Subcategories

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  Regler & Tillbehör

  <p><span style="color:#0d5ea8;font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:13px;">Blood &amp; Plunder is a 28mm miniatures game of pirates and ships for tabletop warfare! Join legendary sea rovers in the 17th century struggle for national dominance and personal profit in the Caribbean. This 28mm miniature wargame brings this period to life with a compelling rule set and the highest quality models and ships of the genre. Blood &amp; Plunder is designed to capture the imagination of wargamers and transition seamlessly between land, naval and amphibious combat using a uniform rule set and scale. </span></p>
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  Dutch

  <p>The French are the first to singe the Spanish beard in the New World. The English, under Queen Elizabeth, were to set the beard aflame. But it is the Dutch in the early seventeenth century who truly scourge the whiskered Spaniard from head to toe. Few indeed hate the Spanish as do the Dutch, and with a vengeance do they follow in the spirit of their Sea Beggar forebearers. It is not, however, the Dutch navy that first batters Spain in the Americas, but private enterprise. Although set up for trade, the Dutch West India Company can hardly expect Spanish cooperation in the quest to intrude on the acquisition of the riches of the Americas. Much of the WIC is therefore composed of privateers—even privateer fleets—in the first half of the seventeenth century. And with a vengeance do they harry the Spaniard and seize his wealth, including a plate fleet, and simultaneously establish colonies on both continents. But wars do not last forever, and as the Dutch seize ground in the Caribbean, North America, Brazil, and Surinam, honest trade with the Spaniard takes over, and the fierce Dutch fighting captains who might have otherwise served the WIC as privateers now serve among the French and English buccaneers in the second half of the century. Only in time of war will some of them abandon their buccaneer brethren and serve the Dutch.</p>
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  English

  <p>In many ways England has revealed itself in the Caribbean to be what Spain has long called it: a nation of pirates! For years, England was limited to Barbados and its sugar, molasses, and rum, and a few other small colonies in the Antilles, but with the capture of Jamaica from Spain—of doubtful lawfulness, but what can Spain do?—England has unleashed its rovers on its hated Inquisitorial enemy. “No peace beyond the line” is the justification, along with pretenses of reprisals against Spanish piracies, which are often in reprisal for piracies by English buccaneers. But England is not only a nation of sea dogs: it is also a nation of merchant traders, and by and by the latter come to rule. As trade with Spain becomes paramount, the buccaneers are slowly suppressed, and begin marauding into the South Sea—the Pacific Ocean, that is—coasts of the Spanish Main. Many are opposed to the suppression of the buccaneers, for they are the bulwark of defense at sea against enemy attack.</p> <p></p>
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  European

  <p>Beyond the major powers and players central to sea-roving Blood &amp; Plunder in the Caribbean there are a number on the immediate periphery. Often powerful in their own right, their influence on Caribbean sea rovers is directly associated with their interaction. These players include Portuguese militia and Bandeirantes who defend Brazilian colonies against a variety of enemies—including buccaneers on occasion—and aggressively expand colonial territory into Native American lands. These peripheral powers are also comprised of Danes and the slave trade factory on Saint Thomas and Brandenberg Prussians who hire Dutch captains and seamen to pursue a privateering course through the Caribbean. Also notable are Native Americans in North America defending their territories against European encroachment even as they ally with various European factions as well as Scottish militias in South Carolina and the Isthmus of Darien attempting to defend boldly envisioned but weakly executed Scottish colonies against Spanish counter-attacks.</p>
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  French

  <p>French sea rovers were the first to singe the Spanish beard in the New World, and France has no intention of letting up. French adventurers showed up on Tortuga Island off the north coast of Hispaniola early in the seventeenth century. French hunters of cattle and swine soon came to be known as boucaniers, and just as soon were allied with French sea rovers, themselves soon to be known as flibustiers. These allies began with small forays against the Spanish, first from dugout canoes and piraguas, then later from larger vessels. Like the English, the French in the Caribbean, and especially on Saint-Domingue, as the French western part was known, came to rely on the flibustiers and boucaniers for defense, and almost thirty years longer. Although France at times agreed to reign in its Caribbean sea rovers, seldom did it stop supporting their plundering, whether by outright commission or via a “wink of the eye.”</p>
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  Native Caribbean

  <p>If there is one phrase that might best epitomize Native Americans in the seventeenth century, it is “the beginning of the end”—the beginning of the end of freedom, of self-governance, and for some tribes, of existence. Many coastal tribes are being forced inland, are under a European yoke, or have disappeared entirely. As European expansion grows, so does the forced retreat of Native Americans. Even so, many Native American peoples stand their ground. In some instances, they are aided by geography, in others by alliance with competing European nations. Often, both geography and alliance play a role. The colonial expansion of European powers is both hindered and abetted by Native Americans, inevitably to the detriment of these peoples. On a smaller scale, sea rovers—pirates and privateers—often benefit from an alliance with various Native Americans, but also exploit many as slaves, and often enough find themselves on the receiving end of Native American weaponry.</p>
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  Spanish

  <p>Spain! Land of romance and Inquisition! New Spain, New Granada, and Peru, along with the adjacent islands, make up Spain in the New World, what we today know collectively as the Spanish Main of fact and fiction, of romance and reality. It is a grand empire, more diverse and colorful than any of the other European nations in the Americas. In fact, most of European-settled Americas are controlled by Spain, giving the Iberian kingdom great wealth from the silver, gold, and goods found here. But the Spanish crown has squandered its American wealth, and the Spanish empire is in decline. It cannot afford to defend its New World colonies as well as it must. Ashore it relies on fortifications, Spanish regulars in the larger towns and some small outposts, and local militias often augmented by Native Americans. At sea it relies on a small fleet known as the Armada de Barlovento, but it cannot be everywhere at once. Guardas costas (privately commissioned coast guards) provide local sea patrols, and armadillos—locally armed vessels—are sent out on specific occasions, but both are often as piratical as the buccaneers they defend against. Spanish defenses are typically weak: only the great treasure fleets remain well-protected.</p>
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  Unaligned & Peripheral...

  <p>These adventurers are of all nations, races, and ethnicities, and their sole purpose is to harry Spain—to plunder the Spanish Main! They are English buccaneers, French flibustiers, Dutch freebooters, Spanish deserters, Portuguese seamen, and freed slaves and other men of color, all banded together for common purpose. If they are English and are forbidden to plunder the Spanish, they will accept a French commission, and if French and so forbidden, an English commission. And if there is no commission to be had, they will make a pretense of one and attack the Spanish anyway. They are naturally armed as are the English buccaneers and French flibustiers, both of whom are in their number: with flintlock musket (usually a fusil boucanier), cartouche box of thirty cartridges, a pistol or two, and a cutlass.</p>
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  Ships