Our big Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron painting contest – the Great Pirate Paint Off – has started and we have some great prizes from some awesome sponsors this year! Read on for a full list of the plunder we’re giving away over the first few months of 2024.

First, we want to thank the various people and companies that have helped provide prizes for this year’s contest:

• Firelock Games
• TABLEWAR Game Mats
• The Plunder Den YouTube Channel
• Seamons’ Quality Sails
• The Dead Man’s Chest Blog
• Feldherr
• Things from the Basement
• Timber & Sail
• Blood & Pigment

Over the course of the contest, we will be having a series of People’s Choice votes in various categories (for a full schedule, see the main contest page). The prizes for the various People’s Choice votes will be as follows:

People’s Choice Commander – Firelock Games

As a prize for the best-painted commander, as judged by the community, Firelock Games has donated a huge oversized print of the Blood & Plunder Commander Blackbeard sculpt. This is an impressive trophy!

This prize will be awarded early in the contest, in early February 2024.

Firelock Games is a key part of this contest! We’re thankful for the support for all we do here at Blood & Pigment and specifically for this painting contest. Many thanks to all the crew at Firelock especially, Mike, Alex, Lily, Ray, and all the other folks that work hard to keep great games flowing out the door!

People’s Choice Terrain – The Plunder Den

This is always an exciting category with a highly motivating prize! You can see all the current terrain entries for the 2024 contest here.

Dexter from the Plunder Den has donated one of his masterfully crafted custom terrain pieces this year. If you’re been around the Blood & Plunder community, you’ve probably seen Dexter’s work. He makes amazing, beautiful, and yet functional terrain pieces for Blood & Plunder (or any game for that matter!). And many are made out of dollar store materials, a Home Depot run, and a big dose of pure genius.

This prize will be awarded in early March 2024.

We’re lucky to have Dexter on board and the prize winner will be lucky to get some of his amazing work. He hasn’t settled on a design for the prize yet, but we will post it once it is finalized.

There’s a rumor Dexter might run a “Flash Terrain Challenge” during the contest as well. Dexter will provide a supply list and tutorial for a special terrain piece that anyone could build.

Check out all his amazing tutorial videos on his YouTube channel. Subscribe or you’re a dummy. You can also join The Plunder Den Facebook group where hobbyists share their builds and techniques.

Check out some of these projects that Dexter has done in the last year:

Blood & Plunder Unit – Things from the Basement

This is one of the mostly hotly contested categories. This is the meat and potatoes of the painting contest right here. The winner of this category will receive an engraved wooden Blood & Plunder storage box. The box from Things from the Basement is designed to hold all your cards, dice, templates and accessories.

Storage Boxes from Things From the Basement

This is a great storage box that we have been using for several years. It can hold all your ship cards, your deck of unit and commander cards, your movement templates, your dice, your fortune coins, your tape measurer, your activation cards, and your puffs of smoke for your cannons. This is a great accessory to keep all your necessary gaming equipment in one place. Its pullout tray makes for easy access and the size is great for transport to the game store or cons.

The box comes with a storage tray with 4 divisions. When inserted into the box, the tray also creates two more sections.

I stained my and painted over there words on the box lid and it looks super sharp! It’s a great product.

Things from the Basement is a great company that has contributed a lot to the Blood & Plunder community. Not only do they make some great storage boxes for the game, but they have designed some of the most iconic MDF buildings for Blood & Plunder. I believe the Ports of Plunder buildings that 4Ground helped produce originated with the folks at Things from the Basement. They still carry the same basic designs under the “Mediterranean Village” title. These are great kits that work well for Blood & Plunder.

I had the pleasure of meeting the people at Things from the Basement at Historicon 2022. The crew has graciously sponsored both the previous Great Pirate Paint Off and the Summer of Plunder events. Many thanks to Things from the Basement. Check out their website and buy their terrain!

People’s Choice Blood & Plunder Ship – Seamon’s Quality Sails

The ship models for Blood & Plunder are big hobby projects but the results are stunning. This is another category that can be hard to judge with every entry proving very impressive.

We pushed the deadline for ships deep into the contest so people would have time to finish! This prize will be awarded in near the end of the contest in early May, 2024.

For this category, Mary Seamons of Seamons’ Quality Sails has donated a set of her fantastic, hand-quilted sails. These hand made sails fit either a Bermuda Sloop or a Balandra. These are the best sails on the market, hands down. Mary, our own Guy Rheuark’s mother, is a master quilt maker and has made some truly remarkable sails for the discerning Blood & Plunder player. Each sail is essentially a historically informed miniature quilt with 3 layers of material, including a shaping layer. If you want to make your Blood & Plunder ship really stand out, check out her sails on our store page.

Mary has generously donated to our events before and we thank her for her support and fine craftsmanship! You can order her sails straight from our website if you’re interested.

Oak & Iron Ship – Timber & Sail

We’re happy to include Oak & Iron models in this contest. For this category, Jason from the Timber & Sail blog has supplied a generous prize. The winner can choose to either receive the Men of War expansion to Oak & Iron, or two individual Oak & Iron ships of their choice.

The Men of War expansion contains the 4th, 5th and 6th Ships that can fight at range or brawl up close and personal.

Or, if you already have this expansion or want to get the newest sculpts, you may choose any 2 individually sold ships for Oak & Iron. Currently (as of 12?30/23) there are two new sculpts in a new material that have been released as standalone ships: the 3rd Rate Ship of the Line (English version) and the Galleon (full sized instead of Light Galleon). These are beautiful models with even better detail and sculpting than the original line.

Timber & Sail is the premier site for all things Oak & Iron. Jason Klotz has done an amazing job providing community resources on the site, ranging from nationality breakdowns, ship analysis and recommendations. He also provides news on game releases and updates. And has created some great fan-made additions to the games (including rules and ships for Natives, and The Kraken). Jason also ran all the Oak & Iron events and tournaments at Adepticon 2023 and is lined up to help again this year.

You need to come to Adepticon 2024 to see the cool terrain and bling he has created for his Oak & Iron tables. We’re pleased to have Jason’s support from Timber & Sail (he’s on staff here at Blood & Pigment as well so we’re a little biased).

Best Blood & Plunder or Oak & Iron Force – TABLEWAR

Entering this category takes a lot of work and dedication! These entries must contain at least 25 Blood & Plunder models or 5 Oak & Iron ships. Note, that you can enter units/commanders/ships individually as well!

The winner of this category will be sent a 4×3′ gaming mate donated by TABLEWAR. This prize will be awarded near the end of the contest in early May 2024.

The gaming mats created by TABLEWAR have been a huge boon to both the Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron communities. Their Caribbean series is really amazing, with great options for land, sea and amphibious tables. A good Caribbean-style land mat is hard to come by and my copy of this mat has seen a LOT of play! Their 4×4′ amphibious mat is a super product as well.

Thanks to TABLEWAR for donating this prize! Check out their Caribbean collection of gaming mats here.

If an Oak & Iron force wins this category, a 4×3′ Caribbean Ocean mat will be awarded instead.

Now we move on to the prizes awarded by judges at the final conclusion of the contest in May, 2024.

Top Entry for Each Nation – Things from the Basement

The Commanders for each nation represented in the 2024 Summer of Plunder campaign will be helping judge these categories. One entry will be selected as the overall winner from the entries from each nation:

• Pirate
• Spanish
• English
• French
• Dutch
• Native American
• Unaligned

Each winner will receive a Plunder storage box engraved with their nation’s flag or symbol on the lid. Things from the Basement provided us with a generous discount to allow us to buy multiple boxes.

These are a little more basic than the larger Plunder box (see the People’s Choice Unit prize), but they are very useful. If you play more than one nation, you can organize your accessories easily. You can just load up your Spanish box with everything you need when you play your Spanish armies. They come in a natural sanded finish but are very easy to stain and paint up with your nation’s colors.

Remember, nations that might get fewer entries will be less competitive and have a higher chance of winning! This means the Natives and Unaligned are low-hanging fruit for a prize!

Thanks again to Things from the Basement for their support of this event!

Best Entry from a New Painter – Blood & Pigment

Jumping into the hobby of painting miniature is a big step with a learning curve and we want to encourage people to take that plunge! One of the tools that can make a huge difference in how enjoyable (and successful) your painting efforts are is a good paintbrush. The Winsor & Newton Series 7 brushes are the best of the best when it comes to painting small miniatures like these pirates. If you’ve started painting miniatures in 2023 or 2024, check the New Painter checkbox on the entry form. These entries will be considered for the “New Painter” prize of a size 0 and a size 00 Winsor & Newton Series 7 Kolinsky Sable paint brush ($20 value each). These are truly the best miniature brushes out there.

Random Entry Every Month – Dead Man’s Chest

No matter how new you are at painting, or your painting standard for a miniature is, you have a chance of winning something when you enter your work in the 2024 Great Pirate Paint Off. For this prize, Tyler from The Dead Man’s Chest Blog has pledged a variety of prizes. These prizes will be given away throughout the contest.

Blood & Pigment and Dead Man’s Chest try to support each other here in the Pirate Game Content Creator Spac. So to enter to win these prizes, you may have to answer a question or bit of trivia from a coordinated post on The Dead Man’s Chest blog.

Tyler has pledged to give away:

• 1 Painted Character to a random Commander/Character entry in early February
• 1 Terrain Piece to a random Terrain Entry in early March
• 1 Painted Unit prize to a random Unit Entry in Early April
• 1 Special Gaming Accessory prize to a random Force Entry in early May

Keep your eyes peeled for painting contest-related content on The Dead Man’s Chest blog and for super secret trivia that will get you in the running for some great prizes!

Tyler Stone of the Dead Man’s Chest Blog

Tyler Stone from the Dead Man’s Chest blog has been an active community member for Blood & Plunder and Oak & Iron (and more of Firelock’s historical games) for many years. He was a founding member of the Tales of the Sail podcast. He has worked very hard at many conventions to make sure tournaments and events are available to players. Last year he was a lean, mean, demo-machine at Adepticon, tirelessly running demos at the Firelock booth for days on end. And that doesn’t even touch on his new Dead Man’s Chest blog where he has been covering not just Blood & Plunder, but Blood & Crowns, Blood & Valor, and other Firelock games as he is able.

One of my favorite articles up on Dead Man’s Chest is his article on the various Blood & Plunder books. It can be a little confusing when choosing which books to buy in what order and this article does a great job breaking down what you get in each book and why you may or may not need each product.

Thanks to Tyler from The Dead Man’s Chest for the several prizes he has donated and for all the great work he has done for the Firelock Games communities over the years!

Most Entries – Feldherr

Part of the goal of this contest is to inspire people to paint a lot of miniatures, specifically so they have some new armies to use in the 2024 Summer of Plunder campaign event. If you paint and enter a lot of minis, you have a shot a winning a really great prize, donated by Feldherr.

The entrant who has entered the most (legal) entries over the course of the entire contest will receive a Feldherr miniature box, loaded with trays set up to carry Blood & Plunder miniatures. (If the winner is an exclusive Oak & Iron player, we can substitute an Oak & Iron case.)

The prize includes their FSLB150 box loaded with 4 trays for miniatures. It will contain 2 FSEB035BO trays that can hold 50 standard 28mm minis each, plus 2 FS040A023 trays that were custom-made to hold Blood & Plunder pikemen!

Each tray can hold 16 standard 28mm minis, 12 of the larger 28mm minis (like Lanceros or the more dynamic commander poses like Pargo). It also has some special slots in the center for up to 6 pikemen with their long metal pikes. All told this case can hold up to 168 Blood & Plunder miniatures of various shapes and sizes. My guess is, if you can paint enough minis to fill it up, you have a good chance of winning the case!

Feldherr Discount Code!

Feldherr makes a great product and we’re very thankful to have them as a sponsor this year! We’re also super happy to be able to offer a little exclusive discount code to all you Blood & Plunder players! Use the code BAP2024 in the coupon slot on your cart (BEFORE the checkout window) for €5 off €50 or more. They also offer very reasonable shipping rates to US customers, in spite of shipping from Germany. Standard shipping for most orders is a flat €15 to USA for an order of €50+. And any order over €199 gets free shipping!

You can check out all their great Blood & Plunder foam trays here, and their Oak & Iron trays here.

Feldherr also sells direct through Amazon which might save you more on shipping if you have a Prime account.

Final Thoughts on Prizes & Sponsors for the Great Pirate Paint-Off

We’re very excited to be able to offer all these prizes this year, coming to more than $700 in value! Thank you to all our generous sponsors who have made all this plunder possible!

The Great Pirate Paint Off contest starts January 1st, 2024, and we’re eager to see all the great work this community can pump out. Happy painting!

Prizes are subject to change (…because we may add more!).

And just as a reminder, here are deadlines for various projects for the contest, so plan your sequence of attack efficiently:

• Commanders/Characters – January 31
• Terrain and Oak & Iron ships – February 29
• Blood & Plunder Units – March 31
• Blood & Plunder Ships and Force Entries – April 30

For full rules on the painting contest, visit the main page for the Great Pirate Paint Off. Find the contest Entry Form here, and you can find everything related to the contest under the “Great Pirate Paint Off” tab on our Home Page.