Blood and Plunder Plastic Sloop and other new plastics

The Blood and Plunder "Raise the Black" Kickstarter was delivered a couple of months ago and I've finally finished off painting everything I had from it. (More stuff comes at Christmas!).

The last thing was the plastic Bermuda Sloop kit, which was a lot less trouble than the massive galleon. Though I did make a few modifications to the rigging.

There's also Blackbeard, Long-John Silver and a load of Spanish infantry including drummer and artillery crew.

A belated update... almost all of 2023 in one post

So, it's been months and months and months since my last update. Sorry!

After Hammerhead things became busy. So many re-enactment events and so much drone flying. So many drones to repair and YouTube videos to edit. I completely forgot to post things on here even though I was still painting models, though not as many as previously. Plenty of games have been taking place at COGS.

Right now things have calmed down. With the snowy winter properly started I'm stuck inside and now can properly spend time modelling again. 

I've just finished the standing rigging on my latest and largest 3D printed ship for Blood and Plunder. This galleon has been stuck on the floor next to my desk half built for at least 18 months. Anyway it really is starting to take shape now. I've just got the sails to add to it and then I'll be ready for some completely crazy pirate battles.

I've also been painting some Spanish Infantry for Blood and Plunder from the new plastic sets and managed to get a game with those at COGS a few weeks ago.

I've also managed to extend my Plague army for use with Firefight and got a couple of games in. I'm playing again tomorrow night.

For Clash of Kings I built a overly complex display board with a video playing inside a gothic building and colour changing LED lit crystals.

And I managed to fly around the event with one of my drones! Is this the first drone video from a wargames tournament ever? (I didn't do so well in the tourney...)

That's enough for now, I have more projects in progress and will try to remember to post some more photos soon!

Preparations for Blood and Plunder Participation game at Hammerhead 2022

Yesterday we ran some trial games in preparation for our Blood and Plunder participation game which will be run at Hammerhead 2022 on  Saturday 5th March.

The table will be around 12ft long with two small land battles and a sea battle in the middle. The game will be suited to players with no previous experience of Blood and Plunder.

Blood and Plunder - Escort - Amphibious

Sorry I've not been posting recently! We had a holiday and then with Covid restrictions being relaxed I've been seeing my family and going in re-enactment events. But finally we got a Sunday afternoon free to get a game of Blood and Plunder in.

The scenario chosen was Escort with the defender looking after a dignitary, whilst the attacker tried to kill her. Both sides had ships in our version of the scenario and played to 230 points.

We both looked beyond our usual selection of forces for this one. Brendan chose to take Pirates with a mix of elite English and French troops lead by a French commander in a Sloop. I chose an English Pirate Hunters force with a few Dutch units and several small Sea Dog units but with the hugely expensive, but well worth it, Henry Morgan in command. My ship being a Bark.

My Pirate Hunters were the defenders with them escorting a beautiful lady to safety either across the water or to the other side of the last. The Pirates came under false colours and I was unable to shoot at them for the first few turns of the game.

The dignitary, I called her Elanor, with Henry is with the Kapers trying to keep out of sight. The English Militia using the corn field as cover.

My Bark waits at the other side of the table.

Flibustiers and Forlorn Hope lie in wait.

The first few turns had my forces moving forward under cover, the bark unable to open fire on the pirate sloop as it flew English colours. Brendan's land forces sneaked around the back of the tavern.

Eventually the sloop replaced its flag with the black pirate flag and opened fire on my Kapers on land. The Bark seeing this immediately returned fire and caused more damage than the sloop did.

I had taken both Light Cannons and Swivel Guns on the main gun-deck of the Bark and this meant that the Kapers were able to shoot and reload both for extra firepower.

I grappled the Bark onto the pier and tied it up. Their sailing done, the Sea Dogs ran onto land to help out as best they could.

Back on the land my other Sea Dogs sneaked into the Tavern through the front and poked their pistols out the back window. They shot 4 of the 8 Forlorn Hope stone dead at point blank range. However the Flibustiers charged into the tavern killing all the Sea Dogs.

The English Militia saw a great chance to finish the Forlorn Hope off and charged in, but failed to kill enough of them, getting stuck in combat as the Flibustiers charged into the melee as well.

Meanwhile the Kapers sneaked through the corn fields. They were unsure about the open ground in front of the tavern that was under the eyes of the gunners on the sloop. They needed a diversion!

The diversion came in the form of the free Long Boat that the scenario allowed to appear from hiding near the centre of the table. This I had loaded with a small Sea Dog unit. I'm pretty sure they're supposed to be there to carry the dignitary to safety, but for my purposes they appeared right next to the Sloop and boarded it!

After a couple of fight actions I had cleared the gun decks, but then the Freebooters opened fire and the Sloop was back in the hands the pirates once more.

However this was just enough time for the Kapers, Henry Morgan and Elanor to dash past the tavern at high speed.

By this time the only land unit left to the Pirates was the Flibustiers and they dashed after their quarry, shooting their muskets in a devastating attack, that put 4 fatigue on the Kapers. However Henry Morgan is a very strong character and he managed to remove all of that and still limp to safety ordering the Sea Dogs from the Bark to get between him and the Flibustiers.

This did not deter the Flibustiers though and they dashed forward again. Shooting 3 of the Kapers in the lead. 

Things were looking bad for Henry, but his will was too strong and he continued to move towards the table edge with the dignitary. The Sea Dogs charged the now worn out Flibustiers in the last moments of the battle, but did not rout them. 

However this was the end of turn 6. The end of the game. Both sides had taken a hammering, but the dignitary was still alive and this meant a victory to the Pirate Hunters!

That was yet another great game. Henry Morgan may well have cost a lot of points, but his extra fortune and other abilities were well worth those points even though this wasn't a sea battle. The 20" command range and 3 command points were extremely useful!

Blood and Plunder - Gun Emplacements and Corn Fields

One of the scenarios in "Peace Beyond the Line" is attack on a heavily defended shoreline. The attacker has to disable up to 3 gun emplacements along the coast. They could land and assault or sit off the coast bombarding with their ships, or both. In order to make this work though some gun emplacements are needed. Firelock make their own gun emplacements, but of course I would make my own.

The techniques are as usual, MDF base, sculptamold, earth/tile grout mixture and coffee stirrers. With the addition of some 3D printed gabions. 

I also finally managed to get hold of some of the JTT Corn Stalks. These are hard to get in the UK and I had to order them from the US Amazon site. Not cheap, but they look great! 

No game today, these were all set up just for the photos and I thought I'd try out the terraformers up in the form of a rather well defended small island.

Blood and Plunder - Sea Battle at Dales

Today saw the first game at a wargames club we've had for ages. The club was Dales Wargames in Darley Dale and myself and Brendan put on a large sea battle for members just starting off with Blood and Plunder.

I controlled the English side with Colin and we had a light frigate and a bark. The opposition were French, as usual, controlled by my son, Brendan and Pete with a brigantine and sloop. The scenario was Plunder. I just finished painting up my Printable Scenery shipwreck yesterday and it would be its first time out.

We started off in the two corners opposite the shipwreck which had two chests of treasure on it. Both sides used their larger ships to mask the smaller ones in the initial stages of the battle. The wind for the moment was pushing us both quickly towards the objectives without either side having an advantage. How I wish that had stayed the case.

I had a plan. I would let the bark rush towards the objective whilst I would turn the frigate behind the French ships raking their sterns. This was scuppered almost immediately when the wind changed to point towards our side of the table. We'd have to sail to windward for most of the battle and would be unable to turn far enough to obtain the rakes I was hoping for. 

Anyway, we continued to trade broadsides. Mostly between brigantine and frigate, with occasional shots from the sloop and and bark. I turned the frigate to get closer to the enemy, but in the process the frigate lost its arc of fire on them. I had to turn back and that meant that a shoal was right in my path.

It was going to take a few turns to get over this and each time there was a good chance I was going to run aground. It was inevitable and pretty soon my frigate was stuck. I would have to reduce sail and push off. The other ships continued on and the French started to target the bark more and more.

Pete's sloop was the first to grapple onto the shipwreck and his native musketeers jumped over to retrieve the prize.

Brendan's brigantine was pretty close as well, but he saw the chance to ram Colin's bark. This he did, though damage was minimal, so he grappled onto the wreck and sent some Marins over for the treasure.

But the ram gave us an idea. The brigantine was the French flagship and as such was an objective. The bark was far less important. Colin decided to grapple the brigantine and board with his Dutch Kapers.

They destroyed the defending Veteran Freebooters and Marins fairly easily and it looked like the English had the upper hand for a moment as I had also managed to get the frigate sailing again.

But our hopes were dashed as Pete grappled the sloop onto the stern of the brigantine and was able to send reinforcements over to the threatened French flagship. These reinforcements made quick work of killing the remaining Dutch troops and the French captured the bark! 

In the end the French won decisively with both prizes and the bark added to their fleet. Though they had taken heavy casualties, the English had faired a lot worse. 

That was a great game and a tense finish.

We're looking forward to far more games of Blood and Plunder at Dales in the coming months especially when Pete, Colin and others have their forces ready to play! Maybe we'll even be able to start a campaign?