By Joseph Forster
Blackbeard needs his ship! In this article we will look at the “Hornigold & Teach Attack La Concorde” special 2-3 player scenario in the 2026 Summer of Plunder Organized Play kit. First we’ll look at the scenario and discuss some possible tactics and challenges, then we have a short battle report from a recent play through.
Hornigold & Teach attack La Concorde Scenario
This is a unique scenario in that it allows for either 2 or 3 players at sea. The scenario focuses on 2 smaller ships trying to take one larger ship.
Basic Scenario Goals and Challenges
The Pirate players(s) have two smaller ships and must coordinate them well to take down one wounded, but significantly larger, ship. If the two pirate ships can hit the larger defending ship at the same time, they can do well. If the Defender’s large ship can split or isolate one of the smaller pirate ships, they stand a chance. If you’re using the Historical Forces, the French Defender has some significant cannons that can do severe damage to a pirate sloop if they can line up all those guns.
This game slightly favors the Pirate player(s), but there are some tips and tricks that the French player can use to frustrate the Pirates’ attack if used well.
Scenario Rules
First, this scenario can be played with either 2 or 3 players. If you play with two players, one side will control both Pirate ships, using Hornigold as the overall commander and the Blackbeard Character as a “underling” commander on the second ship.
If played as a 3 player game, the second Pirate player can replace the Blackbeard Character with the full fledged Commander and uses the Golden Age Pirate faction, at the cost of granting the French player the 22 points difference to beef up their force
There are two scenario things to consider here. First, you can’t scroll the board. The 4×6 sea board is already large, but it is all the space you get. If you hit a board edge, your ship runs aground which is usually pretty devastating.
Second, the Defender’s large ship has to take 2 Lucky Hits to their rigging at the start of the game. This has a variable effect on the game, making each play potentially different from the last. The most likely result is some combination of slower ship speed (Sail & Spars), or added difficulty in Sailing Tests (Sheets & Shrouds). It is also 20% likely that each Lucky Hit will do nothing which is obviously the best result for the Defender.
If playing with three players, you can use a single activation deck for the Pirates, or play with each player having their own activation deck. Either option works fine.
Objectives
- The Pirate objective is to take the larger ship. If they full capture the ship, they win. If they fail to get any units on that enemy ship by the end of the 6th turn, they lose.
- The Defender will automatically win if they are able to sail across the 6′ board and touch the escape edge without being taken by the Pirates.
The Historical Forces
The historical forces are fairly even in points, but they have interesting strengths and weaknesses.
French Defender – French Privateers
This force represents the French slave ship crew. The crew is fairly small without a lot of bells and whistles. The main strength here is the 5 pairs of Medium Cannons. The Marins are pretty good at melee if the pirate ships catch up, and the Later Filbustiers are decent shots, especially if you can trigger Ruthless with the Cold Blooded Commander.
The 6th Rate Frigate is a fast ship for sailing across the board, and it has the advantage of being pretty tall so it’s difficult for the Pirate Sloops to board, and it is equipped with Anti Grappling Measures which can help keep the pirates at bay. And if you want some added fun and realism, you can apply the Dragging rules from No Peace Beyond the Line which let the Size 4 ship drag a single Pirate Sloop! But more on that latert.
Make sure to read the Anti Grappling Measures closely, because the French need all the help than can get in this scenario.
Instead of the usual 60% chance to grapple this ship, the test goes up to a 40% on a 7+ unless the pirate ships come up alongside.
Pirate Attackers – The Flying Gang
The Pirate list has a little more going on. Each Ship has 3 units with some offensive Ranged power through the Jamaican Privateers and Swivel Guns, and a lot of Melee power with the Pirates, Sea Dogs, and Commanders.
Each ship is set up pretty much the same with a unit of Pirates containing the Commander, a unit of Sea Dogs (good for running your Swivel Guns) and a unit of Pirates (great for boarding and for managing your ship on your approach).
Scenario Setup
The French player doesn’t have a lot of options here. Deploy in the corner of the board with the stern of the ship within 4″ of the corner. The wind is set up in the French player’s advantage, but those Lucky Hits might cancel out that advantage for a bit. It is important to remember that no Defending unit can start the game assigned to anything. This impacts primarily cannons. Those units will have to use Dedicated Actions or Command Points to get on their cannons before the are able to start blasting at those flimsy pirate ships.
The Attackers have significantly more freedom in their starting deployment. They can set up anywhere outside of 24″ from the Defender’s ship. There’s two things the Pirates need to carefully consider: the wind direction, and the Defender’s Escape Edge.
If the Pirates deploy downwind, they can easily block the Defender from escaping, but they will have to suffer the wind penalty sailing upwind to actually engage and board the Frigate. Their other option is deploying near the top of the map. This way they won’t have to deal with sailing upwind, but they are more vulnerable to the French cannons, and it leaves the board open for the French to run towards that escape edge.
With two ships, the pirates can split and deploy one downwind as a blocker and one upwind as a boarder, but splitting the party always has its own dangers as well! These deployment choices for the Attacker are some of the most important choices of the game.
Relevant Special Rule – Dragging Ships
This is another fun rule that should be applied if you are able. The No Peace Beyond the Line expansion added rules for the larger 4 deck ships and one of those rules is Dragging Ships. If grappled with a size 2 ship, a size 4 ship can continue to move, albeit more slowly. This should be applied even if you need to change out the big 6th Rate with a smaller ship in your play of this scenario.
This rule makes it even more crucial for the two pirate sloops to coordinate their attack since they large ship will stop and only drift if both sloops are grappled to Le Concorde. But this dragging rule makes that escape a stronger possibility for the Defender.
Tips & Tricks
While several of these tips have already been mentioned, here are some tactical tips for each side in this game.
Tips for the Hornigold and His Pirate Crews
- You need to work “in consort” and carefully coordinate your assault. Try to get both ships approaching and boarding at the same time so you can overwhelm the defenders.
- Avoid getting hit by the cannons if you can, but don’t be afraid to take one hit if it means you can grapple and neutralize all those cannons for the rest of the game.
- Don’t get raked. A good rake from those 5 Medium Guns can totally wreck a lightly built Bermuda Sloop or Balandra. It can be devastating. Depending on your deployment, it can be difficult to approach the Frigate without presenting a possible raking shot to the French. Always be aware of how the Frigate can maneuver over the next two moves.
- Try to approach the Frigate at the right angle to neutralize the Anti Grappling Measures, but don’t obsess over it. It’s more important to actually grapple and start the boarding process than performing the most beautiful approach. Your chance of success on two attempts at 7+ is nearly the same as one change at 5+.
- Both your Commanders are excellent in melee, as are your units. Your Ranged power is limited. Play to your strengths.
Tips for the French Frigate
- Try to split the Pirate ships so they can’t double team you. Your crew can probably go toe-to-toe with one crew and maybe come out well, but if both crews board you at once, its going to be rough.
- Decide on your game strategy early.
- If you’re going to run for the edge, get those sails repaired and run. Use that 5′ Sail Setting, don’t slow down. Make a couple turns to avoid the pirates and gain some extra turn speed. If you get grappled, prioritize cutting grapples so you can continue to move.
- If you’re going to try to fight, pick one ship and try to ruin it with cannons. Use the Commander to Assign units to the cannons, the shoot and aggressively reload, even if you have to push. Then seen if you can shoot those cannons again at the same ship. Two rounds of 5 Medium Guns can do a lot of damage to a small ship.
- Watch for an opportunity to use both sides of your cannons. This might slow you down too much, but if you sail more towards the middle of the board, it can be possible to turn and shoot your cannons of your right side into a pirate sloop that deployed further down the board.
- Cut grapples whenever possible! With the Anti Grappling Measures, it’s going to be very vexing for the Pirates and let you move faster.
- Make sure the Pirate player knows when his boarding actions need to be Dedicated Climb actions. Your ship is generally taller, so most boarding actions will force models to climb up more than 1″ which means it needs to be Dedicated. This can give you more opportunities to Cut Grapples.
- Exploit the Dragging rules whenever possible!
Prizes Related to this Objective
We have two prizes directly related to this scenario.If you either complete the weekly objective or play this scenario, you can opt to be included in a drawing to win either a Hornigold model painted by Dr. D. or The Pirate Menace by Angus Konstam which covers the famous 18th century pirates like Hornigold and Blackbeard.
Scenario Battle Report
We recently played this scenario with three players at the Blood & Plunder club in Oregon City. Here’s a quick report on that battle.
The Forces
We used the historical forces provided, adding a few Later Flibustiers to the French force to make up for upgrading Blackbeard to his more deadly Commander version for the 3 player game.
- French Privateers – Joseph
- Blackbeard – Lliam
- Hornigold – Riley
Somehow we forgot the newly acquired Hornigold model on the painting desk at home so Riley used the new preview copy of the Wave 2 English commander model instead.
Setup
The French Frigate had to set up in the corner. The two pirate sloops deployed downwind, close together, as seen below.
I had to roll for Terror on all the French units, and took 1 Fatigue between the 4 units. We opted to use 1 activation deck for the pirates, so both players would activate one unit off each card. This left the Pirates with 3 cards per hand and the French with 4.
The Lucky Hits turned up as one Sails & Spars, and 1 No Effect. My French Frigate would be sailing -1″ until the Sails & Spars critical hit gets removed through a Repair action.
Turn 1
The first turn was primarily maneuvering with the Pirates carefully working their way upwind while the French Frigate worked for an early salvo from the Medium Guns.
I used two moves to turn hard to port to bring cannons to bear on the pirates. Used Command Points to assign gun crew to their cannons, turned hard to get my shots, and scored 3 hits (all 10’s!) on Hornigold’s ship.
The Lucky Hit came up blank with no effect.
Liam’s Blackbeard Sloop sailed up into the wind to get closer while Riley’s Hornigold tried to cut off my escape.
Exchange of fire was limited on the first turn.
Turn 2
Swivels and Small Arms started popping on turn 2. After knocking out a Pirate or two, my Later Flibustiers in the bow of the Frigate got Shaken and just kept drawing fire so they would never really recover into a effective unit for the rest of the game.
Lliam’s Blackbeard Sloop had some trouble with the wind and had to make an unfortunate turn that put his stern right lined up with the Frigate’s cannons. Time to rake!
At point blank that deck of 3 Medium Cannons shooting straight through the sloops stern did significant damage, but the models saved well and the 2 resulting Criticals were a Leak and a Gun, knocking out a Swivel.
My French had survived through the second turn without being boarded and I had messed up Blackbeard pretty badly but my French units were starting to take significant amounts of Fatigue from Swivels and Small Arms.
Turn 3
More cannon fire! I was able to bring the other deck of Medium Cannons to bear on Blackbeard and ruin his ship, although the Criticals didn’t do as much as they could have.
All ship HP gone (down to 1), both Swivels destroyed, and a Streerage damage.
But Hornigold was coming in off the starboard side! Cannons hit him as well, causing 2 Leaks! Ships with only 2 decks don’t like having 2 leaks!
Executing a perfect turn to come alongside, Riley’s Hornigold grappled my ship, side by side. While I was doing huge damage to both Pirate ships, their Saves were coming through and their Resolve was doing well. The dreaded boarding process began!
Turn 4
By the start of turn 4, my Later Flibustiers were gone and I was down to 3 Activation Cards, and moving slower because I was grappled to Hornigold.
On the bright side, Hornigold’s ship began to SINK! The leaks had done their work. So Hornigold’s crew abandoned ship into my French Frigate!
Turn 5
At the end of turn 4 Hornigold’s ship sank but Hornigold and about half of his crew survived on my ship. I was barely holding my own in the melee against the one crew while Blackbeard dealt with some wind issues…
But I was down to 2 units when Blackbeard’s reduced crew started boarding my stern!
My units didn’t appreciate getting double teamed, and before the end of the 5th turn, my last units on Le Concorde were eliminated, leaving the fine frigate in pirate hands.
Resolution
I knocked out a lot of pirate models, and basically destroyed both ships with cannon fire, but the pirates were able to get into melee and take down the French crew. A solid Pirate victory! They didn’t need those lousy sloops anyway, with this nice Frigate in their hands now.
Final Thoughts
We had a great time playing the Hornigold scenario from the Summer of Plunder OP Kit. The key for the French is really to lean into their cannons while the Pirates need to just board as quickly as possible. The wind played a fun role in this game, but the Pirates may have been able to deploy in a more advantageous position that would have made the wind less punishing in this game.
My French might have done a little better if the critical hits vs. Blackbeard’s ship had been more cooperative.
But in this play, Hornigold should really walk away with the prize since his ship sunk! I bet he’s ready for some Revenge in his queen’s name!
Our apologies for getting this article out late in the week instead early. I hope everyone is enjoying this scenario! Its been fun to see different battle reports come in on the Discord Server and on Facebook. It looks like the French have been more successful than I was in several games!
Thanks to Lliam and Riley for a good game and tolerating me taking pictures and notes while we played. Thanks to Dr. D for donating an awesome Hornigold mini for this week’s campaign prize! Thanks to Firelock Games for making an awesome kit with so many scenarios this year.
