Brigantine Ship Stat Card

Here is a copy of the Brigantine ship stat card, front and back, for your reference. If you wish to save and print it, each side should be 4″ x 6″. We recommend using a rigid card sleeve for your ship stat card, allowing you to use erasable markers to track damage, critical hits, and reloads during gameplay.

Speed and Maneuverability

Sailing Strategy & Tactics Suggestions

• With an average speed, the Brigantine can keep up with most of the ships in the game.
• If your opponent is down wind, you will have no problems maintaining your position or closing with your opponent.
• A Sailing Master can help get you a full 4″ move if force to drop your sail setting to 3″ in order to take advantage of Hybrid Rig.

Firepower

Using Cannons with the Brigantine

The 2 + 2 cannon layout has advantages and disadvantages. While firing off 4 cannons is better than firing off 3, you need the Broadside! Special Rule to use it effectively.

On ships with one deck of 3 guns, it makes those guns a target and if the enemy kills enough models your guns will go silent. With the 2 +2 spread, targeting one deck won’t completely cut off your cannons as you’ll still have 2 more.

The guns in the rear deck can seem difficult to bring to bear with regularity if you’re fighting a smaller, more maneuverable ship. Ample maneuvering is needed to keep them on target.

Using Swivel Guns with the Brigantine

The 4 swivels in the front can dish out 12 dice of hurt onto your opponent, but you’ll need to have your bow pointed at them in order to do so, which is a risk.

If playing one of the Navy factions from Raise the black, its possible to dish out a broadside of grape shot and swivel guns. With Medium Cannons and a full complement of swivels, that’s a broadside of 25 dice! This works great for firing at boats that are harder to hit with Round Shot.

Swivels also offer another defensive fire option if you are being boarded, as well as a an offensive option should the enemy get too close for comfort.

Durability

With a Fortitude and Integrity of 4/6, the Brigantine is a step up from the Sloop and other two deck ships and equal to the Fluyt, but it is still very noticeably less durable than the Light Frigate or the 4-deck ships.

The Rigging’s 3/5 is a little better than the Sloop, the same as a Bark and Tartana and a little worse than the Corvette, Fluyt and Light Frigate.

Ship Durability Stats

Rigging

• Fortitude: 3
• Integrity: 5

Hull

• Fortitude: 4
• Integrity: 6

Capacity

One of the strengths of the Brigantine is that it has a full 3 decks so you can use more than 4 units which can be limiting on the Sloop and smaller ships. All the decks are reasonably large as well.

The front deck can hold 17 models. You’ll usually want to put some gun crew on the 4 swivels up there and possibly some more small arm firepower or a boarding party. The middle deck can take 20 models with Light Guns which means you can fully man the cannons if you want and include a good sized unit with your commander attached.

The back deck can hold 19 models. With the cannon ports and swivel mounts, you have choices to make. If you want both cannons and swivels manned, you could use one huge unit to service all the guns but it won’t be as efficient as it could be since they have different reload times. Or you could just count on that one unit to fire the cannons most of the game and use the swivels as a defensive measure or in “time of great need” or opportunity. I’ve also just manned the cannons with one unit, then manned the swivels with a separate unit but it takes up the entire deck with assigned units which annoys me for some reason.

Traits and Special Rules

The Brigantine comes with some traits that are a little more complex than the Sloop, but still practical.

Hybrid Rig

Hybrid Rig: As long as this ship’s sails are not at their highest setting, it gains both the Fore-and-Aft Rig ship trait and the ship’s windward penalty is reduced by 1″ (to a minimum of 0″).

Hybrid Rig is the Brigantine’s secret sauce. By dropping the sail setting down to 3″, it effectively turns the Brigantine into a slightly larger, albeit slightly slower, Sloop! It makes tacking (crossing the wind) easier, allowing you to take unsuspecting opponents by surprise!

Staysails

Staysails: When moving under sail to windward, this ship is never reduced to its lowest sail setting value that is greater than 0 (unless it is In the Wind’s Eye). Use of Staysails is optional.

Staysails rarely ever comes into play, but can be useful if a few Events makes the wind speed drop drastically.

Sweeps (2)

Sweeps (2): May move up to X” under oars while sails are set at speed 0” and the Sweeps are crewed.

Moving at 2″ isn’t ideal, but a faction like Spanish Corsairs will bump that up to 3″, which is better and almsot eliminates the need for Hybrid Rig.

Generic Upgrades for the Ship

The Raise the Black expansion book adds a number of new “generic” upgrades available to any ship in the game. Let’s take a look at them one by one.

Anti Grappling Measures (3 pts)

A unit attempting to Grapple a ship with this equipment receives a +2 penalty to the Grappling Test.

The Anti Grappling Measures have no effect on a Grappling test from a ship that is either 1) a boat (any size 1 ship), or 2) if the skids of the two ships are within 5” of each other. (For clarity a unit making a Grappling action must still occupy a section within 3” of their target.)

This upgrade is good if you are trying to avoid being boarded, but the Brigantine lacks the maneuverability to try and overcome its shortcomings. While it is certainly better than nothing, if you have 3 pints to spare its not a bad choice.

Freshly Careened Hull (4 pts)

A ship with this Trait may take a single move immediately after being deployed – the ship itself being moved at its starting Sail Setting and speed (with usual modifiers for wind speed/direction). Additional Sails, the Swift Trait and any Sailing Master abilities are not applied to this move.

If running a boarding list, this is a must have. That free move gives you a chance to bear down on your foe or better maneuver into a better position.

Shallow Draft (3pts)

If this ship must test to Run Aground, or if a Repair Action is being made to free this ship from being Run Aground, roll two dice for the Test and keep one result of your choice.

Shallow Draft is situational, but if you know you’re going to be on a board with shoals, you will not regret taking this upgrade.

Topsail (3pts)

This ship may perform the Box Haul Advanced Maneuver.

If you read the Advanced Maneuvers section of your rulebook, you’ll know that Box Hauling can be used if you overshoot your opponent or if you have a need to move backwards. Like the other upgrades, its situational but if Box Hauling is part of your strategy, its worth the 3 points.

Ship Variations

In the No Peace Beyond the Line rule book you can find two alternate ways to use the Brigantine model.

Privateer Brigantine

The Privateer Brigantine gets you a little more speed and maneuverability but drops a few hull hit points. The Swift rule got nerfed a bit since the No Peace Beyond the Line rule book introduced this version of the Brigantine (You must have a unit assigned to the Sheets and Braces) but if you really want the speed, you can get that extra inch when sailing large (or using a Sailing Master) with the Privateer Brigantine.

The Privateer Brigantine is a great boarding platform for smaller games, but sacrifices some hull fortitude for the extra speed.

Sloop of War

The Sloop of War is substantially different, mostly because it has square sails on the main mast rather than the Brigantine’s signature gaff rigged main sail.

Those square sails give the ship another inch of speed which is a big deal. It has a top speed of 5″ and sail settings of 5″/4″/2″/0. The -2″ Windward penalty balances it a little, but anything with a 5″ sail setting is worth looking at.

The ship retains some of the same special rules but it exchanges the Hybrid Rig trait for the Square Sails. Hybrid Rig makes Tacking easy but the Square Sails on the Sloop of War does the opposite, forcing you to roll 2 dice on a Tack and take the worst result rather than the best. So it’s faster but not as good working against the wind or crossing the wind’s eye.

The Sloop of War also gives you the option of paying 2 points for a Fighting Top on one of the two masts, increasing the ship’s total capacity from 58 to 62 models.

Overall I really like the Sloop of War, mostly for the 5″ sail setting. But unfortunately is suffers from the “not a Light Frigate” syndrome. It’s 17 points for a Sloop of War or you can get a Merchant Frigate for the same cost with the same speed, turn values and Fortitude/Integrity but with more cannon ports, better rigging durability, larger decks, no Square Sail penalty and options for 2 Fighting Tops. So I guess the Sloop of War is good but only if you don’t have a Frigate model.

Combat Strategy & Tactics Suggestions

Choosing an Overall Strategy

• The Brigantine is an extremely versatile ship. The first step should be deciding the tactics you want to employ. We have a multiple Sea Battle tactics articles to help make your decision:
  • Great Guns – Part 1 = focuses on Cannons and or swivels
  • Fast Boarding – Pt 2 = closing quickly and boarding
  • Small Arms – Pt 3 = muskets and guns

General Tips & Suggestions

• I think the Brigantine is a flexible ship that can be used in a variety of ways. Like I said at the top of this article, it doesn’t take first place in any category, but it’s not bad in any category either. The 4 Swivel Guns in the front make it extra deadly when chasing an enemy so I guess it is actually a better offensive than defensive ship.
• The Brigantine has plenty of cannons to apply some hurt to enemy vessels and can comfortably take on any size 2 ship. However, it will struggle against larger vessels with more cannons in a straight up brawl.
• The 58 model capacity makes it an ideal musket platform as well. There is enough room to cram together plenty of musket-wielding models to deal out some heavy crew damage.

Blood & Plunder Force Builder – Brigantine Lists

French Buccaneer 150 Point Force

English (Sloop of War) Pirate Hunters 200 Points Force from my Campaign

English Buccaneer 200 Point Force

Dutch Privateers 200 Point Force

Armada de Barlovento 250 Point Balanced Force

Pirate Diego the Mulatto 300 Point Force

French Navy 300 Point d’Iberville Force

Kidd’s Privateers 350 Point Sloop of War Force

Brigantine Video Review

There is a video review of the Brigantine available on our YouTube Channel

Check out all our other ship reviews, painting guides, rigging guides and ship stats on our Ultimate Guide to Blood & Plunder Ships page.

Conclusion

If you want a multipurpose ship that can do everything reasonably well, the Brigantine is a great choice. The basic Brigantine itself is very versatile and non specialized but you can expand its usefulness by using the two rig variants in No Peace Beyond the Line. If you want a fast ship, the Sloop is faster. If you want a tough ship, the Light Frigate is tougher. If you want a huge ship, the Galleon is bigger. If you want a bathtub ship, the Fluyt is a tubbier bathtub. The Brigantine is a nice, middle of the road option.

As always, I’d appreciate other players chiming in with their opinions and experiences. How have you used the Brigantine and what would you consider its strengths and weaknesses?

Product Recommendations

• Brigantine Ship from Firelock Games
• No Peace Beyond the Line Expansion Book, which contains the two alternate rig for the Brigantine as well as added upgrades
• Raise the Black Expansion Book, which contains further ship upgrades for factions past the year 1700

Additional Content Suggestions

• Brigantine Video Review on YouTube
• Ultimate Guide to Blood & Plunder Ships
• Sea Force Building Tactics:
  • Great Guns – Blood & Plunder Sea Tactics Part 1
  • Fast Boarding – Blood & Plunder Sea Force Building Pt 2
  • Small Arms – Blood & Plunder Sea Tactics Pt 3
  • Low Profile Boats – Blood & Plunder Sea Tactics Pt 4

Original Article by Joseph Forster

Updated and Revised by Dan Carlson