Blood & Plunder - What's this?

So, as I've mentioned: Blood & Plunder. It might be worth it for people to know what it is, and it might be worth it for me to write it down (in part so that I can link this to people, and in part to sort out my thoughts about it).

Image from Firelock Games

The short answer, is that it is an awesome miniatures wargame. The longer answer is that it is a miniature wargame that is

• 28mm or 1/56th scale
• Skirmish-sized, with a force of approximately 20-50 models as "normal"
• Made by Firelock Games
• Historical, and within that based on the 17th century, the so called Golden Age of Piracy, set in the Caribbean (for now, they seem to have plans to expand it). No magic, no lasers, no zombies, only stuff with historical precedence (no, that does not mean that it is "boring")
• Allows for both naval and land warfare with the same ruleset. And in case only one of the forces has a ship, you can play an amphibious scenario
• Interestlingly enough, uses d10 instead of the more common (even ubiquitous) d6

One thing, I would say the thing that makes Blood & Plunder different, special and unique, is how turns are played out. Instead of one player moving their entire army, shooting with it, and then charging into melee combat, as so many other wargames I know (I won't say that all wargames do this, but all the ones I've played do), the game has a card mechanic for which unit is activated. 

Each player draws a number of cards equal to the number of units in their force. These cards can be the specialised cards provided by Firelock Games, or they can be from a deck of ordinary playing cards if you're willing to reference the rulebook a bit more. Each player then choose one card and plays it face down. These cards are revealed, and depending on which suite each card is, one or the other player activates a unit first (the other player(s) gets to activate a unit with their card afterwards). Spade is the fastest, followed by Hearts, Diamonds and Clubs. However, if you play a fast card, the unit will get fewer actions during its activation, with Spades limiting most units to a single action, while Clubs give them 2 or 3 actions, depending on the unit.

Each turn thus constitutes approximately alternating activations for the players, instead of the more common "now I do all my stuff, and then I can go to the bathroom while you do all your stuff". No unit can be activated a second time during a turn, and a turn lasts until all units have been activated. 

The card mechanic opens up several sneaky strategies. One can opt (or at least try to) to activate a unit dead last during one turn, and then activate it first during the next, making it do a rush straight through an area thought to be covered, or doing a rapid surprise reposition (or charge). Of course, it is not without its risks. If your opponent sees what you're doing, he might manage to circumvent it, either by attempting to go after your unit on turn 1, or beating you to the draw and going first on turn 2. In either of these cases, the unit might just get gunned down in the open instead. But no guts, no glory!

Image from Firelock Games

Forces are balanced with the (for wargaming) true and tested method of points-based army lists. Each model is worth a certain number of points, depending on its abilities, equipment and competence. These models are organied into units (where a unit may only ever contain one type of model) and lead by a commander (which I often call a captain). Finally, the force can include cannons (crew for the cannons needs to be bought separately for points) and ships (which, in turn, can be armed with cannons. Crew still bought separately for points).

There are currently 4 "nations", each with 2 different factions, to base your force on. The 4 nations are Spanish (of course), English, French and "unaligned" (a mix of mostly french and english that doesn't really care about the politics of nations). Each of these have one faction of militia, or similar people who mostly will be fighting on land, and one faction of sailors who would expect to fight just as much at sea as on land. While the factions within a nation have a different core of units, they can usually be supported by units more commonly associated with the other faction of their nation, allowing you to easily expand your collection to contain two different forces, that may play vastly differently.

Image by Firelock Games

The first expansion, No Peace Beyond the Line, will launch on kickstarter very soon (in 2 days, as of writing this, and I am madly excited), and will add at least Dutch and native Caribs to the mix, as well as expansion boxes (sailors and military), that apparently can be fielded as generic armies of their own.