Wargaming Terrain is an important part of any miniatures game and collecting terrain for Blood & Plunder can be particularly challenging since it doesn’t use the mainstream fantasy or WWII style of terrain. Here you can find details & sources for appropriate buildings and area terrain with a Caribbean style for your Blood & Plunder games.

4Ground Ports of Plunder

This series of MDF kits was created specifically for Blood & Plunder. The complete line includes several buildings of various sizes, an extensive dock system, barrels, some scatter terrain, and a cool dock crane. It’s all great stuff, and it can be ordered from Tymeagain in UK. It’s possible that Firelock may make a deal with 4Ground so they can continue to carry this line, but for now, we’re limited to buying off the last of the stock from places like Firelock Games and Noble Knight. Market. Fingers crossed for reprints soon! Occasionally, there are also a few of their items on ebay.com

Things from the Basement

The designer at Things from the Basement actually designed the Ports of Plunder line which 4Ground. Their products come in a MDF kit that you have to assemble yourself. The benefit of their terrain is that it’s not generic brown wood. Their product line of buildings is spruced up with additional colors and texturing so it looks good on your gaming table without additional painting.

28mm Scale Caribbean Style Coastal Town Terrain

They offer many of the items previously only available via 4Ground. So now you can still get all the same buildings, just in a slightly less deluxe format. Again, these are MDF kits like the Ports of Plunder. They work well for designing a port town or costal themed game board.

28mm Scale Mediterranean Village Style Terrain

The Mediterranean Village line from Things from the Basement actually has several cool pieces that 4Ground didn’t include in the Ports of Plunder set. I believe their prices are a little cheaper than 4Ground’s prices, but I don’t think they include the render powder so you might need some texture paint to get the stucco look. One important element that is absent from the Things from the Basement line is the Dock system. Luckily, that is still currently available in the 4Ground format (as of writing this in September of 2022).

28mm Scale North American Frontier & New England style buildings

In addition to Caribbean style buildings, Things from the Basement has some great North American/New England style buildings that aren’t readily available anywhere else. They feel a little on the small side compared to the Mediterranean buildings, but they’re very serviceable. Very appropriate for the frontier wars covered in Fire on the Frontier. I especially like their New England Houses set.

Crescent Root

This is deluxe, prepainted line of Mediterranean style buildings fairly similar to Ports of Plunder, but instead of MDF kits, these are resin, prepainted terrain pieces. Their products are on the more expensive end of the spectrum. However, considering they are resin, and they require no work at all to get on the table, the higher price tag seems worth it.

For a comparison, the Things from the Basement Cathedral kit is $89.50 and the Crescent Root prepainted church is $80, but it’s about 1/3 the size (still 28mm, just a smaller church). The Things from the Basement 2-story house is $26.50 while a similarly sized Crescent Root building costs $58. Their products are listed as 28mm scale, but they do feel a bit smaller.

Empires at War

Empires at War is another source for MDF kits. Their designs are slightly simpler when compared to the deluxe kits of both 4Ground and Things from the Basement. They have some pioneer cabin kits that work well for Fire on the Frontier expansion. Their 28mm Spanish/Italian Kits work best for pirate and 17th & 18th Century terrain styles of Blood & Plunder. They also have some buildings in their Roman category that are generic enough that they could cross over on style.

As a whole they are scaled a little smaller than the Ports of Plunder buildings, but they still work and it’s easy to fit several of their buildings on one game mat.

Miniature Building Authority

The Miniature Building Authority is another company offering a series of pre-painted resin buildings. In fact, you can see several of these buildings in the Blood & Plunder rulebook! That connection makes them feel very connected to Blood & Plunder. But there are some cons…

These guys are not cheap, but you can find them on sale occasionally. Unfortunately, the consistency of the quality control is so poor, I can’t really recommend them as an online purchased, especially when combined with the high cost. If you have the opportunity to buy them at a gaming convention however that is definitely an option. Being able to open the box and see the product first hand gives you the assurance that the paint job matches the outside of the box.

Tortuga Building Series on Etsy

These are good quality 3D printed buildings from a seller on Etsy. There are several sizes, ranging from a $40 simple building to a $250 church. You can also buy and download the STL files from Dark Realms directly and print them yourselves.

STL’s and 3D Printed Terrain Options for Blood & Plunder

For those of you with 3D printers, there is an ever increasing supply of plans and designs you can purchase cheaply and print yourself. We’ve compiled a list of some of our top recommendations for 3d Printed Pirate Style Terrain that is compatible with Blood & Plunder

Printable Scenery

Printable Scenery is the gold standard of high quality 3D printed terrain designs. Their website sells files for a whole line of “Age of Pirates” buildings and ships. While several of them aren’t entirely historically accurate, their b=buildings are very “classic pirate” and look good on the game table. They also offer a large range of miscellaneous scatter terrain that works well for generic cover options to spruce up your battles.

Their line of pirate ships are a whole lot cheaper than Firelock Games, but much less accurate and not nearly attractive than Firelock’s own ships. It is also important to remember that 3d printed and 3rd party proxy ships are not allowed at official Firelock Games events. The capacity, size and turning abilities of ships affects their performance so standardization is key to fair play.

Pinyo Gulashart City of Corsairs

These buildings look a little more Mediterranean than Caribbean, but they also have a lot of character and Blood & Plunder players have been using them. Some of them have a more Arabian style so make sure you look at them closely before ordering them.

These are only about $10 per file.

Trees, Scatter Terrain and Area Terrain for Blood & Plunder

From Caribbean beach to New York forest, you’ll need some trees to make your table look full and natural.

Basic Plastic Palm Trees

You can pick up very cheap sets of 15-30 plastic palm trees from Amazon or eBay. They take some labor to base and/or paint to make them look nice, but they are some of the most iconic, and useful terrain pieces you can build.

You can buy wooden round or oval bases at a craft store to mount these one. Add some texture paint to the base and a bit of grass and you have some great area terrain.

90pcs Mini Model Trees Plants Flowers Green Shrubs Bush

This is a solid multi-pack of 90 misc bushes available on Amazon that are good for making scatter terrain.

HRC Wargaming Scenery on Etsy

There are several companies out there that make trees, hills, fences, and other basic terrain elements by HRC Wargaming Scenery has delivered the best quality for a decent price so far. I have found their forests great for setting up my Fire On the Frontier North American battle boards.

I did an entire review of a selection of their products you can see here.

Their Forests and Hills are my top picks from their selection.

Terrain4Games

This company is slightly cheaper than HRC but their quality is several steps lower and I would recommend HRC over Terrain4Games every time. But they do have a wide variety of inexpensive scatter terrain options that work well for forest and woodland style wargaming board.

I had an issue with a product from this company arriving in a very different paint scheme than advertised, and I contacted them but never got a reply. Customer service seems less than great.

Summary on Tabletop Terrain Options

Collecting wargaming terrain for Blood & Plunder can be a very enjoyable venture. Your scenery can vary widely, ranging from tropical palms and Spanish stucco of the Caribbean to the frigid forests of Canada. If you’re just starting out, a couple Spanish style buildings and some inexpensive palm trees are the best way to go. You can add more 28mm scale buildings, hills, forests and scatter terrain from there. Collecting terrain can be a long term project. Adding a new piece here and there can keep your games fresh, adding new challenges and opportunities as you play.

You can find many wargaming terrain reviews and articles here on Blood & Pigment.

Do you have a favorite sources for Blood & Plunder terrain? Let us know in the comments below and we’ll add it to this page.

By Joseph Forster