There’s a new expansion on the way for Blood & Plunder! Forelock Games has just launched great new Kickstarter project featuring a massive range of new miniatures, and a new Blood & Plunder expansion book: The Rise of the Buccaneer: Jamaica.

We’ve seen some draft copies of this project (and maybe even been a little involved in the development), and Firelock Games has approved us to share a preview of this book with you all! In this preview we will look at the scope and contents of The Rise of the Buccaneers: Jamaica book.

The Rise of the Buccaneers: Jamaica

This expansion book will be on a smaller scale than the massive Raise the Black expansion released a couple years ago. More in line with the Fire on the Frontier expansion, this book will focus in on a more specific smaller scale conflict. The scope of the book covers from when the English landed on Jamaica in 1655, up to about 1665, when the buccaneers were fairly well established on Jamaica with Port Royal as their base.

Here are some basic highlights and features of the expansion:

• Focus on conflict between England and Spain in Jamaica, and the early Buccaneers working out of Jamaica
• 12 New Factions for England, Spain, Dutch, and Unaligned
• 4 new Legendary Factions
• 5 New Units
• Some New Unit Options
• 20+ new commanders
• 3 Generic and 4 Historical Characters
• Historical introduction written by Benerson Little
• 1-2 Ships and several new Alternate Rigs
• Several Historical Scenarios
• Early Buccaneer Campaign
• Length ~80-100 pages

New Blood & Plunder Factions

True to the theme, Spain and England get most of the attention here.

• 4 English Factions
• 4 Spanish Factions
• 1 Dutch Faction
• 3 Unaligned Factions

These factions are an interesting mix of land focused factions (the war in Jamaica) and sea/multipurpose factions (early buccaneers). Some of these are variations on previous factions from No Peace Beyond the Line, and some are entirely new and fresh. Let’s get some spoilers on a couple of these factions!

Early English Buccaneers – 1655-1665

The English Buccaneers loom large in the world of Blood & Plunder, and here we get a bit of an alternate take on this “classic faction.”

The Special Rules have a lot in common with the OG English Buccaneers, but have some new options and restrictions. Here are the Force Special Rules:

•  This force adds +2 when determining the attacker in a scenario.
•  Once per game, this force’s controlling player may discard all the Activation Cards in their hand and replace them with the same number without spending a Fortune Point.
• This Force may include 1 Support Unit for every 1 Core Unit.
• This Force may not include any Size 4+ ships.

The Attacker bonus and Activation hand mulligan are standard. The last two rules are new. There is a restriction against using size 4+ ships, representing the Buccaneers smaller scale beginnings in Jamaica. And then there’s an allowance to take more Support Units than usual. Instead of the 1 Support per 2 Core units, we can use a 1:1 ratio! This really frees up force building a lot, and helps to accurately represent the multinational crews common on the Buccaneer ships. But let’s check out the unit options!

Core Units

• Freebooters
• Forlorn Hope
• Sea Dogs
• Privateer Landsmen

Support Units

• English Militia
• Able Seamen
• Commonwealth Musketeers
• Flibustiers (French)
• Boucaniers (French)
• Engages (French)
• African Warrior (Unaligned)
• Warrior Musketeers (Native American)
• Warrior Archers (Native American
• Warriors (Native American)
• Zeelieden (Dutch)
• Kapers (Dutch)
• Enter Ploeg (Dutch)

We have the classic 17th century English sea units as Core options: Freebooters, Forlorn Hope, and Sea Dogs. But we also see a new unit! The Privateer Landsmen. This low skill/low cost shooting unit will help fill out Buccaneer crews and allow you to still take some of the higher cost units like Freebooters and Forlorn Hope.

For Support Units, we have a ton of options, making that 1:1 option that much more fun! You can lean into Dutch, French or Native, or go all English with some diverse English support units. We even see a new unit, the Commonwealth Musketeer.

And the Commander lineup is huge! We have some returning commanders from earlier material in John Morris and Thomas Whetstone, but there are an additional 9-10 new commanders that can lead this faction! New commanders for this faction include Jelles de Lecat,  Roc Brasiliano, Edward Mansvelt, David Martien, Maurice Williams, Bartolomeu Portugues, Jan Pietersen and more!

Other English Factions include:

• Jamaican English Army Garrison
• English Jamaican Militia
• Admiral Myngs Buccaneers (Legendary Faction!)

Spanish City Garrison – 1655-1699

Spain gets several new factions, and there is some spicy stuff in here!

This is more of a “narrative faction” to facilitate fun and realistic raids on the Spanish towns. It might not be the strongest tournament force… But it looks interesting at least!

Force Special Rules

• Units in this Force may not apply Experience upgrades.
• If this Force includes at least one unit of Civilians, its Commander gains the Castilian and God’s Blessing or the Devil’s Luck Special Rules.
• This Force subtracts 2 from its roll to determine the attacker in a scenario.
• At the end of a game (after all turns have been taken, not by failing a Strike Test), if this force has more unspent Fortune Tokens than their opponent, the opposing player gains 1 Strike Point. 

Before the game, roll a d10 and apply the following results:

1-2 – Panicked: All Inexperienced Units in this force gain the The Sound of Thunder Special Rule.
3-4 – Unprepared: All units in this force with gunpowder weapons as their main weapons  (or assigned to Artillery) begin the game with 2 Reload markers (if the weapon can gain Reloads).
5-6 – Confusion: Draw one less Activation Card than usual on the first turn of the game.
7-8 – Wealthy: Gain one Fortune Token.
10-9 – Determined: All non-Civilian Units in this force gain the Unwavering Special Rule.

And finally, there is an incentive for keeping Fortune Points unspent until the end of the game. This faction has a lot of negative restrictions but one of their strengths is their access to Fortune Points. If they have any Civilians, they get a 4th token. They could take a Spiritual Leader for a 5th, and if they roll a 7-8 on their chart of chaos (above), they could potentially start with six Fortune Points! While these Spanish might stink, they do have money! They will need it…. But being a defensive faction, they might win just by not losing. If the are able to keep enough of that Fortune unspent until the end of the game, they can give their enemies a Strike Point!

Well that’s spicy! There’s a lot of stuff going on there. First, they are defenders. That makes sense. They negate 2 from their roll when deciding who the Attacker is. They are also restricted from using Experience upgrades on all units. Soldiers don’t get a lot of experience stationed at a quiet town with no action for 75 years.

Here are the unit options:

Core Units

• Milicianos
• Milicianos Piqueros
• Negros Libres
• Civilians

Support Units

• Soldados
• Milicianos Artilleros
• Caballeria Lanceros
• Caballeria
• Lanceros
• Milicianos Indios

The Core Unit options are pretty restrictive with Milicianos, Milicianos Piqueros and Civilians all low cost and low skill models. With the prohibition against Experience upgrades, you can’t even make the Milicianos Trained! The Negros Libres are an unfamiliar unit!

Negros Libres – 3

Unlike the slaves of most protestant nations, slaves in the Spanish system had a measure of legal rights under Las Siete Partidas. Among these rights, Spanish slaves were able to have property and money. These property rights extended to their own persons. Through a process called coartación, slaves could demand their masters to set a price for their freedom, allowing themselves to buy their freedom. The price was often steep, and could take a slave a lifetime to acquire, but it meant that many slaves were eventually freed. This led to a comparatively large “free”(but not equal in rights) black population in many Spanish colonies. Many of these freedmen and their descendants served in the local militias and were among the most reliable militia troops the Spanish could muster. 

Experience: Inexperienced
Weapons: Standard Melee Weapons
Fight: 6/6
Shoot: 7/7
Resolve: 5
Special Rules: Poorly Equipped, Tough
Unit Options

• Unit may add Bows, Matchlock Muskets, or Lances for 1 pt per model.
• Unit may be upgraded to Trained for 1 point per model. 
• Unit may add Matchlock Carbines and gain the Scouts special rule for 1 point per model.

We’ll I’m not sure that’s a great unit, but it at least has a Resolve of 5 which is better than all the other Core Units! Along with Tough! That’s actually pretty impressive.

Finally we have our Force Options and Commander Options:

Force Options
Comercio de Cabotaje – Marineros become Core units and Caballeria and Caballeria Lanceros are removed as Support units. This Force must include a size 2+ ship. 

Command Options 
Any Standard Spanish Commander, Antonio Maldonado de Aldana, Don Tomás Felix de Argandona y Alicantel or Pedro de Morales

The Comercio de Cabotaje represents coastal commercial transport ships between ports on the Spanish Main. With access to Marineros, you can manage a ship just fine, but you might be hard pressed to defend it!

The Commanders have typical massive Spanish names. Aldana served as Governor of Campeche, and Morales was Governor of Santiago de Cuba. Both targets of Christopher Myngs… We will look at Tomás a little further down the page here.

Other Spanish Factions we see in the book include:

• Spanish Armadilla
• Spanish Guerillas
• Isassi’s Jamaican Resistance Fighters (Legendary Faction)

There are also some new commanders that can be used in NPBtL factions like Spanish Militia and Spanish Corsairs!

Other Factions

There are 2 Maroon-ish factions, one Dutch faction and one Dutch-ish faction along with all the Spanish and English goodness.

New Commanders

There are a good number of new commander in this book and it looks like the venture into some interesting new design spaces. It’s also exciting to see that a lot of the commanders here can be used to command both new Factions in this book and some of the classic 17th century factions in No Peace Beyond the Line. Getting new material to freshen up old material is always fun!

The English and Spanish get the most new options for commanders.

Spanish Commanders

There are 7 new Spanish Commanders, plus a representation of Cristobal Arnaldo de Issasi as “Legendary Commander” (which just means he gets his own Force and a unique model).

We’ve already mentioned Pedro de Morales and Antonio Maldonado de Aldana. One of the other most interesting Spanish Commanders we see here is Don Tomás Felix de Argandoña y Alicantel. Besides having an insanely long name, he has quite the history. I couldn’t find a lot of readily available history on him, but I understand he is a favorite of both Mike Tunez and Benerson Little. That makes sense since his dates (1680-90’s) and location (Argentina and Peru) are a bit outside most of the focus of this book (1566-1665). He would serve Spain in a variety of ways and face off against Buccaneers like Bartholomew Sharp and Basil Ringrose.

Argandoña isn’t cheap, but he’s pretty cool!

Don Tomás Felix de Argandoña y Alicantel – 30

May Lead: Spanish Armadilla, Spanish Militia, or Spanish City Garrison
Main Weapons: Brace of Pistols and Standard Melee Weapon.
Sidearm: None
Command Range: 12”
Command Points: 2
Special Rules: Resilient, Indomitable, Vast Experience, Swordsmen

Extra Abilities: The unit this Commander starts the game attached to may upgrade one experience level for no cost. This upgrade may be taken even if other other rules would normally prohibit upgrading.

At thirty points, he’s expensive for 2 Command Points, but his final Special Ability brings him back into line. His unit get’s a free Experience upgrade! His other 4 Special Rules are all applicable both at land and sea which is perfect for the trio of diverse Factions he can command.

English Commanders

There are a lot of cool buccaneers in here! We saw a big list of them on the Early English Buccaneers Faction above and we’ve already previewed both Christopher Myngs and Bartolomeu Português.

Nearly all of these new buccaneer commanders can be used in 2-3 factions. Most of them can also be used in the classic Brethren of the Coast faction, along with a smattering of Logwood Cutters (which is welcome!), and English Navy. Then there are a couple Army men cut from a different cloth. Edward D’Oyley in included, a name that is probably familiar to many of us.

The other big named commander that we haven’t looked at yet within the English chapter is Roc Brasiliano. It’s way past time Roc should be in this game! Brasiliano is one of the Dutchmen that seem to primarily work for the English.

Roc Brasiliano – 23

May Lead: Brethren of the Coast, Boekaniers, or Early English Buccaneers
Main Weapons: Buccaneer Gun or Brace of Pistols and Standard Melee Weapon.
Sidearm: Pistol if armed with Buccaneer Gun
Command Range: 12”
Command Points: 2
Special Rules: Lead by Example, Very Inspiring, Unwavering, and Cold Blooded

Extra Abilities: Heavy Drinker – Before the game begins, roll a single d10. On a result of 5+, apply the Drunk scenario rule to Roc Brasiliano’s unit (apply a bonus of -1 to Resolve and all Fight Tests, and a penalty of +1 to all other tests).

This guy is a killer combo of excellent Fatigue management rules and Cold Blooded! Keep the Fatigue off, and punish the enemy of having more Fatigue than you! But… he might be drunk. Drunk makes this guy a beast in a brawl, and that Unwavering ability is awfully good when the game gets down to a desperate melee meat grinder.

Firelock has made a sculpt straight from the portrait from Exquemelin’s Buccaneers of America, but they also made a more dynamic alternate sculpt that leans into his little Extra Ability.

We also so a mysterious “Boekaniers” faction listed in Brasiliano’s profile!

New Blood & Plunder Units

This expansion doesn’t focus on new units, but there are a couple to fill out some interesting corners for the Spanish and English, and then a new set of units for the Cimaroons (early Maroons).

We already looked at a new Spanish unit, so let’s look at the two new Cimaroon units.

Cimaroons – 4

There was a significant number of Africans living in Jamaica in the mid 17th century, both slave and free. They had become skilled in traversing the island, hunting and growing food over the course of several generations on Jamaica. When the English invaded, they quickly took the chance to secure their freedom from the Spanish. Some bands worked with the Spanish against the English, but others eventually aligned themselves with the English. These men were commonly armed with the lances and machetes used in their hunting and farming under Spanish rule, and a strong motivation to establish independent settlements on Jamaica.

Experience: Trained 
Weapons: Standard Melee Weapons
Fight: 5/7
Shoot: 7/7
Resolve: 5
Special Rules: Elusive, Skirmishers, Scouts, Ruthless
Unit Options

• Unit may exchange Standard Melee Weapons for Lances for +4 pts per unit (not per model).

Cimaroon Archers – 5

Second or third generation Christianized African slaves, experienced as hunters in the inland of Jamaica. Fierce and savvy in the woodland warfare, these men are ready to fight to keep their newly found freedom.

Experience: Trained 
Weapons: Bows and Standard Melee Weapons
Fight: 6/7
Shoot: 6/7
Resolve: 5
Special Rules: Elusive, Skirmishers, Scouts, Ruthless

These are interesting units with very “European” stat lines, but very “Native” Special Rules. Their good Resolve is notable. They don’t appear to have access to any firearms but a combination of Lances and Bows and good Resolve can do the trick in a nicely planned ambush.

New Characters

New Fighting Men and Advisor/Hostage characters are always fun because they can often open up new options for older pre existing content. We see 1 new Generic Fighting Man, 4 new Named Unique Fighting Men, and 2 new Generic Hostage & Advisor Characters. Here are a couple names to whet your appetite!

• Hostage (seen in the 2025 Summer of Plunder kit)
• Houndsman
• Juan Gallardo
• Diego Pimienta

New Ships

There is at least one brand new ship, the Barco Luengo, and several alternate rigs included in this expansion.

Corbeta

We can’t wait for this new ship to come out! The Corbeta is just a beauty and an interesting ship to play! She’s a full size 3 ship, but the decks are fairly small, favoring a bit smaller games, or crews of more elite men. You can see a full preview of this ship here.

There will be two ways to rig this Corbeta so it will essentially be 2 new ships to explore!

Barco Luengo

The Barco Luengo will also be published in this book, but that’s old news! You can see the painted ship mini here and a rundown of stats and uses in this overview here.

Alternate Rigs

There is also at least 1 new alternate rig for other existing ships. You can expect a new way to sail your Bark model! More ways to use old stuff. We love it!

There are rumors that there may be another brand new hull released with book, but we haven’t seen it yet.

New Scenarios

Instead of new “standard scenarios,” this focused expansion has a variety of historical scenarios featuring the characters and events covered. Scenarios are presented with Historical Force Lists but also have guidelines for open play with your own custom made forces.

Scenarios range from smaller 2 player scenarios, to grand buccaneer raids for 4 or more players! There are 8+ scenarios featuring land, amphibious and sea action

Granada Buccaneer Campaign

In addition to the tasty menu of historical scenarios, there is a new Buccaneer Campaign that can be played solo, or player vs player. This campaign is very narrative driven, focusing on a band of Buccaneers raiding across the Spanish Main from Jamaica. The campaign shares some common elements with the Buccaneer’s Companion campaign from Firelock a few years back, but also have some very unique elements, including a Buccaneer force that moves from one scenario to the next without reinforcements. Every loss in each scenario ports over to the next scenario!

This campaign can be played as a solo experience or player vs player (although the Spanish role is less fulfilling). watch for videos of this campaign coming soon!

Final Thoughts

While this is a small project, it offers a lot! New English, new Spanish, new Unaligned, new Dutch, some new units, and new commanders and characters that can be used within new and existing factions.

Also, the format of this title, Rise of the Buccaneers: Jamaica, seems to allow room for something like The Rise of Buccaneers: Tortuga. But we know there are a couple other awesome Blood & Plunder projects on the docket for this year!

Firelock has just announced this book project, along with the massive Wave 2 set of minis, just launched on Kickstarter on April 2.

Watch for another preview article looking at the scope of Wave 2 minis coming soon.

Additional Recommended Reading

• Jelles “Captain Yellows” de Lecat Commander and Faction Preview
• Bartolomeu Portogues Commander Preview
• Freebooters Model Preview
• Corbeta Ship Review from 2026 Kickstarter
• Spanish Commander Preview
• Milicianos Minis Preview
• English Commander Preview
• Young Morgan Model Preview
• Marineros Wave 2 Preview
• Native Commander Wave 2 Preview
• Wave 2/Rise of the Buccaneers Kickstarter Page