We have some great resources to share with you today! Community member Paul Kingtiger has created some wonderful tools for the the Blood & Plunder community: a rules summary sheet, a complete glossary and a collection of event, weather and critical damage tables. We had the opportunity to use these resources to help new players at Adepticon this year and now the creator has given us permission to share them here on the blog!
Blood and Plunder Quick Reference & Rules Summary
This document is an excellent resource for new players or even players looking to get back into the game after not playing for a while. This 4 page document includes all the basics for the game. I handed out about 20 of these to new players at Adepticon and they helped people pick up, understand and enjoy the game much more quickly than relying on my verbal explanations.
The Blood & Plunder rulebook does have a quick reference sheet which has always been helpful, but this printable document is even more complete and easy to use.
The first page includes:
- Turns Sequence
- Small arms ranges and penalties
- Actions per card
- List of possible actions
- Effects of Fatigue
- List of allowed actions while in different situations
- Strike Point information
- List of things that are easy to forget
This single page has pretty much everything needed to get a new player started, and it contains a lot of important information that is spread out over many pages in the rulebook. A fantastic resource for new Blood & Plunder players and an equally great reminder resource for all players!
Blood & Plunder Artillery Summary
The second page contains pertinent information for playing with Artillery in a game. All this information is current with the updated cannon rules published along with Raise the Black.
This second page includes:
- Artillery types
- Shot types
- Range penalties
- Sequence for attacking with Artillery
- Lucky and Critical hit details
- Arc of fire
- Critical Damage table
- Explosives
Blood & Plunder Ship Summary
Pages 3-4 are all about ships. The basic information for everything you need is here, all the way from points of sail to boarding. Several chapters of rulebook condensed into 2 pages is amazing, and, if you want to reference the full rules, each section has a page number for easy access to the appropriate section of the rulebook.
Sections included:
- Ship Movement
- Points of Sail
- Ship Speed
- Basic Manuevers
- Advanced Manuevers
- Change Sail Settings
- Moving Under Sweeps
- Exceeding Top Speed
- Drifting
- Unit Limits on Decks
Blood & Plunder Event, Weather & Critical Damage Tables
This second document is contains all the various Event Tables, Weather Tables, and Critical Damage.
Blood & Plunder Event Tables
The core Blood & Plunder rule book contains one event table, and then the No Peace Beyond the Line book added several more which were not reprinted in the new core rulebook or the softcover rule book in the 2 player starter set. But they are fun event tables so I’m glad do see them here! You got to use that Sea Events table to get your big ship unexpectedly stuck on a shoal!
Event Tables include:
- Original Events
- Universal Events (OG 2.0)
- Land Events
- Sea Events
Blood & Plunder Weather Tables
One of the events common to all these event tables is the Wind and Weather change event, and of course, you need tables for Weather!
These tables include:
- Wind Changes
- Weather Changes
- Tropical/Subtropical
- Temperate
- Cold Weather
For a game that covers all the way from the Hudson Bay to Brazil, these tables are very useful to create a fun narrative experience.
Blood & Plunder Critical Damage Tables
Critical Damage provides lots of flavor and interest while using cannons and explosives. Blood & Plunder has tables for the various structures you will encounter in the game, making each one more interesting and unique,
Critical Damage Tables include:
- Buildings
- Fortifications
- Ship Hull
- Ship Rigging
- Boats
These are all in the rulebooks as well, but having them in a small stapled printout is very handy!
Blood & Plunder Glossary
Lastly this larger document includes both documents mentioned above, and an alphabetical glossary of many of the terms, traits, special rules and concepts that you might want to quickly reference during a game of Blood & Plunder.
This is a larger document you’ll want to either download on to your phone or tablet, or print and punch into a binder.
The first 17 pages basically include all special rules, weapons, equipment and ship traits into one alphabetical list with compact descriptions. Just being able to flip quickly to these rules in one alphabetical list is really great.
The second half of the document contains the Quick Reference and Weather/Events tables that we just covered above.
How to Use these Players Aids
The Quick Reference Guide is probably one of the best things you can have printed and packed with your rulebook and game night kit. I recommend printing a 4-5 of these, stapling them and having them ready to hand a new player for a demo.
That 30 page glossary really has everything in it. I recommend either printing that entire document, double-sided and putting it into a 3-ring binder. Or, if you use a electronic device for your rules, save the pdf on to your phone or tablet. You can even do a word search if you have it in electronic format.
How NOT to Use These Player Aids
You should still read through the rulebook! These players aids are a great way to get started, a great way to introduce and help new players, and a great quick reference. But you should still read the rulebook or you will miss important details.
Don’t use these as a way to not buy a product. These documents include great material from Blood & Plunder’s various rulebooks and Firelock Games has always been very generous about letting the community have access to armies and rules for free. But don’t use these as a reason to not buy something like No Peace Beyond the Line that contains all those cool weather tables. We want to keep Firelock Games in business!
Conclusion
Thanks to Paul Kingtiger for all the time and professionalism he poured into these player aids. They were a huge help to me personally at Adepticon this year and a great boon to the Blood & Plunder community. And thanks to Paul for letting us share them here on Blood & Pigment!
Hi all,
The download button for the quick reference sheets doesn’t seem to work for me, while the other downloads worked just fine.
Try now. Thanks for catching that!
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