Blood & Plunder has a great set of rules, and in general, players do a good job understanding the rules and playing consistently. But with a rule set this large, covering so many possible situations, there are inevitably some things that get missed or are misunderstood more than others. Sometimes this is due to an assumption being made, a tiny rule dropped into an unexpected spot in the book, or people using the Force Builder without reading their rulebook, or a tricky interaction of multiple rules and abilities that takes a while to pick upon.

But not to worry! There are nerds on hand to help! Two years ago we published an article titled “8 Rules You’re Playing Incorrectly (maybe).” That article is still good reading! Check it out if you haven’t already. But now we’re back for Part 2!

The intention is not to call out players for messing up or to critique the ruleset for not being clear. Rather it is to have a little fun and bring up some less-known rules interactions that we’ve seen players miss (including ourselves sometimes!). Some of these can have a large effect on your game if you play them incorrectly, and some less so. Some of these could come up pretty frequently and some you might have never encountered in 100+ games!

#1 – A Force May Only Include 1 Character Per 50pts in the Force

Characters are an awesome part of building a Force in Blood and Plunder! Adding a specialist to your crew adds a lot of fun and flavor to a force and there are a lot of awesome Characters to choose from! But be careful to follow the Character rule of only including a maximum of 1 Character per 50 points in your Force.

This mistake seems to pop up most in small games of less than 200 points. It’s easy to just keep adding Characters to your Force, forgetting that when you’re playing at 100 points you can only take up to 2 Characters. When playing smaller games, you have to choose wisely!

You can find the text above on:

• Pg 205 of Starter Set Rulebook
• Pg 152 of No Peace Beyond the Line
• Pg 118 of Revised Rulebook

#2 – While in a Melee, Your Commander Cannot Give out Command Points to Other Units

Fighting for your life takes some… focus. Once a Commander (or Character by extension) is engaged in a melee fight, they cannot* give Command Points to units outside of that melee.

This can really limit your Commander’s ability to lead his entire crew after he gets into melee so throwing his unit into a fight is a major decision.

There are some Special Rules that grant Commanders the ability to ignore this rule at various levels! The Elan Special Rule allows a Character to give out a single Command Point to a unit outside their current scrum. Additionally, the Bold Special Rule allows a Commander to use Command Points freely while involved in a melee.

Commanders that have the Elan ability:

• Several generic French Commanders
• Pierre Lemoyne d’Iberville
• Juan Corso
• Grammont
• Jan Erasmus Reyning
• King Golden Cap
• French & Dutch Standard Commanders
• Loyal Quartermaster and Scheming Quartermaster

Commanders with the Bold Special Rule:

• Piet Heyn
• Benjamin Hornigold
• Henry Jennings
• John James
• Blackbeard (and Character version)
• Bartholomew Roberts
• Daniel d’Augur de Subercase
• Oboystabee
• Spanish Standard Commanders

#3 – Small Arms Do Not Have “Maximum Range”

Each weapon has subtle rules and abilities that give it flavor in Blood & Plunder. Most long muskets have “extended range” abilities that allow you to score a hit on a roll of 10, even when the target number (unit stat + range) might be 11 or higher.

• Firelock and Matchlock muskets can hit on 10s up to 24”
• Buccaneer Guns can hit on 10s up to 28”
• Heavy Matchlock Guns can hit on 10s up to 32”

But this doesn’t mean that these weapons can’t hit beyond that range IF you can finagle your shoot ability such that a 9 or 10 would hit further out. This rarely happens in normal play but if you sniff out all the bonus rules and stack them up on one unit, you can do some weird things.

Rules like Ruthless, Drilled, Marksmen, Strict, & Great Warrior can all provide bonuses to a Shoot test and some of them can be stacked.

Extra Long Range Shoot Combinations

Here are some examples that let you combine abilities to shoot further:

• Spanish: Soldados using the Drilled rule with a Club (3 actions) while Ruthless is providing a bonus. 6 shoot, -2 for Drilled, 1- for Ruthless. This brings the Shoot test down to 3s before any Range penalty. This means you can apply seven 4” range bands and still hit on 10s. Which means you can hit out to 31.9999”, well beyond the 24” “Long Range” ability.
• English/Dutch: 17th or 18th century soldier models combining Drilled with Strict from a Standard 10-20pt Commander. In this case, the unit in question must be the Commander’s unit to trigger both Strict and Drilled at the same time.
• French: Boucaniers can use two actions with Marksmen combined with the Ruthless/Cold Blooded ability from a Commander. This simple combo also gets their Shoot stat down to 3 before applying Range penalties, just like the example above. The result is the ability to reach up to 31.9”. This is slightly more than the 28” “Very Long Range” trait on Buccaneer Guns.
• Natives: This Nation has lots of options! The one thing they lack is the Drilled rule, but they can make up for it by combining Great Warrior (-1 bonus on any one test per activation on Command Unit), with Ruthless and Marksmen (from Sharpshooter or Indian Sharpshooter). Combining all three of these rules can bring your shoot down to a base of 3 on a Brave, Pniese, or Warrior Musketeer.

Those extended-range rules are nice, but they aren’t meant to cut off the range of a weapon. They only extend the range if it would otherwise be impossible to hit on a number of 10 or less.

#4 – Running Your Ship Aground is Bad

Amphibious games of Blood & Plunder are a ton of fun, but they introduce extra rules into the mix that should NOT be ignored. The hardest part of the Amphibious games is getting your models from your ship to the land. The fastest way to get them on land is crashing into the shore and jumping out. But, as you may have guessed, just smashing your ship into the land isn’t the best idea.

The rules actually penalize you for heedlessly beaching your ship. Careening is one thing, but kamikaze ramming is another thing. You automatically gain a Strike Point if your ship is “immobilized” (e.g. Aground).

If you just smash your ship into the coastline, yes, you’ll get your men on to shore pronto, but you’ll also take a Strike Point for doing it. This can possibly force you to take a Strike Test and end the game early. Sometimes a pirate just got to get on land and this risk can be worth the repairs you’ll later need to make on your hull, but in general, you should try to grapple your ship to a dock, send troops to shore in a canoe or longboat or lower your speed setting to 0 or Anchored.

Note: This rule does not apply to Boats (Size 1 ships) like Canoa, Longboats, or Piraguas! These ships do not have a Draft value and therefore cannot run aground.

You can find this rule in the Strike Test box in the Quick Reference sheet at the back of your Rulebook, or on page 140 of the Revised Rulebook (134 of old rulebook).

#5 – You Can’t* Take Multiple Fight Actions in One Activation

Once you get into melee combat in Blood & Plunder, models start dying quickly! Melee is brutal. But there are some important rules and restrictions in melee that you don’t want to miss. Often melee is initiated and quickly decided through a Charge action (a special Move action, followed by a Free Fight action). But if you’re activating while already in a melee, it’s important to remember the standard Fight action must be a Dedicated action.

A Dedicated Action must be the one and only action your take in your activation. You can’t activate an engaged unit with a Club and Fight-Fight-Fight. If you play a card that would give your unit multiple actions, the extra actions aren’t lost. Instead, they will increase the power of your Fight action per standard Dedication action rules. Each extra action after the first gives you a -1 bonus to your Fight Skill.

Command Points can be used as Dedicated Actions

Melee Fight actions ares where Command Points come in handy! A Command Point can be issued as a Dedicated Action to that unit allowing to Fight again. Command Points as Dedicated Actions may be given by a Commander/Character in the unit or another unit outside of melee combat. This will give your unit a point of Fatigue for Fighting twice, but it is a good way to hit again and get around that “Dedicated” Fight restriction. Don’t forget that a Unit may only receive a single Command Point per turn, regardless of its source. So if you get a one from a Character you can’t also get one from the Commander and vice versa.

The other way to get around this a little os by performing multiple Charge actions. If you manage to apply enough Fatigue to make the unit you’re attacking become Shaken and they retreat, you can choose NOT to follow and stay engaged, but to charge again. If you do, you’ll take a Fatigue for Fighting a second time, and you might take another Fatigue if you’ve now moved more than 8″ in an activation, but it can be a way to double Fight without breaking that rule. Or, even more diabolical, if your unit has Skirmishers, you can Charge, the use Skirmishers to pull back, the Charge again!

#6 – Fighting Men & Hostage/Advisors are Very Different Characters!

This comes up a lot because Characters are really fun and they’re all available on the Force Builder. But… the rules for Characters are often not read carefully and because they weren’t included in the original rulebook a lot of assumptions were made based on Force Builder! So let’s clear up some details on Characters!

A Fighting Man Character is basically an upgraded version of a model in one of your units. The model takes on all the stats, weapons abilities, and rules of the rest of the unit that he’s attached to. The rulebook doesn’t use the “upgraded model” language, but that’s kind of the easiest and most accurate way to understand it.

The cost you pay for a Fighting Man is in addition to the model in the unit. Any cost written in the “+X pts”style format means “in addition to the cost of the model.”

For example, a Sea Dogs costs 4 points. You have a unit 6 Sea Dogs and that costs 24 points. If you want a Master Gunner attached to that unit, you can pay the 6 points (used to be 4pts) to “upgrade” one of the models to be the Master Gunner. Now that unit of 5 Sea Dogs and the Master Gunner Sea Dog (still 6 models) which cost you a total of 30 points. If you use the online Blood & Plunder Force Builder, you’ll notice it does not increase your model count when you add a Fighting Man Character. It only adds the cost of the Character “upgrade” since it only adds Characters to your Force and not to units individually.

Fighting Men can shoot and fight as normal (unless otherwise specified e.g. Musician). They can also provide additional Command Points and do all sorts of fight-y things.

Hostage and Advisor Character Rules

Hostage/Advisor Characters function differently. They are less fighty! Being non-combatants, they don’t need to take on the weapons & attack stats of their home unit. They join your force as a “full model.” They don’t upgrade an existing model, but are additions to your Force (always Command Unit) as a new model. The cost is always listed as a simple number in the rule books (as opposed to a +x cost).

Example: You want to add a Local Guide Character to your Force. Your Command unit currently consists of 6 Sea Dogs and your Commander. You pay the 6 points for the Local Guide and now your Command unit still has 6 Sea Dogs, 1 Commander and 1 Local Guide Character.

The Character rules work really well, but there’s some subtleties that are easy to miss on the first read-through! Read all the rules for Characters again if you’re a little unclear.

#7 – Changing Sail Settings Takes Time

There are some little rules that get easily missed when it comes to increasing or decreasing Sail Settings on your ships in Blood & Plunder. They all boil down to, “You can’t speed up or slow down very quickly.”

1. Changing Sail Setting is a Test that requires a die roll, so it is not automatic.
2. Changing Sail Setting is a Dedicated Action (usually) so it takes your full Activation.
3. You can’t change your Sail Setting more than once in an Activation.

In scenarios like Anchored (Raise the Black), you need to mess with your sail settings a lot and you usually want to get underway quickly. But sailing ships don’t stop (or start) on a dime! It takes time to mess with your sails and a large wooden ship in water doesn’t accelerate very quickly.

Firstly, if you want to Change Sail Setting, you must succeed at Test to accomplish this action. You aren’t guaranteed to succeed, especially if you have landlubbers working your rigging! The target number to succeed is 7+ for most units, 5+ for units with the Sailors Special Rule, and 4+ for units with the Expert Sailors rule.

Secondly, the Change Sail Setting is a Dedicated Action, meaning you must use ALL of your actions from your Activation Card to accomplish this task. Using a multi-action card will make the action easier (-1 bonus for each action past the first one), but it is the only thing you can do during that activation (barring Command Points). This means your unit can’t start the activation assigned to cannons, or Prone, or anything like that. The unit has to focus on this job alone.

Because you can only change the sail setting once per Activation, you can’t use Command Points to do it twice on a single card.

Many of the smaller ships in Blood & Plunder provide an exception to this basic rule through the Simple Rig ship trait. Ships like the Longboat, Tartana, Sloop, and even the utilitarian Fluyt have less complicated rigging and the game reflects this by allowing units to Change Sail Setting as a Standard Action instead of a Dedicated Action. You still can only due it once, but it does let you use other actions to do other things.

Closely related to this (and especially applicable to ships with the Simple Rig trait), ships cannot Change Sail Setting more than once per activation. Even if you have that big Commander with 3 Command Points and you can accomplish 4 Dedicated Change Sail Setting actions on his activation, it’s not legal. A Galleon can’t move from 0″ to 4″ in one activation. You’ll have work on changing those sails slowly over the course of a turn or two.

#8 – Climbing More than 1″ Requires a Dedicated Action

The Climbing rules are a little difficult to track down in the rulebook so let’s go over them real quick.

Units moving up or over an object or wall more than 1″ must take a Dedicated “Climb” action. Climb is a special type of Move action, it isn’t clearly in the long list of possible actions in Chapter 4. It is actually in a reference later in the Terrain chapter.

A unit can perform a Climb of between 1-4″ as a Dedicated Move action, but only if all models are within 1″ of the object to be climbed and all models can end their movement on the same new elevation level. There is no Test to accomplish the Climb, but anything over a 1″ must use a Climb with a Dedication Action.

In addition to climbing buildings, it most often comes into play when moving in and out of a ship either in a Boarding action or at a dock.

When determining the height needed to climb, measure from the base of the model to the highest point the model would have to move over. A model is about 1″ tall, so anything that is higher than a standing model’s head needs a Climb to Move over. The same applies for moving down.

This would also apply to climbing over fortifications like the Palisade Wall. From outside to inside the wall is more than 1″ and would required a Dedicated Climb. From the fighting step over the wall to the ground is over 1″ down and would require the climb. Moving from the ground up to the fighting step inside the Palisade wall is less than 1″ and would not require a Climb action.

You can Climb while Charging, but it gives your free Fight action a +1 penalty.

Determining How Terrain Features Game Effects

The opening of the Terrain chapter has a great paragraph at the end that you shouldn’t overlook. “Before the game begins, players should discuss the properties of all-terrain elements on the table as outlined below.” This really is important, especially in a competitive or tournament setting. Some of the terrain rules are more like… guidelines and it’s important for players to have the same expectations going into a game so there’s not an unpleasant disagreement due to differing presuppositions. Terrain discussion is an official part of game setup for Star Wars: Legion!

If you want to get super climby, any (non-mounted) unit can add Climbing Gear for 2pts. Climbing gear doesn’t making those 1-4″ climbs any easier, or remove the requirement to use a Dedicated action, but it does increase the height of a possible Climb action up to 8″. Notably, all units that have Explosives can add Climbing Gear for free.

Climbing actually happens a lot in Blood & Plunder. Try to keep an eye out for any time a unit might need to move over something 1″ or higher.

#9 – Assignments

Here’s a bonus one. Assignments! Units can be “Assigned” to one of several ongoing and intensive tasks in Blood & Plunder. Being Assigned gives you special perks, depending on the Assignment, but it also severely limits what that unit can do until it becomes Unassigned.

Assignment basics:

• Dedicated Action to Assign a unit to one of these tasks
• Unit will stay Assigned until Un-assigned or something terrible happens
• Standard Action to Un-assign a unit from one of these tasks
• While assigned you can Rally, Go Prone, Stand, or make a Defensive Fire action with Small Arms

The main Assignments a unit can receive in Blood & Plunder include:

• Manning Cannons
• Manning Sheets & Braces
• Manning the Sweeps

Being assigned to artillery is the only way you can reload and shoot the great guns. Manning the Sweeps can allow you to move your ship or boat around at sea without regard for wind. Manning the Sheets & Braces can give you the best control of your ship as possible. Each Assignment has it’s list of benefits which can be seen in summary on age 43 (Revised Rulebook).

Available Actions When Assigned

There is a short list of standard actions you can still accomplish while Assigned and this is where it’s easy to mess up a little. And it’s not just your fault! These rules have changed a little since the original rulebook.

Rally is important and necessary! Sometimes it’s necessary to Stand or Go Prone, most often because of becoming Shaken. Shooting has changed so let’s look at that one for a minute.

The rule now reads “Shoot with Small Arms, but only when making Defensive Attacks.”

So an artillery crew or a crew of rowers can defend themselves if Charged, provided they have a loaded weapon. It should be noted they cannot make a Defensive Mele Attack with a weapon like a lance. You can keep a pistol tucked into your belt and draw it quickly. But you can’t keep a lance in your pants!

Note, that as soon as you enter melee combat, or fall back from becoming Shaken, your Assignment ends.

The final little rule regarding artillery crew assignments: you can’t fire small arms and artillery in the same activation. If you shoot your cannons, even if you abandon your guns (using a Standard action), you cannot proceed to shoot small arms in the same activation (pg 70, Revised)

Assignment rules are a bit tricky. They’re realistic and not crazy, but they aren’t the simplest. For review, read pages 42-44, 69, and 84 of the Revised Rulebook.

Even the “Pros” Make Rules Mistakes

Confession time: I made a fool of myself on a Tales of Sail episode by incorrectly talking through Assignment rules because I had reviewed using an incomplete draft file of the revised rulebook on my phone! To my everlasting shame! So don’t trust what Joseph (or Mike) says on Assignments on that Tales of Sail episode! Read your rulebook!

Final Thoughts

Blood & Plunder has a rich ruleset that has a lot of depth. It’s easy to pick up the game, but there are plenty of little rules to continue learning. Often, these little rules aren’t that important. If players are having a good time at the table, playing out a story, the game is doing its job! But it’s always good to jump into a game with the same understanding and expectations so there aren’t any misunderstandings or rocky moments, especially in a competitive environment.

I try to make a point of going back and regularly re-reading rulebooks for games I play. This helps keep me fresh on the basic rules, but as you get the basics of the ruleset down better and better, the other smaller subtleties and rules interactions start to make more sense! I really enjoy reading the Blood & Plunder rulebook cover-to-cover about once a year. We hope you enjoyed our list of “8 MORE Blood & Plunder Rules You’re Playing Incorrectly (Maybe)”.

Did any of these surprise you? Were you playing them all correctly? Or have these situations never even come up?

Article by Joseph Forster

Additional Recommended Reading

• Original “8 Blood & Plunder Rules You’re Playing Incorrectly (maybe)” post