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Argh! 'Blood & Plunder'...and cats!

 


I've made some wonderful friends since throwing myself into this hobby in 2016, and one of my favorites has been Peter Megginson. I'm not even sure if it was gaming that brought us together because the first time I actually met him was when he swung by my Lost Art Books booth at the Small Press Expo a few years back. I confess, I'm not sure if it was a mutual friend or a mutual love of comics that brought us into each other's orbit, but whatever the circumstances, I'm the luckier for it.

I first gleaned that Peter was the type of person I'd enjoy gaming with when I caught a glimpse of his Mad Max: Fury Road game at one of the HMGS conventions a few years back. The crafting was top notch, and he was clearly committed as a game master to ensuring his players were all having a good time, which they obviously were. The game was large, with around a dozen players, and Peter was savvy enough to know he needed a co-GM, his pal and now mine Jeff Hoffman, to keep it all running fast and smooth. Here are some photos from when he ran it at our Scrum Con 2020...



Despite knowing each other for a few years and having attended many of the same conventions, I've only had the chance to game with Peter a handful of times. So when he reached out to get a game set up after we were both vaccinated, I was excited for the opportunity. He had a slew of games he wanted to run, but we settled on Blood & Plunder, for which he had recently pulled together the miniatures and terrain. I had been wanting to give the rules a try after seeing all of the cool posts on fellow Scrummer John Sears' blog in years past, and my curiosity was piqued further by the game's ship-to-ship combat rules, which I am hoping I might appropriate and adapt for a sword-and-planet game project I'm slowly cobbling together. 

To round things out, I invited fellow pals Francesco Nesci and Keith Sloan over for the afternoon. That pushed us one player over the number Peter designed to scenario to accommodate, so he graciously offered to GM the day's fun for us.

The details of the scenario are now a bit blurred, but I played the French who were sitting in their fortifications atop a pile of gold, wine, and spices, all ripe for the plundering by Keith's and Francesco's pirate scum. We didn't actually get to use any vessel rules, but hopefully in a future game we'll give them a go.

In addition to the cannon fire from atop my fortifications, as the roll of the die would have it, Francesco's pirates also had to contend with a giant alligator lurking through the swampy terrain surrounding my fort. It's little touches like this that add to the fun, in my opinion, and Peter is definitely all about amping up the opportunities for fun. He's the kind of GM who will procure props like pirate hats and eye patches for all of the players to wear during the game, and I gladly wore my tricorn as I scowled and cursed the afternoon away. 

The photos below are meant to give you a flavor of the proceedings and not any sort of chorological battle report. Suffice to say that at the end of the day, while I beat back Keith's plunderers, I was eventually overrun by Francesco's men, who made off with my gold and wine casks, reveling drunkenly on to their next piratical escapade.

As usual, the good photos below are by my wife Ellen, the Scrum Club's official combat photographer, and the poor ones are by me. Trust me on this.

Blood & Plunder!

Setting the game up.

Francesco and Joe studying the battlefield.


Peter (right) putting final touches on set-up before we jump into the game.




Chief Game Inspector Cha-Cha is on the scene, making sure everything is up to sniff.



Cha-Cha calls Gigi in for backup.




Peter and Keith.








On the prowl for pirates.

"Okay...these dice check out."











"I'm not sure that's a legal move, but we'll let it slide this time."

















Peter is the type of GM who will even go out to buy little treasure chests for players to keep all of their game bits in during play. I love this sort of attention to detail!




Haha! Eaten by an alligator! Sorry-not-sorry....


This is the scurvy dog who won the day...








Keith, Francesco, Peter, and Joe

Closing Thoughts and Parting Shots

I had a blast with these rules, and look forward to playing again. I was surprised that combat was organized around several man units rather than swashbuckling sword duels and the like, but it ultimately didn't detract from the fun. I'm especially looking forward to trying out boarding actions between ships and the like in a future game. Firelock Games frequently attends as a vendor at various conventions, and they often have a box of "castoffs"--ships that came out of the molds slightly "off," ultimately not passing the company's quality control standards. I've bought three or four of these now, and am even come close to having them table ready, so hopefully we'll get a chance to try out the ship-to-ship combat rules sometime soon.

A big thanks to Peter again who hauled all of his stuff over to Scrum Hall (my dining room) for the day's game. You gave us a fun afternoon and some great memories!

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Comments

  1. XanderJuly 14, 2021 at 5:41 PM

    Great post! Makes me all the happier and more excited that I've backed their last KS for plastic sloops and goodies. I'm keen to get this one to the table too!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VincentJuly 14, 2021 at 9:29 PM

      Great post. Looks to be a fantastic time.

      Delete

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