Blood & Plunder: Picking Your Ship

By Mitch Reed

A common question from new Blood & Plunder players is about what ships they should collect to play in sea battles and the most common answer we have is “it depends.”

In playing with the ships in Blood & Plunder over the last few years the best advice I have is that you can go big or go small and a lot of that depends on the force you play and your personal playing style. The first thing a player needs to think about is the crew of the ship. Many of the lists in the Blood & Plunder books allow you to pick a force made up of dedicated sailors which comes in very handy as you try to maneuver in the game. The biggest decision here is if you want the crew to man a lot of cannons for a thunderous broadside, or if the crew is good with muskets that will shoot away at the enemy crew?

Both work well in the game and a lot of it depends on your play style since a crew that is using muskets needs to close in on the enemy. Many lists have great options for selecting a crew that can shoot, melee, sail, and reload cannons in a fight. Perhaps the most important thing is to make sure you pick a naval commander, sometimes that makes a big difference.

If you go for a big ship then you need to look at the Galleon, a 6-rate frigate, or maybe even the light frigate. These ships will cost you 21-25 points just to add the ship and then you have to decide how many cannons you want to equip your ship with. These ships can carry a lot of cannons and swivels however you need a lot of crew to fire and reload these weapons. One thing that is great about these ships is that they can take a lot of damage and will keep on fighting however that means little if your crew gets shot away.

If you plan to use one of these big ships to bring down a lot of musket fire on your opponent, make sure you make good use of the fighting tops to put some plunging fire on the enemy crew. No matter your play style you will love having this ship in your collection, it really stands out and they are huge and are just intimidating to look at.
Some players like to go small when it comes to how they fight sea battles and ships like the Piragua, Canoa, Bark, and Tartana. The great thing about running the smaller ships is that you can have a few of them in play while your enemy may have only one.

While they cannot hold many troops and cannons, they do have the speed that gets you right next to your opponent quickly. After playing with the large and medium ships for a while I found that two Piraguas pose a huge problem for an opponent and I have had a lot of success with them.

Many gamers usually go for mid-sized ships such as the fluyt, sloop, and brigantine, all of which are not bad choices at all. They offer some speed and can hold a large crew and enough cannons that can attack an enemy at range.

The biggest factor I feel comes down to playing style. When I first started playing with ships I picked up the sloop and used my cannons at range in order to win. As played this ship more I found that playing aggressively brought better results. So I started to get close to my opponent’s ship and used my Freebooters to shoot at the enemy crew instead of using my cannons. I found out that based on the forces I played that this was a better tactic and It was also a lot of fun.

One of the best things about Blood & Plunder is how easy it is to play the sea battles. At first, like many, I was a bit intimidated, both in learning the rules and making my ships look great on the table. However, after my first ship game, I really started to love the experience that the naval battles bring to the game.