Blood and Plunder Battle Report – The English Come to Town

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Blood and Plunder Battle Report – The English Come to Town

It has been some time since I last wrote about Blood and Plunder, but the game looks great and plays just as good. In this post, I describe a battle that I participated in between English Buccaneers and a Spanish Community. I happened to play the role of the Dutch Mercenaries stationed at the settlement to help guard the population. Another player played as the Spanish Militia while two others played as the English Buccaneers. I believe we clocked in at about 250 points a side. Now, on to this Blood and Plunder Battle Report.

As a note, I used two cameras for this battle report – a DSLR on a tripod and a little point-and-shoot camera. Unfortunately, the point-and-shoot pictures did not turn out as nice as I would have liked. You will be able to tell the difference, but I chose to include the photos from the point-and-shoot camera to help tell the story that unfolded during the game. 

Blood and Plunder Battle Report
A look at the battle table from sea before we set the game and scenario.

The Scenario

For this game, a group of four Firelock Games enthusiast met to play a narrative game of Blood and Plunder. The English forces chose to take ships in their lists while the Spanish and Dutch took land-based lists. This meant that we would play out an amphibious scenario.

Blood and Plunder Calvary Miniatures by Firelock Games
The Spanish player chose to deploy with a land based force so he could take advantage of some Calvary models he wanted on the table. I decided to follow suit with my Dutch forces.
Blood and Plunder Ships (sloop and Bark) by Firelock Games - 28mm tall ships
Meanwhile, the British Players wanted to deploy ships, so we played an amphibious scenario.

In the scenario that we agreed to play, the English would have to sail into a settlement and capture an objective. The invaders would know of three objectives. One would be a fake objective that would not count if they captured it. The defenders knew wish one was fake while the attackers did not. As such, a sound strategy for the attackers would be to go for two objectives so they don’t over extend themselves capturing a fake objective.

I placed an “X” over the fake objective and circles over the objectives in the picture below.

Battle Objectives - Blood and Plunder Battle Report
Above is a layout of the battlefield with marks on the objectives. The circles are true objectives, while the X is a fake objective.

The Spanish and Dutch saw the ships coming, so they had a little time to place their troops close to the objectives while the remainder would have further to travel to get into battle.

Blood and Plunder Battle Report
A quick look at my Dutch force and the remainder Spanish in reserve.

The English Come to Town

With the stage set, let’s get into the action! To start, the British sail closer into the village. The sloop decides to v-line for closest dock while the bark takes shots with cannon fire into the settlement.

Playing Blood and Plunder by Firelock Games - Battle Report - After Action Report
The Bark checks range for its light cannons. Yep, he is firing on my figures. Nice t-shirt, by the way.  🙂
Firelock Games Miniatures
While the British focus fire on the Dutch mercenaries, they Spanish Milicianos ready for battle.
Blood and Plunder 28mm miniature sloop
The British Pirate sloop sails in to dock as quickly as possible. Their plan, to rush the objective and capture a building.
Blood and Plunder Terrain and Battle Table
A look at the advancing ships.
Blood & Plunder Bark
The Bark fires its cannons again at my soldiers. There are a lot of militia soldiers in that ship.
Blood and Plunder Battle Report
A look at my soldiers taking on fatigue from Cannon fire. Yes, the group is of French models, but I used them as proxy Dutch models because not all of my Dutch were painted yet.

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Landfall

After a few rounds, the British finally make landfall. The Dutch and Spanish rush in to meet their invaders.

Blood and Plunder Battle Table
This is the look at the table at this point. The sloop docked while the bark is firing off a last round of cannons before docking.
British Militia vs Spanish Lanceros
The British Militia disembark from their ship. Who will win? If the dice have anything to do, definitely the British. The British actually rolled four tens as saves against the Spanish attack!
Blood and Plunder After Action Report - Historical Wargaming in the age of Pirates
The Militia finish off the Lanceros and hide behind some large barrels for cover. The cannons open fire again, but are mostly miss their marks.
18th / 17th century historical sea battle miniatures game in 28mm
The privateers on the sloop fire their guns as they make landfall. They then unload and rush towards one of the objectives.

The Settlers Push Back

Blood and Plunder Miniature Wargaming Battle Report
A long shot of the action on the table. Notice the British troops just off of the ship hiding in that brush. They won’t be there long. The Dutch know they are there.
Spanish and Dutch vs British in Blood and Plunder
The Spanish Calvary and Dutch Z rush to meet the first invaders off of the sloop. The Zeelieden group actually pulled off a double charge to really push back the British. I do apologize for the blurry photo, but we were enjoying ourselves so much in the moment that this is the best shot that I got of the action. 
Blood and Plunder by Firelock Games Battle Report
The Settlement’s forces actually push the sloop’s troops right back to the ship. Look at how small the British crew now is. They took heavy loses.

Spanish and Dutch Victory!

The British run out of time and the Dutch and Spanish win the game!

Battle Report 28mm Miniature Pirates Game
A look at the table at the end of the game. We ran out of turns and the British had no survivors past the docks, let alone inspecting the objectives.

Wrapping it up…

The group of us (Dalton, Roman, Will, Wes and I) had a lot of fun playing this game of Blood and Plunder. It is really a beautiful game that looks great on the table. I really like the game just for the aesthetics, but the rules are really good too.

The highlights from the game would be when the British Militia survived the charge from the Spanish Lanceros through sheer luck of awesome saving throws and when the Zeelieden group managed to pull of a double charge killing off two groups of British units in very short order.

Hopefully you enjoyed this battle report. If you want to read more Battle Reports or on Blood and Plunder and Firelock Games, we have dedicated sections of the website for them.

Until next time, Happy Gaming Everyone!!!