There are new Blood & Plunder products on the horizon! Firelock Games recently announced a huge project coming up early in 2026 with a record-breaking number of new sculpts, a new book, and, possibly most anticipated, NEW SHIPS! We are privileged to get an advance copy of one of those new ships, the Corbeta, and we are eager to share it with you!

The Corbeta

This is a new, small and sleek 3-deck ship that has a lot in common with the discontinued mdf Corvette. Lots of guns, lower profile, fast and maneuverable, this is is going to be a fun ship! Read on for some details and shots of this new Blood & Plunder ship!

The Corbeta Model

This model is sculpted by hand by Jesus Cuevas, the original sculptor for the Sloop, Brigantine, and Light Frigate from the first lineup of ships in 2016. He has done a fantastic job on a new ship for us. Here are a couple of shots of the Corbeta on the sculptor’s table!

This ship has been in the works for a good while! There are two things that really stand out on this model. First, I love those rails on the back deck. I’ve been wishing for something like that for a long time. They look so good!

Second, I really appreciate the slimmer, streamlined hull. In general, the Firelock ship sculpts are (intentionally) a little wider and shorter than perfect realism. This helps a ship fit on the table and still hold enough models for the game to work. But this narrower ship sure looks good! So nice.

And as a bonus, third favorite thing, I like the lower profile. It still has clear deck sections, but there aren’t big stair steps between sections, and the overall profile is just a little lower and sleeker.

OK, one more favorite thing. The bowsprit is locked in tight, running through the gunwales on the bow of the ship. I’ve had more than one bowsprit spring up after a glue joint was broken during gameplay. This bowsprit is going nowhere.

Here is a fresh cast waiting for some color on my (cluttered) painting desk.

The cast come out really nice!

Corbeta Stats

We have some WIP stat cards to share, but they are subject to change, so take this with a grain of salt. I know there’s at least one error (cannon numbers) that has been fixed and another stat that is still being discussed. But here’s the basics!

Sitting at 15 points, it’s right up there with the old Corvette, the slower Fluyt, and the Privateer Brigantine.

That top speed of 5″ is an eye-catcher, but the -2″ Windward Penalty makes is sail a lot like a Light Frigate. The Turn of 4″ is fantastic, and the Draft of 6 is also excellent. And this is a full-sized Size 3 ship, which makes it much simpler to use than the Corvette model, which had a subsection in the bow that brought up a lot of rules questions.

And the cannons! This is really great! 4 Swivels in the front and in the back are really great for offense and defense from boarding. In addition to 8 Swivels, this ship can bring up to 5 pairs of Light or Medium Guns. It kind of slides right between the Brigantine and Light Frigate, with 2 pairs on the back deck, 2 pairs on the middle deck, and one pair on the front deck. This is a unique cannon setup, and we’ll see how it gets used! That single pair of cannons on the front deck is always a hard choice to include. But there’s no denying that you can really load this ship up with cannons. It’s going to hit hard.

But the capacity will be a limiting factor. None of the decks is small, but none of them are roomy either, when you start talking about the cannon crew and another unit on that deck.

Without any cannons, model capacity appears to be 14/22/17 (front to back). That’s not too shabby, but a good bit under the Light Frigate’s 18/32/21, and a bit less than the Brigantine’s 17/22/19.

If you run Medium Cannons, that capacity is going to go down a bit, which won’t leave a ton of room for sailors or musketeers around the cannon crew. But still, 53 models is a lot! Plenty big enough to run this vessel in the “standard” 250 sea tournament size game.

This ship comes with Sweeps, but that number might be changed from its current stat on the card above. Everyone likes a ship with Sweeps 3! We’ll see.

The Fortitude starts at 4, like most Blood & Plunder ships, but it has 5 bubbles across instead of the 4 that we see on the smaller ships like the Bark, Tartana, Bermuda Sloop, and old Corvette. This is a nice balance. It’s not a heavy ship, but it won’t blow up if an enemy ship sneezes at it.

Corbeta Rigging and Sailing

The Corbeta also has the same combination of Sail Settings as the Light Frigate, making it a bit slow to raise and lower sail. But it also has that helpful Staysails ability to keep it moving in low wind conditions. It doesn’t have any other negative abilities like Square Sails, so it should be able to be very versatile, fast, and nimble on the table. It will certainly slow against the wind, but there are some good solutions to that in either ship upgrades or Characters.

The Corbeta uses the exact same rigging kit as the Light Frigate (6 sails), so you can just use the Frigate Templates in the Downloads section of the Firelock Games website. Or, if you don’t like making sails, you can pick up a set of sails from our Pigment Shop!

I went a little overboard rigging this model. It isn’t super easy to get models in and out of the ship, but I enjoyed trying to add a little extra.

Painting the Corbeta

The ship painted up easily. There’s a little less ornamentation on this hull than some of the larger ships, which makes it paint up a little faster. I used almost exclusively GW Contrast Paints on this hull, and I’m mostly happy with it. The inside of the gunwales looks a little yucky. But overall, I like the dark exterior and light decking. I primed in a light tan brown before painting. The masts are also painted with GW Contrast (Snakebite Leather) as is all the running rigging.

The gold and white are standard acrylics for better coverage.

When Does the Corbeta Release?

Firelock Games announced it would be part of a major Kickstarter project sometime in the first Quarter of 2026. That feels like a long time from now, but that means you can start setting aside some doubloons and pieces of eight now for when that Kickstarter launches!

As for the Kickstarter, it should fulfill very quickly after it completes as Firelock has already begun production on this ship and many other elements for the project. Firelock Games has been doing more and more of their product creation in Florida which makes things much quicker and more reliable.

How Much Does the Corbeta Cost?

I don’t know if the price point is set in stone yet, but the price we’ve seen is very reasonable (as far as these beautiful models go). The price point was well below the cost of the MDF Corvette or any of the other 3-deck ships Firelock Games currently offers. I hope that price point sticks because it would be a deal! As soon as it gets closer to finalized, we’ll pass on the pricing info.

Potential for Alternate Rigs for the Corbeta Hull

This is a very flexible hull that could be rigged several different ways! Firelock Games already has plans to create at least 2 variant stat cards for this hull, including a Schooner.

Final Thoughts on the Corbeta Preview

All of us here at Blood & Pigment are very excited for this ship.

• Beautiful sculpt
• Long and skinny profile looks great on the table
• Fast and agile
• Can hold plenty of cannons
• Not too large for standard game scale
• Great (probable) price point

It has drawbacks as well (as it should). It has limited space, and won’t take too many broadsides from a determined enemy before it starts to break apart. But that’s what we want. No power creep to ruin the ships currently in our fleets!

Thank you to Firelock Games for providing this review model and giving us the opportunity to share it with the Blood & Plunder community.

Watch for more previews of new Blood & Plunder stuff coming from Firelock Games soon! We got some great new minis to paint up and share as well! It should be an exciting year for the game!

Article and ship paint job by Joseph Forster. Minis on the ship painted by Fernando Arteaga.

Additional Recommended Reading

• Corvettes Ship Overview
• Light Frigate Ship Overview
• Check out all the current Blood & Plunder Ships on the Firelock Website