Strike Points in loses, so we had to move to the secondary scoring criteria. For some reason in my head I was thinking models trumped kill points.

Jason Klotz, the event organizer, came over and did something insightful, he read the tournament packet. He then informed us that points killed is the first tie-breaker condition.  This ended up giving me the win, as this force has dirt-cheap models, and those are the ones you want to die first.

Round 3: Escort

• Robert and the Brethren of the Coast
• Scenario: Escort

Not having any bonuses to my roll, I got saddled with having a civilian model that I needed to protect. So being given the opportunity,  I decided to break the rules and put a donkey on the ship as my civilian. You can’t take a mounted unit on a ship, but the rules say nothing about taking a mount on the ship by itself.

Rob and I had a BLOOODY Round 3 in the land tournament. I was not looking forward to the barbarism he displayed the previous night. We both wiped out about 90% of our forces. It was brutal. And what’s worse, and nearly unforgivable: Rob wanted to touch my donkey. MY DONKEY!  Spain wasn’t about to let that happen.

If you have a boarding list, the last thing you want to see on the table across from you is a horde of guys who don’t get reload tokens, and they are defensive with Swordsman. I was going to take full use of the situation.  The game started as normal. A bunch of Not Frenchman sailing directly at my ship and peppering me with fire. I was making my Saves and just sailing straight.

Another thing to talk about this list, having 7 unit activations means you can out activate your opponent most of the time. You force them to either Pass or use a unit before it gets shot up. This was happening here. I was waiting to the very end to activate my commander, who on his turn fired his muskets, and then told 3 units of Natives to fire their bows at the deathstar unit of Marins at the front of his ship. They got like 4 Fatigue on them from this shooting, and had no where to fall back to, so they went prone. Right in front of  the Soldados. 

So now we are starting turn 2. He knew what was coming, he played his fastest card in the hopes of activating before me. Not a Spade in my hand. What should have been a beautiful charge onto some cowering not-French got sullied by the timely use of his Commanders unit. He rallied the Marins and moved another unit to the front section.

And so the last cry to Saint James was loosed from my lips. The hall erupted into an echoing chorus, proud to beseech the aid of the patron saint. All the Natives fired their bows and swivels. One unit of Soldados fired their muskets, the other charged across to meet the now cowering foes. It was a mulch. The Brethern of the Coast were broken by Spanish might. From this point on, Rob was on the defensive, and couldn’t bring his units to bear against me, as they would break and run away but still occupy the mid section of the ship not letting him get troops to the front.

Turn 3 saw a successful Delay Tactics, further cutting off aid to the desperate pirates trying to rally.

This game ended bloody but it was rather one sided. Rob had somewhere around 4 models left and only managed to kill 3 of mine. He was a really good sport about it though, and seemed to be enjoying the slaughter almost as much as I was.

Conclusion

You don’t need Sailors to be victorious at a Sea Tournament. You just need Faith and a Mission Priest to shepherd you to victory.

Additional Recommended Reading

• Dylan D’s Tournament Winning French Caribbean Militia Report
• Spanish Mission Garrison Faction Review
• ¡SANTIAGO!