Blood & Plunder: Raise the Black Painting Challenge

Firelock Games latest Kickstarter Blood & Plunder: Raise the Black is due to be delivered in early 2021.

Having spoken to @limburger, a fellow collector of minis that is equally as good at not painting as myself, we both realized we have Blood & Plunder minis, either on the way or in the pile of opportunity.

Sensing an opportunity for some motivation for both of us (and anyone else) to finally get some minis painted I set down a friendly challenge, unfortunately dueling with pistols is frowned upon these days, so:

The Challenge is as follows,

Before the Raise the Black Kickstarter is delivered (to your door) complete anything from a single “squad” to a Starter Army, or more if you would like.

Ideally being on the theme this should be something Blood & Plunder or Pirate related but whatever floats your boat (hehe) if you want to paint something else go for it the aim is to paint some minis.

Entries may then be looked at by @Sundancer and Gerr on the Unofficial Hobby Hangout at some point early next year where they will be judged for mold lines and generally criticized for not being badgers, dwarfs, trains, or SAGA.

There is no prize, other than having the satisfaction of knowing you have finally got round to painting some miniatures.

After several months of being quiet on this project, I thought it about time I got round to some updates.

I recently put on some demo games of Blood & Plunder at CrackCon2, the “semi” annual meetup held by The Plastic Crack Podcast over at Boards and Swords Hobbies in Derby. It was a fantastic day with a friendly and vibrant online community meeting up in person yet again. A fantastic day (and weekend) was had by all and some fantastic games were put on.

Of course to put on a demo game I had to actually get my act together and paint some miniatures and create some terrain. I managed to just do this in time, (some say I may have had minis drying on the dashboard on the drive down) with both the English and French starter sets finding their way onto the table.

Along with the miniatures, there was a health helping of Jungle Terrain I’d been working on and some last-minute arrivals of buildings from 4Ground, they arrived 10am and I left at 5pm so some hasty assembly was required. Pretty last-minute given i ordered nearly 2 months before the event.

I’ll be working on updating this project over the coming weeks, showing off the progress so far with completed miniatures, terrain, and boats, and planning out my next steps for the project.

It’s turned into a pretty effective spring clean, with two starter sets completed and one brigantine awaiting its sails. Hopefully, I’ll get round to clearing out the rest of the backlog before the end of the spring clean challenge or if not before the arrival or Raise the Black later in the year.

Not content with having two starter forces to paint for a short deadline I also decided to put on a demo game of Blood and Valor, which involved painting two whole new forces and a bunch more terrain. A new project following the progress on this should be coming soon aswell.

Finally found a bit of time one evening to record some more videos and get them edited up. I now have a backlog up until the end of September with one being posted every Friday. These will cover most of the units from the English and French Starter boxes.

Next up as I work though the French starter set are the Milices Des Caraïbes.

Its Friday again which mean another showcase video, continuing with the Blood & Plunder theme this time its the Boucaniers by @FirelockGames

Very happy with how the colours came out across this unit.

Its Friday again so another small showcase video. This time the last of the French (for now) the Marins.

New showcase video, but this time taking a look at the English starting with the Freebooters.

Once again massive thankyou to the OTT team for the golden button award for the project and everyone who has been following along.

It’s a huge honour to be included alongside some of the amazing work done by our community and also a great motivator to keep the project going!

There’s plenty more planned for this project in the future, I’m comfortable now that I met my initial aims of completing a good chunk of my existing backlog before the launch of Raise the Black.

Both the English and French starter boxes are completed and with showcase videos on the way for the English.

Since then I’ve also picked a selection of blisters covering a variety of units and the Spanish starter, alongside this I have a Brigantine, Sloop and Frigate so there’s plenty more for this project in the works, add onto that the Raise the Black Kickstarter expected sometime late October / November.

In the immediate future following the last English units which are completed and filmed (due for release on Fridays) I’ve started work on a number of the “European” units including soldiers, cavalry, and a selection of sailors.

I’m hoping to have these completed before “Crackcon 3 – The Crack of Doom” in mid October where I’ll be sticking on another demo game, so not long to have them completed.