Adepticon is just around the corner and we have a “tournament list” prep post here. I thought it would be fun to force myself to play something I might not naturally pick for the 200pt Land Tournament this year, so I let our Patreon backers choose which Nation and Faction I would play.
Spanish beat out pirates by a tiny bit (after I stupidly forgot to include Natives, my favorite option!), and Spanish Mission Garrison came out on top from all the Spanish land-focused options. Now the Spanish Mission Garrison faction is interesting, but I wouldn’t call it a powerhouse faction. It has some fun options, but a lot fewer unit options (compared to Spanish Militia or Reformed Spanish Militia) and no force options. But there’s still some very meaningful decisions on how I wanted to craft my 200pt land force.
Here’s my the way I constructed my land tournament force using the Spanish Mission Garrison.
Basic Tournament Considerations
What does a tournament force need to do? Cover all the bases reasonably, and have a plan to win. Sometimes you can build for the scenario you know you’re going to play, but a tournament force needs to be fairly well rounded, prepared for a variety of enemies and scenarios.
Variables to Consider
There several variables to keep in mind when making a tournament force:
- Role (Attacker vs Defender)
- Scenarios
- Possible lists I will face
- Primary Tactics deployed against me
Role: Not a lot of land based Factions have a bonus to the Attacker roll, but since the Spanish Mission Garrison has no bonus, my force will likely be Defender at least as much, or even more, than being the Attacker. Being the Attacker can give you more control of the game, but it is sometimes a bit more difficult. My list has to take a significant number of Inexperienced units, and those units are pretty solid while hiding in cover, so I’m OK being Defender more often than not.
Scenarios: The possible scenarios are listed in the Tournament Packet are listed as Take and Hold (Core), A Wanted Man (RtB), Breakthrough (Core), Encounter (Core), Rescue (NPBtL). Take & Hold is very balanced with a focus on area control. A Wanted Man might be difficult as the Defender just because starting in the middle of the board is scary. Breakthrough I feel very confident as the Defender, but I may have to work hard to include a very mobile unit to push into the enemy’s deployment zone if I have to be the Attacker. For Encounter, I think I can include a high quantity of models in this list to force the enemy to kill a lot of my men. Rescue is one I haven’t tested as much, and I don’t relish the idea of being Attacker for that scenario.
As far as what kind of list I could be encountering, it’s always hard to know. There’s nearly 100 different factions for Blood & Plunder players to choose from and there isn’t a really defined meta for the tournament space. But I can look back at last year’s tournament winning lists and see what has been placing high.
- Miskito Zambo
- Church’s Raiders
- Wabanaki
- British Raiders
- Maroons
- Brazilian Portuguese Garrison
These all have a high degree of mobility and solid Shoot Saves. Those Shoot Saves might be an issue for my faction here, since I pretty much have to rely on bows for a large portion of my force. I will need to lean into some melee options to actually get some kills if the top lists are relying on 6 Shoot Saves and abilities like Hidden and Elusive.
As far as primary tactics I can expert to be used against me, that’s difficult to nail down but here’s the basic approaches I can expect:
- Shoot at Range
- Rush to Melee
- Fatigue and Kill
So I need some solid Shoot Saves and the ability to shoot back at range and maybe a really mobile unit to root out snipers to counter the Shoot at Range tactic. I need some good defensive options to counter the Rush to Melee tactic. And I need some good options to keep off Fatigue to counter the various Fatigue tactics (Ruthless/Cold Blooded, Poisoned Arrows etc.).
Spanish Mission Garrison 200pt Tournament List
So here’s what I came up with after a couple drafts and test games.
The Force has 5 units, 40 models, 3 Command Points, a mix of Trained, Inexperienced and Veteran units, and some fun Special Rules and abilities to mess with the enemy. It’s light on deadly ranged attacks and mobility.
Commander
This was a hard choice because Angel Miranda is a really cool commander with some great abilities. But ultimately I went with the Seasoned Standard Spanish Commander, primarily for that 12″ Command Range that is so useful when I have bows to shoot off. The large Command Range is also very good for performing Rally tests on that those bad Indios units.
I chose the Delay Tactics rule which can really mess with the enemy, and throws them off their game a bit since they are always panicky to use their Command Points early in the turn before my commander can initiate a parley. Adding the Mission Priest essentially gives my Commander the coveted Inspiring ability so I don’t need to add that to my commander. Guerilla Commander and Swordsmen were tempting options, but I ultimately went with Well-Equipped which basically just saved me 3pts on my command unit.
Units
The Spanish Mission Garrison Faction is fairly restrictive with only two different Core Unit options. On top of that restriction, you have to include the Milicianos Indios de la Florida to include the Soldados de Avanzada. I started out with three small units of Milicianos Indios de la Florida, two units of Soldados de Avanzada, and one veteran unit of Milicianos Indios, but eventually combined the three units of 6 Inexperienced Indios into two units of 9. Units of six models can fade pretty fast, and with 9 attack dice, that Rain of Arrows might get a few more actual kills.
I paid a lot of points to upgrade the Soldados de Avanzada with better guns and bayonets. The Socket Bayonets are a key part of the plan. The Indios de la Florida are helpless in a melee, and their Defensive Attacks with bows aren’t going to stop a determined attacker. I plan to keep those bayonets fixed for most of the game and keep Indios with the Soldados to provide a prickly defense against charging enemies. I also paid the 3pts on one unit to give them Firelock Muskets without Poorly Equipped so those Clubs don’t slow me down. With 2 Inexperienced and 1 Veteran unit, those Clubs are going to be best spent on my two Trained units, and I don’t want Poorly Equipped raining on my parade. I chose to give my Commander’s unit Elusive instead of Drilled as well, but left Drilled on the other unit of 7 Soldados.
For my fifth and final unit, I upgraded a unit of 7 Milicianos Indios (NOT the crappy Florida variation) to Veterans. This might be a bad choice, paying 6 points for models armed with bows, but they have been paying off in my test games. I’m using them as my mobile kill unit. They have the full bucket of mobile rules, and with the Veteran upgrade, they can take advantage of any enemy weakness. With Quick, they can combine their free move with up to 2 regular moves to change an enemy up to 12″ away (with terrain doesn’t slow them with that Scouts rule), They have a solid 5 Fight which usually leaves a good mark in melee and then they have the option of pulling back with the Skirmishers rule. And they can even do a volley of arrows on the way in. I’m basically using these guys as cavalry. For 6pts I could just take cavalry, even at the Veteran level, but I think I’m going to prioritize sneakiness and solid Shoot Saves and use the Veteran Indios instead.
Characters
The Mission Priest is awesome here and can provide a big Santiago! turn at a key point in the game. The aforementioned Inspiring Special Rule is very helpful with this force since Resolve is 6 on most of my units, and I’d like to trigger Ruthless as much as possible. I had included an Officer character when the list was led by Miranda, but there really wasn’t room with the 20pt commander.
Test Games
I played this list twice and was successful in both games, but not dominant. It isn’t overpowered by any stretch!
First I played Rescue as Attacker against North American English Militia under Benjamin Church. That was a tough matchup with Quick Indian Fighters matched up against my ponderous Soldados de Avanzada. I had to work for that win and it was all about Fatigue and striking weak units with my Veterans.
The second game was against Flibustiers Nau with Flibustiers, Engages and Francois L’Olonnais. That was also a scary game. In both games I had more models than my opponent and I tried to use that, using a weak unit as bait so they would overextend and put a stronger unit in a weak position where I could it out.
Final Thoughts
Key parts of the Spanish Mission Garrison Tournament Force:
- 3 Command Points
- Wide Command Range
- 5 units with lots of Bows to land Fatigue
- Defensive line with bayonets to protect bow units
- 40 models for 10 model Strike Point threshold
- Inspiring with strong Commander for Fatigue management
- Santiago! for crucial turn and funmaxing
- Solid Shoot Saves to keep crappy units on the field
- Extremely mobile Veteran unit to strike hard when and where needed
- Mix of Inexperienced, Trained and Veteran units to maximize use of Activation Cards
- Delay Tactics to freak out enemy commander
Well, what do you think? How far will this poor Spanish Mission Garrison get at the 2026 Adepticon Land tournament? Thank you Patreon backers for participating in choosing my faction!
I let Facebook group members choose my Sea Tournament faction and I’ll try to put up a similar post on that force construction.
Additional Recommended Reading
- Blood & Pigment Patreon Page
- Spanish Mission Garrison Faction Review page by Garrett
- Wave 2 Spanish Commander Mini Preview
- Sources for Spiritual Leader Models
- Tour of Mission San Luis in Tallahassee, Florida
- 2025 Adepticon Land Tournament Recap
- Full article on preparing for your (first) Blood & Plunder Tournament