Unboxing - European Pikemen

Every day is like Christmas when you’re a butterfly...you never know which of the many (​Brother Handro: ​​many.....​)​ orders will arrive in any given day...

Despite appearances​, mainly the many hundred pewter soldiers grey and neglected in my hobby room, I love the Historical pirate era game Blood and Plunder! The team at Firelock games have designed and developed a stunning system which plays well, is easy to pick up, and (​Der H:​​ best of all...​) contains pirates!

Recently Firelock tried a new funding system; Firestarter. This system allowed pre-ordering with a view to being charged once a threshold was reached. Think of it as Kickstarter light!​

The result of this process is these gorgeous European Pikemen: ​

Two sets of 4 identical casts, each comes with a length of shaped metal for a spear NB not suitable for children/cats​!​ The unit sizes in B&P range from 4-12 usually so 8 is a nice number to get started with.

The casts are clean as always, and have some nice details making them generic enough to be ‘european’ without obvious restriction to which european faction.​

Ill probably put there guys together pretty soon, but painting them....well, that is the eternal struggle.​

I shall here VOW to paint my Blood and Plunder collection in the autumn, following the 2019 Melos campaign.... after all, I have 1000pts of Krieg and 1000pts of mechanicum to finish.​

Der H 

Thought for the day:   “Take what you can. Give nothing back!”

Blood and Plunder: No Peace Beyond the Line

It. Is. Here! 

Firelock Games’ 28mm historical pirate game is something really special. I went all in for their first Kickstarter, so when the second arose I had to go big or go home!

[Brother Handro: “...is that why there’re still hundreds of lead coloured pirates in the basement?”] 

I’m a big fan of Kickstarter. It gives smaller companies the space to expand their range or start their business with guaranteed funds and a new player base from the off. I joined Alex Huntley’s 2nd and 3rd kickstarters for Arcworlde [Der H: “and haven’t painted much of that either!”  ] and always find that, with wargaming at least, the enthusiasm of the creators gets stuff finished and shipped out pretty promptly!

This Kickstarter is BIG, huge box...glad I took the landy to pick it up. 

Such goodies! 

The contents are far too numerous to list here, however I will post some pictures of the haul:

The ships are, as with the first Kickstarter, beautiful. The Paragua and Bark are relatively small, and the canoa are essentially glorified longboats with some extra rules.

The fun starts with the Fleut and the Galleon. The Galleon is a BEAST of a model, 4 decks and an impressive chunk of resin. It sounds hollow so I’m tempted to look into putting a Bluetooth speaker in to play dramatic navel music [Der H:   “Think master and commander...”  Brother Handro:   “yeeees! Do it!” ]

The faction boxes are a nice touch; the previous KS had loose figures!

The less clear miniatures are assorted characters, with beautifully crafted cards, and civilians. Always nice to see the disguised female pirates and monkey with blunderbus make an appearance! 

Like a kid in a toy shop....actually, exactly like that... 

The Deluxe/special edition/combined rule book is beautiful! Crafted with a raw cut edge... 

...it is styled to represent the style of many books of the era; Great work Firelock! 

I feel it will be a few weeks at least before I get my teeth stuck in. Exams, real life and the release of Titanicus have occupied much of my time. All being well the new year will see much more hobby time, but until then we shall plod along!

Der H 

Thought for the day:    “To wives and sweethearts; may they never meet”

Project: Der H's October Pledge - Blood and Plunder Ships

Ah ha! The Frigate is done also!

Black and red for a more sinister feel to this mighty vessel!

I went for white on the detailing on the rear - I think it works well.

I really enjoyed painting these guys - great models, great game...all I need to do now is finish some of the infantry (Brother Handro: "....that sounds like a pledge!")

Der H

Project: Der H's October Pledge - Blood and Plunder ships

Behold we are back!

It has been a bad month - loads of real life stuff and work has been a NIGHTMARE.

Brother Handro & I have managed some progress and, more importantly, we actually had a game of 8th Edition - more thoughts on this another time!

For now, I present to you my completed Brigantine!

I went for a fairly clean, almost English Navy colour scheme with white and yellow. The accuracy of the ship's livery isn't that important to me, but I wanted to have that theme there in this ship.

The sails, as always, are made from paper foam - it holds a shape pretty well and is sturdy.

As usual I go pretty heavy on washes to make the ship appear worn. The finish is also slightly gloss as a result of the Halfords car laquer - great stuff!

Hopefully tomorrow I'll get the last bits done on the Frigate and then I can call this month done!

Der H

Project: Der H's September pledge - Blood and Plunder Sloop

Behold! It is finished!

All it took really was some washes, some dry-brushing, and then some more washes!

I went for quite a muted theme, with a dark green and dark brown. The lantern has a slight yellow glow - hard to see here.

The decking looked a little boring, but a nuln oil wash really brought out the detail, it gathered very nicely in the edges too, blending it all together. The anchor and the tiller both received a heavy dry-brush of bronze over the black base colour - it makes them distinct from the black painted wooden rails.

The ship is rigged with the elastic cord provided by Firelock, and white foam paper was used for the sails. This holds a shape nicely and is hard wearing.

In a flurry of progress I managed to get my long boats done. Initially I was going to colour them to match the ships, but with No Peace Beyond the Line coming next year I wanted to make them generic enough to be used for any/all factions.

And with that my Pledge for September is complete! What do you think guys?

Der H

Project - Blood and Plunder - HMS Project

Some of you, who have read Patrick O'Brian's work on the Master and Commander series will have come across the HMS Polychrest based upon the Dart and Arrow:

"Hobbs & Hellyer built six vessels to Bentham's design. Dart was the second of a two-vessel class of vessels that the Royal Navy classed as sloops, and she and her classmate Arrow were the largest of the six vessels. The design featured a large breadth-to-length ratio, structural bulkheads, and sliding keels. The vessels were also virtually double-ended"

The picture shown is that of the HMS Project. It demonstrates the overall shape quite well. Being a Butterfly I thought....I can make that!

The basic form is taken from the diagram above, shortened by one segment from the central section, and with a scaled down version as the base. This was sanded into polystyrene and fore and aft (fore and...fore?) decks added.

Going to be slow progress (Brother Handro: "When is it not!") but we will perservere!

Der H

Project Update - Blood and Plunder Terrain

This weekend was certainly a terrain-heavy weekend!

These hills have been drybrushed and static grass-ed. I used a mixture of light and mid tones with mid tone 2mm and light tone 4mm static grass. They've also had a dusting of dark tone flock to fill gaps and I think it gives it a nice balance between light/Pirate themed sunny terrain and being "too light".

With a ship for scale! I think my next job will be a few tufts, and then making a flexible ocean terrain mat...what's that? What's in this B&Q bag? Canvas? Caulk? hmmmmmm whatever could this be for....

Der H

Project Update - Blood and Plunder Terrain

Huzzah! We have an ocean!

I was going to use the canvas/silicone trick to make a flexible mat, but the paint adhered so well to this other sheet I had, well, I just left it!

It has a heavy brush of lighter blue and then white to make it stand out. I might leave the tan coloured edges....looks more like a map!

What do you guys think?

Der H