Week 4 Summer of Plunder Update

Last Updated on June 20, 2022

Welcome to the 4th 2022 Summer of Plunder Campaign Update! We’re 3 weeks in and 100 players have logged over 420 games of Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron so far! Of those 420, at least 72 have been played at a local gaming store, and 97 of those games have involved teaching a new player. Thanks for participating and helping the hobby grow!

Let’s check the leaderboards, enjoy some of the picture from the past week, and review this week’s upcoming objective.

Nation Report

The top three nations have traded places several times this week but as of Sunday night, they have maintained the places there were as of last update with Pirates ahead at 182, English at 166 and Spanish right at their heels at 164. French and Dutch having been swapping places through the week as well, but the Native Americans are still woefully behind. There might be an upcoming event to encourage Native players or give them an opportunity to score some more points. Scottish aren’t being scored as a major nation, but they have scored 20 games, which is alarmingly close to the Natives’ 32 games!

Image from Paul Pickles

Individual Report

Chris Asche maintains a powerful lead and Jason Klotz and Dexter Heide take spots 2 and 3. Spots 4-10 score in the 20’s and spots 11-28 are scoring between 10-19.

Image from Chris Asche

You can break into the top 30 players with a score of 10 points right now!

Image from Jason Klotz

Week 3 Objective – Fire!

Image from David Nye

Including Fire in a game was a slightly more difficult objective, but more than half of entries accomplished the objective. I hope it was fun! Lots of cool, dramatic pictures of burning ships and buildings.

Image from Dexter Heide

Thank you to everyone who worked hard to fulfill that objective. This week’s should be a little easier to make happen.

Image from Alexsander Ivanov

Week 4 Objective Update – Damn the Shoals!

It’s easy to leave out terrain features when fighting a sea battle but just a little can make the battle a lot more interesting. Sometimes “interesting” is a euphemism for terribly painful…. This week, we encourage you to add a couple terrain pieces to your sea battles. You will get an extra bonus point if you sail over that shoal in some manner. If there’s any moment you have to roll to check if you run aground, you’ve accomplished the objective.

This objective obviously favors sea battles, and specifically sea battles using small ships. When checking for running aground, you roll a single d10, add your Draft value to the number rolled. If that combined number is a 15 or higher, your ship has run aground and you’re in a world of hurt. Ships with a 5 or 6 Draft will usually accomplish this objective without any issue and the Sloop and Bark have the Shallow Draft rule which allows you to roll two d10’s and use the better result. Some of the Dutch factions can choose to apply the Shallow Draft rule to all ships in their fleet as well. The long neglected Ship’s Pilot character can help you stay off the shoal as well if you plan to run a larger ship.

Of the larger ships, the 6th Rate Frigate has a Draft of 9 and the Galleon has a Draft value of 12. I wouldn’t try this in a Galleon if I were you…

We hope this objective encourages players to create and use shoal terrain and that will result in some spicy game moments!

I’ve earned the title “Shoal Magnet Joe” from hitting shoals (mostly from events) so many times, so I’m hoping you will all hit lots of shoals and share in my pain!

Weekly Photo Prize Winner

Of the 100’s of pictures submitted this week, this shot from Adam Johnston stood out. With good composition, nicely painted minis and interesting terrain and buildings (and my favorite new Native American miniatures!), I’m picking this shot as the winner this week.

Image from Adam Johnston

But there were so many good shots of burning buildings and ships, I’m going to pick a second winner! This is the winning shot by Ethan Taylor that includes a fire.

Image from Ethan Taylor

Congrats to Ethan and Adam! You’ll be contacted via email and we will ship you a set of the Organized Play miniatures and commander cards as a prize.

Keep up the great photography!

Campaign FAQ

Q: Do I need to win to score points?
A: No, you only need to play a game to score points. Please log any game you play!

Q: Do my models needs to be painted to participate in the campaign?
A: No, they do not! Painted armies look great, but don’t let that get in the way of you enjoying the game right now! You’re welcome to play (and take pictures of) bare metal minis! There’s no requirement to play painted armies. There are a couple prizes for well painted armies, but we’re considering adding a prize for a non painted army as well. Don’t let it slow you down!

Commander Reports

Now, here are the important messages from your beloved commanders.

Spain

The message from the Spanish commander was stolen by Pirates when the galleon was raided.

Image from Gavin Klotz

England

English commanders, we have made some real ground on those Pesky pirates! They are barely hanging on! Let’s give them a taste of cold steel and run them through! This week it is all about the Shoals! We only need to attempt to sail over one to gather those extra points! Keep training those new players! As well as playing in your local clubs! For England For Home and for The Prize!

Evan Botkin correctly identified the two factions used in the first episode of the Plunder Den and Terry Abbot played the most games for the English this week and both players will be receiving a prize!

France

Captains of France! Your efforts have been noted, and yet we still trail behind our rivals. But, like the shoals of this week’s challenge, their lead is not insurmountable.

The riches of France still lie heavy in holds of our ships. The captain who completes the most Weekly Objectives each month, will receive 2 blisters of troops in reinforcement.

Furthermore, our war with the Natives is not over! The captain who leads the soldiers of France against the Natives in the month of June, will receive a converted Standard Bearer. So go out, and carry the flag of France against our enemies!

And do not forget, you habe until the end of June to get in your votes for the painted French character, to be given away at the end of the campaign. The bloodthirsty Francois l’Olonnaise has the lead so far – each game played is one entry, add your vote in the game’s description.

A la guerre, Soldats!

Netherlands

A sheep ate the Dutch commander’s message.

Image from Dan Carlson

Native American

The Native commander is in deep mourning and could not be brought to write again to his impassive braves.

Image from Adam Johnston

Pirates

Ahoy there my rambunctious sea rovers! We have been performing admirable and have been clocking games and points galore! While we are still just barely ahead of our foes, we have been giving them the fight they’ve been begging for since the previous year’s victory! Seeing so many buildings and ships on fire brought warm feelings to my cold black heart! This week, we need to find shoals! To better increase our odds of pulling those wonderful event cards, I propose all pirates use a “house rule” that we use at my Friendly Local game Shop: If both players activate with the same card, an event happens, and if it’s an event that reads “The player who drew the event”, it affects both players! This will hopefully increase the chances of getting shoals in our games!

Image from Jason Weiandt

Remember: Whoever submits the most games this month will be getting a 4 man blister of their choice as a reward! So keep playing and take the battles to the shoals!!!!

-The Boyar

Scottish

We didn’t make it to 36 points, but that’s okay (stop supporting the English, they’re just trying to steal the crown from us), there’s a new quest now!

As the Scottish, include both a standard bearer and a musician in your army.

Image from Joe Pelfrey

Current National Objectives

Spanish
- Most Spanish points at end of campaign- Painted Spanish commander
- Most O&I games played in June- 2 core set ships
- Most units in Melee (b&p) for June- Spanish blister

English
- Most English points at end of campaign- Painted English commander
- Best painted army at end of campaign – spike defenses
- Most games at end of campaign – wigwam
- Most games played as an English commander during week 7 “Frontier Wars” – painted Benjamin Church model.
- Most games played as an English commander during week 10 “Upgrade the Flagship”- painted Bark rigged with sails and a flag.

French
- Most French points at end of campaign- Painted French commander of your choice (please vote for favorite French commander model)
- Most games against Native factions by end of June – painted & converted standard bearer

Dutch
- Most Dutch points at end of campaign- Painted Dutch commander
- Sink or capture a ship this week – reinforcement models

Native American
- Most Native points at end of campaign- Painted Native commander
- Random player who accomplished weekly objective this week – “Special Prize”

Pirates
- Most Pirate points at end of campaign- Painted Pirate commander
- At the end of each month, the pirate with the most played games will receive a 4 man blister.

Scottish
- Most Scottish points at end of campaign- Painted Scottish commander customized and with choice of clan colours
- Use both a standard bearer and a musician at the same time
- Play a game as Scottish and take a picture with cool Scottish miniatures/ship flags (or other Scottish gameplay components) and win a prize (max 3)