Even Pirates go to Church

When I picked up the buildings from Games of War I bought some extra roof sections with the intent of building a church, that  plan has finally come to fruition.

The church itself is foam board covered with a paint & Polyfilla mix with the windows and doors supplied by Firedragon Games. The fittings come with a flat back so are perfect for sticking onto the outside of a building.

As buildings can be occupied in Blood & Plunder the roof comes off with space inside to fit a reasonable number of troops.

Alongside the church I also completed the extra Spanish troops for the Militia army. The twelve musket armed troops could be used to bulk out the units I already have or could be used as Soldados.

The Soldados come with lots of options to pimp out the unit so they could add an elite unit to the Spanish army, being a support unit means you may have to miss out on another elite unit like the Indios however.

The Warlord ECW box came with enough parts to make an officer and musician for both sides, these can be added as characters to a force.

The English got a drum to beat, perhaps Drakes famous drum ? Whilst the Spanish got a piper.

The musician is cheap at only 2 points whilst there are a couple of different officer options with the full blown Officer acting as a backup in case the force leader dies.

Lastly, just before I sat down to write this my copy of the latest novel to come out of Mantica arrived so that should take care of the bedtime read for a while. This story is about the Basileans and looks to explore the workings of the totalitarian religious state.

A Tale of Two Forts: Control

The third of our big battles for the campaign saw us play out the Control scenario. This involves dividing the table up into two foot squares with points awarded per square to the side with the most unit strength in the square. This battle also saw the involvement of a new general, young Sam who I persuaded to help me out on the Herd side.

The Salamanders opted for a heavy left flank whilst attempting to refuse the right and centre whilst the Herd hoped to turn the Salamander right and break the centre whilst holding off the right.

The opening moves saw the Herd push forwards on their left and centre whilst the Salamanders held back with the positions being reversed on the Herd right flank. The Salamander shooting proved failed to cause many casualties on the Herd side.

One thing I have noticed is that the Salamander shooting hasn't been as decisive as I had initially feared, they never seem to have reached enough weight of fire in a sector to take units off the table.

The opening combats saw the Herd take off a couple of units on the Salamander right and threaten to turn the flank.

On the other flank the Herd played for time and managed to bottle the Salamander heavy hitters up behind their chaff.

In the centre the Herd continued to advance and set themselves up for charges whilst the Salamanders held firm.

On the Herd right they managed to get a couple of charges in that if successful would have spelt disaster for the Salamanders but unfortunately they failed to rout both the units they charged.

The centre saw the Herd counter charge and destroy two units having survived the charge they had to take due to the hills.

On the left the Giant Eagles had fallen to a double six nerve roll (must get some fast flying Inspiring for the flying flank) but the Brutox and Chimera had made up for the loss with some excellent melee work.

Now at this point I needed to get cracking on lunch so I didn't get any more picture so I hope that Stu over at Cirencester Wargames got some.
The last two turns saw the Herd wiped out on their right flank but the had held up enough that the Salamanders could only reach one of the centre squares (worth 2 VP's) which cancelled out the one held by the Herd after they destroyed the Salamander Prime Herd. However the Salamanders held two other squares to one held by the Herd so they ran out 4-3 victors, all in all a very close game that could have gone either way at the end.
One point of note is that the allied Regiments finally made an impact with the Basileans Finnish off the Spirit Walker Horde and the Nightstalkers managing to get into combat with a powerful unit (at last!) and routing them.

That means the overall campaign situation is 2 - 1 for the Herd, so the Salamanders need to win again in order to stop the Herd taking an unassailable 3 - 1 game lead.

I Name This Ship

Something I had planned on doing from the start with my B&P ships was to give them names. At this point historically any name would have been on the back of the ship but having them at the front looks better to me. With that in mind I found a company online which produces name plates for model trains to order some nameplates from. They took a fair while (3 months or so) to arrive but look rather smart so the wait was worth it. The names came from ships that fought during the Spanish Armada attempted invasion with the Tramontana (a kind of north wind) fighting for the English and El Gato (The Cat) fighting for the Spanish.

I've also completed twelve plastic English reinforcements to help bulk out the Buccaneer force. These are made from the Warlord Games ECW infantry pack. I've not spent ages on them but a quick and simple paint job still looks effective.

The could be fielded as Militia or the more expert Musketeers who at twice the price are the more elite option. The Musketeers also come with more gear that can be added onto them so you could in fact sink 94 points into a twelve man unit as opposed to 52 points for a Militia unit with all the upgrades.

As the box comes with 24 musket armed models I am also painting up an extra 12 Spanish militia types to add to the Spanish army.

Just Kidd(ing)

Having completed the metal Spanish last week this week it was the turn of the metal English (I have some plastic models for both sides to boost the forces).
The English special commander is William Kidd who is well known for his exploits as a privateer, pirate hunter and then pirate. He cuts a rather dashing figure in his black and red uniform and looks ready for a brawl.

Kidd's abilities are best used for ship combat so he is unlikely to feature in land battles, but at sea he would look to add some good bonuses to both ship speed and shooting.

The last unit for the English is actually a French unit, the Boucaniers. These troops are a support unit for the English Buccaneer army and offer some shooting specialists.

With a Shoot of 5/6 and Elusive they are best suited to sitting back and picking off the enemy, once the enemy gets close then the Ball & Shot ability will help them out. With a Melee of 7/7 they are best advised to avoid close combat as they won't be hitting much and really cannot take any hits back.

The models themselves have an unusual sartorial look with one favoring what appear to be early leg-warmers and several wearing baseball caps.

As far as unit upgrades go then adding Sharpshooter to the unit would seem like a reasonable upgrade, though at 4 points not the cheapest.

So just a dozen or so men a side to paint up and then both armies will be completed, this should be just about the time that the Undead from the Fireforge Games Kickstarter ships so I should be able to make a start on that project.

Hello. My name is Manuel Rivero de Pardal. You killed my father. Prepare to die!

Blood & Plunder features many special commanders and one that can be used with the Spanish Militia is Manuel Rivero de Pardal. All the special commanders are based on historical figures and seek to represent their talents and traits.

Manuel RdP is a good way for the generally land based Spanish Militia to gain some expertise at naval warfare. Weighing in at 32 points he isn't on the cheap side though.

Of course he can also be used as a normal Spanish Militia commander or perhaps to represent one of the special or scenario characters in the game.

The Lanceros are the elite Spanish melee infantry who are well setup to move quickly through cover and then survive defensive fire before engaging the enemy hand to hand.

Having lances gives them an additional bonus on the attack and allows them to make a defensive attack if charged by units with shorter weapons.

 

The last Spanish unit from the starter set are the Marineros who are the sailors for the Spanish faction. As the Militia are mostly going to be land based I suspect they won't often see action as Marineros.

Though as they have the Artillery Crew trait they could be used to man a cannon during a land battle or perhaps as an additional melee unit or to add extra bodies to other units.

Blood & Plunder also allows you to add characters to your force and they produce a pack of four to get you started. These are the Spy, Merchant, Shop's Pilot and Local Guide.

Each character gives a different benefit and they must be attached to a unit in the same way as a force commander.

One character who seems to get a good write-up by many players in the Grizzled Veteran, this is an upgrade character so you pay the points for the model as normal and then the additional to make them up-to a Veteran. For the three points the unit gains two abilities that allow them to shed fatigue and a free activation to Rally to further shed fatigue.

This had meant that the Spanish where all completed until I invested in a box of ECW infantry from Warlord Games. I got the box for only £18 off Ebay which seeing as it gives 40 infantry is a proper bargain. The models are slightly shorter than the Firelock Games ones but not massively so and as I plan to use them to bulk out the armies as required they should pass muster.