Blood & Plunder

What is Blood & Plunder

Blood & Plunder is a 28mm historical miniatures game from Firelock Games, set in the 17th century during the golden age of piracy. Firelock pitches it as a game of “bloodthirsty pirates, desperate militiamen, and ferocious natives,” all fighting to control the wealth of the New World.

The hook is where the fighting happens. You can play a battle on land, at sea, or both at once, with the same rules covering crews on foot, ships under sail, and boarding actions. Firelock makes the ships as well as the crews: sloops, brigantines, frigates and a galleon, down to longboats and canoes.

It was designed by Mike Tuñez and first published in 2016 after a Kickstarter campaign. Firelock consulted pirate historian and author Benerson Little so that the models, scenarios and tactics fit the period. The current core book is the Revised Edition, an update of the original with errata and rule changes folded in.

The forces are built by nationality. Firelock’s beginner lists cover the British, Spanish, French, Dutch, Unaligned, Native American, and Pirate forces. Three expansion books widen the setting:

No Peace Beyond the Line, the first expansion, which includes a 19-page timeline of the period from 1620 to 1699.
Fire on the Frontier, sold in softcover ($35) and PDF ($20).
Raise the Black, which takes the game into the 18th century with Blackbeard’s last fight against Lieutenant Robert Maynard. It was crowdfunded from October 2020 and finished delivering in 2023.

How it plays

A deck of cards runs the turn. At the start of each turn you draw one activation card for each unit in your force. Some cards trigger events as they’re drawn: weather, wind changes, a lucky break, an exhausted crew.
Initiative is a blind bid. Both players pick a card and reveal it at the same time. The highest suit goes first (spades, then hearts, diamonds, clubs), and the higher number breaks ties. The winner activates one unit, then the other player activates one, and you repeat until everything has moved.
The suit also sets your actions. The card you play decides how many actions the unit gets, and it depends on the unit’s experience. A spade gives inexperienced or trained troops one action and veterans two. A club gives two to three. So the card that wins initiative is also the one that does the least.
d10s for the fighting. Attacks, tests and the event table all run on ten-sided dice.
Fatigue wears units down. One point of fatigue does nothing. Two costs the unit an action, three leaves it Shaken, and seven (or twice as many points as the unit has models) sends it running off the table.
Ships are units too. They carry residual movement between turns, depend on the wind, take hull and rigging damage, catch fire, run aground and collide. Crews throw grapples, man the guns, and change sail.
Strike points decide it. You earn strike points for losing a quarter of your models, losing or immobilizing a ship, having your flagship boarded, and when the enemy completes an objective. Fall two behind and you take a Strike Test against your commander’s Resolve. Fail it, or lose your commander, and your force quits the field. A standard game lasts six turns or until someone fails that test.

Playing solo

Firelock publishes free Blood & Plunder Solitaire rules. You build both forces, pick a scenario, and the top card of the deck becomes the opposing force’s initiative card each time you pick yours. That card’s value and the strike point count decide whether the enemy unit pushes forward, holds, or falls back, and a priority list tells it which action to take. Firelock suggests letting the AI play the defender, and asks you to use a bit of common sense to help it along now and then.

How to start

Get the rules. The Revised Edition core rulebook is $39 in softcover from Firelock. The PDF rulebook is $15, and there’s a Spanish PDF edition at the same price.
Pick a starter. The 1 Player Starter Set ($99) has the softcover rulebook, a hard plastic sloop, a sailor unit box and a militia unit box, a resin Reformado commander, an activation deck and six d10s: 25 miniatures and a ship, enough for any European style force. For two players, the Blackbeard vs. Maynard Two Player Starter Bundle ($175) has the rulebook, two sloops, 24 sailors, resin Blackbeard and Maynard figures, templates, fatigue dice, and two activation decks.
Or start from a force box. Firelock’s three hard plastic force boxes (Sea Rovers, Colonial Military, and Caribbean Natives) are $69 each. The Sea Rovers box has 33 figures, which Firelock says is enough for a force of 100 points or more for the Pirates, Spanish, English, French, Dutch, or Unaligned.
Build a list. The official force builder is free, and Firelock’s Blood & Plunder page has ready-made beginner lists for each nationality, plus the errata, FAQ, quick reference sheet, and printable flags and sail cutouts.

Community & reviews

Firelock runs a Blood & Plunder Facebook group and a Discord server for all its games. It also runs Summer of Plunder, an event with its own booklet of scenarios, in 2025 and again in 2026. The 2026 kit ($35) comes with the booklet, a poster, and six character models, including Benjamin Hornigold and Woodes Rogers. There are official tournament rules too, where rounds are scored on wins and strike points.

Firelock’s home page is currently taking late pledges for A Decade of Plunder, a Blood & Plunder crowdfunding campaign run through BackerKit. The core rules and miniatures are on general sale alongside it.