Anatoli's Game Room

By Fire & Sword: Battle of patrols 19/5/2013 AAR

2013-05-21T11:42:00.000+02:00

Andreas and I played two more skirmish games this weekend, the understanding of the concept and tactics for this level of the game is starting to evolve in our minds and we're having a ton of fun. This weekend we also followed the concept of hidden army lists (this is just awesome). The only thing we both knew were which of the skirmish lists we were both playing, but the level and what type of troops remained hidden until we met at the club and rolled for scenario.

Andreas ran the Swedish detachment, on a mere 7 FSP.

His army contained:

1 Colonel with 3 command points
6 bases of musketeers
4 bases of reiters
2 bases of veteran reiters with arquebus
1 Regimental gun
1 special model - the Peasant informer)

I ran the "Obuchowicz's Skirmish force" on 8 FSP.
This is a historical Lithuanian skirmish list that can be downloaded (though only currently in Polish) as a PDF from Wargamer site. The special thing about this list is that you can get a lot of dragoons but it only has cossack style cavalry and dragoons in the roster.

The historical description for this force told about how the Dragoons ran away from the approaching Muscovite troops, leaving their cossack style cavalry banners without fire support - and thus the Lithuanians were defeated. The low morale of the Dragoons is thus represented as the following two special rules:

1) The dragoons of this skirmish list may never form more than 2 squadrons.
2) One company or squadron, randomly chosen, gets the starting effect "Panic" and begins the battle disorganized. This effect is added after deployment of troops.

My army list included

1 Colonel (3 command points)
1 Rotamaster (1 command point)
5 bases of Elite cossack style cavalry
6 bases of cossack style cavalry
7 bases of Polish dragoons

The scenario was battle of Patrols, Andreas as the weaker player rolled for an additional effect and moved a piece of terrain on the battlefield. Andreas also placed a peasant informer so that one of his flanks were well shielded from a Polish flanking maneuver - meaning that my company of 3 dragoons had to move in on the table from the opposite side (unless the peasant informer was removed from the table due to a "Treachery" roll).

The terrain features in this scenario, for both sides to recon, were a hill near the Lithuanian deployment zone, a farmyard at the center of the table, and a small forest near the Swedish deployment zone.

The Swedish force was tiny but the Lithuanian force wasn't that much bigger, and additionally the Polish dragoon squadron of 4 bases (the larger of the two squadrons) began the battle in Panic - and kept panicking for two turns!!

The Lithuanian cossack style cavalry began making a sweeping move around the battlefield towards the left flank, keeping out of Swedish musket and artillery case shot range. Riding in open order they swiftly reconnoitered the first objective (the hill) but were cautious not to get too close to the farmyard just yet.

The Swedish infantry and artillery prepared themselves for the incoming cavalry on the left flank, while the Reiters had been grouped into a large squadron and rode towards the Polish dragoons that failed to rally time and time again.

On turn 3 the Polish dragoons arrived from the far right flank, but were out of LoS and didn't force any morale test on the enemy. They were however near the small forest objective and would reach it next turn. In the meantime the Swedish reiters kicked their horses into a charge, it was not until now that the Polish dragoons managed to rally, the nearby commander wasted no time and quickly gave them the order "Defend". The dragoons dismounted even as the reiters were mere yards away. And just as the Reiters reached them with the second part of their charge move the Dragoons unleashed fire with their half-muskets. The enemy reiters didn't even have a chance to open fire with their pistols before the surprisingly accurate fire cut down a full base and forced the reiters to withdraw and become disorganized.

The Polish dragoons had saved themselves at the very last second. Both commanders looked at the result in disbelief, still the battle was just unfolding. On the left flank artillery fire showered the incoming Elite cossack style cavalry with shrapnel , inflicting a single wound and forcing the Lithuanian riders to disengage and ending up disorganized. The regular cossacks however rode through the shower of musket fire, passing their morale test, and crashed into the musketeers who were defeated and began withdrawing. The first round of combat ended a defeat for the Swedes, but they kept calm as they were pushed back - however the second round saw them flee and they fled straight towards the small company of Polish dragoons which had now dismounted and began firing at them from the opposite direction.

The Swedish gun still had the Lithuanian cavalry in its field of vision and unleashed a second round of case shot hoping to break the remaining cossack style squadron but it failed with its purpose, the Lithuanians too focused on hunting down the infantry to care about their own losses.

Back near the farmyard the reiters had regrouped, and the nearby Swedish commander ordered them to attack once again - and so they did. The charge once again took them into contact and the half-musket fire from the Polish dragoons was less accurate and less deadly this time around - however the reiters lost another base from the shooting and surprisingly ferocious close combat with the dragoons. Both sides were bloodied, and the first round of combat ended with the stubborn withdrawal of the Polish dragoons that just refused to turn and flee. They did however succumb to the pressure after the second round of combat and the remaining 2 bases fled the field.

Both sides had 4 victory points each for the objectives at this time. The final turn was all about getting the last 2 points. The Lithuanian commanders rode towards the center objective and claimed it, while the reiters moved towards the hill and braced themselves. The Lithuanians had one last chance to prevent a draw of victory points - their units were unfortunately in a bad position so they could not charge properly - they could however move up and fire at the Swedes with their bows and arquebus handguns - hoping to break the Swedish morale and prevent them from getting the victory points. The plan failed as the Lithuanian accuracy during this last turn was abysmal.

As such both sides managed to get 6 victory points for the objectives. The casualty tally was high on both sides sides that it was enough to make the battle end a Draw, despite being very close to a Lithuanian tactical victory (the Swedes just needed to lose 1-2 more bases to make it a Polish victory). If only those reiters had been broken and the cossack style cavalry had been played with a bit more restraint and focused on preventing enemy taking ground instead of seeking the thrill of close combat things would have been different.

At the end of the day we had a blast playing this battle.

Stable for By Fire & Sword

2013-05-20T11:36:00.000+02:00

Another building painted up for Andreas, this one is stable, the roof is removable so you can put soldiers inside. Not a lot more to say, it's a nice looking model and it reminds me of the discussion the guys over at WWPD.net had in their last podcast about buying terrain over making your own. I think certain periods are probably easier to build terrain for, I don't know how difficult it would be to build houses fitting the 17th century period but I don't think it would be worth the trouble. There seem to be a good range of buildings for 15mm scale at least and I'm fairly sure you would have to put a lot of work into making them as detailed as the resin cast models I've been painting for By Fire & Sword and the whole 17th century period.

Painting these buildings isn't that hard as the houses are mainly shades of brown. The trick I suppose is to get the right tint on the wood. I wanted it to look darkened but vibrant if that makes any sense. So it's mostly a mix of Scorched Brown and Bestial Brown, in layers and washed with Devlan Mud (yep I have a whole supply of that old wash which I figured would do the trick for these houses).

This is also another building from Total Battle Miniatures if I'm correct, though only one of the buildings Andreas had me paint up had that "TBM" marking they were all cast in the same resin and the same style so I think it's safe to assume they all come from the same source.

Elite cossack style cavalry banner

2013-05-19T09:19:00.000+02:00

I am slowly heading towards the end of my Polish-Lithuanian army project for By Fire & Sword. The Crown cavalry regiment which I'm fleshing out with two banners of spear armed Pancerni will also see two additional cossack style cavalry banners.

They will most likely only ever be used as "Elite cossack cavalry" in Skirmish battles as the regiment I intend using them for does not support the elite version of this unit. With 1 cossack style and 1 pancerni banner left to paint I'm also considering getting some Reiters and maybe even push myself to add some Wallachian style cavalry to maximize my skirmish list variation and tactical possibilities.

I know that once I finish the Polish-Lithuanian stuff I will not be able to force myself to paint another project consisting of so 90% cavalry - thus I'm considering the Muscovite or Cossack skirmish lists as my second project but that will have to wait until later this year. I don't like sitting atop a pile of lead with projects piling up before my current ones are finished.

So what sets the elite and regular cossack style cavalry apart in the game? Elite or Veteran units tend to have slightly better skill, in this case skill 5 over skill 4. They also sometimes have access to additional equipment limited to elite/veteran units. In the case of Elite cossack style cavalry they come with shields. Shields in the game are useless against firearms, but provide +1 (+10%) to armor saves in close combat and against bows and javelins. It's not much as the cossack style cavalry is quire fragile with its basic armor save requiring the player to roll 3 or lower on a D10, but enough to even out the odds against regular Reiters which have a basic save of 4 or lower on a D10.

As for the painting, I'm not overly happy with the color choices, for some reason I had a hard time deciding what mix of colors to use, I hope for a more vibrant look on the second banner.

By Fire & Sword: Peasant informer rules in English

2013-05-18T11:54:00.002+02:00

Wargamer has a bunch of files on their site, free to download for everyone, but waiting to be translated into English once the Kickstarter ends.

In the meantime Andreas and I are preparing for the weekend's skirmish battles and I remembered about the Polish rules for the "Peasant informer" - and figured I would translate them so we could use them in our upcoming game. And once translated I asked Wargamer about permission to upload the unofficial translation as a stop gap measure until they release their own official version in English.

You can find the PDF with the rules with color background HERE and printer friendly version HERE

The miniature itself is a special miniature (one of many) awarded on Wargamer organized tournaments. But I figure you could use a similar civilian miniature for your own games.

Peasant house with fence for By Fire & Sword

2013-05-17T11:23:00.002+02:00

First building from the batch of five houses that I painted up for Andreas, two more to go. I'm much happier with how the timbered wood turned out on this building than the one I painted for myself, the planks are darkened and look more "real" imo.

The manufacturer as I found out through the help of a reader is "Total Battle Miniatures".

By Fire & Sword Kickstarter 4 days left - reasons to join

2013-05-16T13:36:00.000+02:00

The By Fire & Sword Kickstarter is nearing its end with 4 days to go. If you haven't heard about it already and are interested in a very dynamic and innovative set of rules which supports and provides army lists for both skirmish level as well as division level sized games.

Skirmish level games are fights between the patrols sent to reconnaissance ahead of great armies, their size range from 12-30 bases per patrol and are composed of swift moving troops fighting for various tactical objectives in the scenarios that the book provides.

Division level games are larger battles, fought between divisions (3-6 regiments, artillery and divisional support units).

The game has several interesting aspects that make it dynamic:

1) Army lists are very historical in their nature, buildings army lists comes with restrictions to prevent players from fielding cheesy and overpowered lists made up of the best units alone. Instead you always "unlock" the next step of you army list bit by bit when you add more troops to your force - which in turn unlocks the specialist and elite units whom are limited in numbers to the size of your force. It's pretty much impossible to power game the army building in By Fire & Sword.

2) Armies and forces can be of different size, in fact the game pretty much encourages one player to field a weaker army while the other player fields a stronger army. The game features two excellent mechanics that balance the game - "tactical advantages" and "additional effects" which the weaker player has at his disposal. This means that a weaker and outnumbered player may alter the deployment zone, decide along which table edges players will deploy, place additional terrain on the table such as rivers to slow down the stronger attack etc. It gives you a feeling of the smaller army being able to pick the location for their stand against the stronger opponent.

3) An excellent reconnaissance system which is handled pre-game. Players have the option to send troops on a recon mission and may end up with a great bonus if they succeed but also risk losing troops in t he process. In skirmish level games armies that are cavalry heavy have a reconnaissance edge over slower infantry armies (which tend to be cheaper and balance this fact by more often ending up being the defender). Reconnaissance in By Fire & Sword awards the winner of the recon mission with points that can be spent on placing Ambushes, making pre-game moves or send away a unit to flank the enemy from the rear of their table edge.

4) A broken up turn sequence with many shared steps makes both players constantly involved and able to make tactical decisions and be invested in the action that take place on the battlefield from the start to the finish of each turn.

5) A great system of Command & Control, revolving around commanders, orders, instructions, command points and various combinations of these elements give a real feel of commanding troops amidst the chaos of battle. The system also enforces the tactical limitations which in turn force players to carefully plan their actions and make sure troops don't stray too far away and above all protect their commanders.

The rulebook itself, which is just over 400 pages long is a quality full color and hardback product. It contains the basic and advanced rules for the game (around 95 pages), scenarios for skirmish level games, tactical advantages for skirmish and division level games, historical background for the wars of 1648-76, historical information for each army in the book (Swedes, Poland-Lithuania, Muscovite Russia, Crimean Khanate, Ottoman Empire and the Cossacks), unit profiles and historical information about each unit. Players will be able to understand the rating and combat roles of their units as well as the concept of the special rules and national special rules in the book as these tie in with the historical sources and are well explained.

The book also contains an index of all the historical sources used so you know that the authors put some effort into this work.

So if you have even a remote interest in the 17th century and want to play something else than the English Civil War or Thirty Year War, then By Fire & Sword provides a fresh and unique experience - allowing players to refight the wild and colorful battles of eastern Europe so vividly described in the novels of Henryk Sienkiewicz.

Below are links to additional sources of information which might prove interesting and explain the game further.

Information on how Skirmish forces are built: LINK

Information on how Division armies are built: LINK

Review of the rules: PART 1 PART 2 PART 3

Review of the rulebook: LINK

Link to the Kickstarter, click on picture

More 17th century buildings for By Fire & Sword

2013-05-15T12:29:00.003+02:00

Andreas got hold of some buildings suitable for By Fire & Sword and asked me if I would be interested in painting them up for him, the deal was I paint 5 houses and keep 2 of them.

I thought it was a good deal, and the buildings below are the ones I picked for myself. The decision to pick these two was rather easy, as I already have several large buildings from Wargamer I wanted some smaller houses for my own collection.

Thus I picked the Wargamer manufactured Peasant hut with pigsty:

And the first out of 4 buildings from an unknown source. Andreas didn't know the manufacturer of these houses; the only clue is the letter combination "TBM" which was cast into the floor of one of the buildings. These buildings were (except for the roof) less textured than Wargamer's buildings so I knew it would be a bit trickier to paint them. That was also the main point why I started painting my own building first, to try out how the washes and drybrushing would work on these models before painting Andreas' stuff.

It went so-so, it's still an OK paintjob on a great looking building. But I think I got the colors a lot better on the next one I painted for Andreas (which will be posted tomorrow).

By Fire & Sword: Battle between patrols AAR

2013-05-14T12:27:00.000+02:00

This was a very interesting skirmish battle since we had two elite forces. The Swedish skirmish force made up of Veterans only, seasoned Reiters in armor and excellent veteran Dragoons - truly the crack troops of the Swedish army. The opposition was made up of the Lithuanian raiding force led by Wincenty Gosiewski and his Winged Hussars, backed by seasoned Reiters here as well, Dragoons and cossack style cavalry.

Army lists looked like this:

"Gosiewski Foray" (Lithuanian Raiding force): 11 points

Colonel Wincenty Gosiewski (4 command points)
Liuetenant Colonel Herman von Gantskopf (1 command point)
3 bases of Polish Dragoons
5 bases of seasoned Reiters
3 bases of Winged Hussars, with lances
4 bases of cossack style cavalry

Swedish Skirmish force: 10 points

1 Colonel (3 command points)
1 Lieutenant-Colonel (1 command point)
5 bases of Veteran Reiters with Arquebus
5 bases of Veteran Reiters with cuirass
4 bases of Veteran Dragoons

These two elite war bands clashed in the "Patrol" scenario. Andreas wanted to try out the Polish-Lithuanian stuff so he played the Gosiewski force, I played the Swedes. The additional effect was that a terrain piece was moved on the battlefield, it did not impact this game overall.

The scenario objectives were simple, there are three tokens on the table that represent areas to be reconnoitered by both forces. To do that, you need to have a unit or a commander within 10cm from a token at the end of your re-organization phase (end of a turn). Each objective is worth 2 points, and both sides can each gather 6 points this way in the scenario - however - each force may only truly earn these points if they have at least 1 commander left alive at the end of the battle. If all commanders in a force get killed then all those victory points are lost with them!

....
The Swedes grouped their men into three squadrons. A squadron of unarmored Reiters armed with Arquebus handguns, a squadron of armored Reiters and a tiny squadron of Dragoons.

The Dragoons were only meant to make a dash for the closes objective, while the Reiters were supposed to do the real fighting, which is also why those two units were deployed close to each other.

Initiative went to the Lithuanian force which moved forward and cashed in 2 victory points for the central objective. The Swedes cashed in 2 points for the left objective. Swedish Dragoons fired at the Polish cossack style infantry and scored a single wound, other than that the opening of this battle was very uneventful.

Turn 2 was when the battle kicked into high gear. Cossack style cavalry charged the Swedish dragoons, who fired a Salvo and broke the enemy charge, the Lithuanian cavalry was forced to withdraw and became disorganized. Lithuanian Reiters decided to charge the Swedish lines, but were short of movement, rolling to see what happened they failed the skill test and became disorganized in front of the Swedish Reiter squadrons - not good at all.

The Swedes had deployed in such a way so that they could charge the Lithuanian troops next turn, but also fire at them with Arquebus handguns - which cause a single wound. The Polish dragoons dismounted and began firing at the Swedish Dragoons but failed to hit. The cossack cavalry was left leaderless as both Lithuanian commander had joined and led units of their own - and their focus was limited to events on the frontline.

Swedish Reiters now charged the Lithuanian cavalry, Winged Hussars countercharged. Swedish armored Veteran Reiters crashed into the Lithuanian Retiers who were disorganized, and slayed 2 bases. The Lithuanian cavalry was completely brutalized and began to fall back, Swedish Reiters in pursuit.

At this time the Winged Hussars crashed into the Swedish unarmored Reiters and massacred them completely, killing 3 bases and forcing the remaining 2 to flee!!

Things looked bad but not yet lost for the Swedes, and the Lithuanian force was probably worse off at the moment. However Gantzkopf rallied his Reiters and turned towards the Swedes. The two remaining Swedish unarmored Reiter bases were rallied as well.

It was only now that the Swedish luck ran out completely. It began with the Swedish colonel being charged by the Winged Hussars, and unable to escape their wrath - he was killed as his bodyguards failed to save him. The Swedish armored Reiters were about to deliver the killing blow on the Lithuanian Reiters - but the Polish Dragoons turned 180 degrees and unleashed short range fire - killing a base of armored Reiters. The Swedes panicked and failed their morale test, and had to withdraw - becoming disorganized.

Leaderless the Swedish unit then faced its demise as it was charged by Gantzkopf's Reiter squadron and Gosiewski's Winged Hussars, a slaughter where all but 1 base of armored Reiters perished and the last base fled off table.

As all of this was happening the Swedish Lieutenant-Colonel was navigating between the fields of fire of enemy units, evading death - but his luck too ran out at the end of turn 5 when he was killed by arquebus fire from the Lithuanian Reiters. This completely erased all 6 Swedish victory points!

The remaining Swedish unit, the Dragoons, were also badly beaten up in close combat with cossack style cavalry and ended the battle with 2 bases.

Overall the Swedish force had been almost wiped out, the survivors numbered 2 bases of Dragoons and 2 bases of unarmored Reiters.

The Lithuanian force had won 6 victory points, and cancelled 6 Swedish victory points for the scenario alone (you needed a commander left alive to get those victory points). So 6-0. Then the death toll was added to that, the Lithuanian troops had suffered Acceptable Losses, the Swedish force had suffered a Massacre with over 75% of their force value wiped out.

The total victory points of the Lithuanian force numbered 11-0, and amounted to a Strategic victory (2 points short of a Historical Victory). Despite this the game was extremely fun and very exciting with sudden turns. At first it looked as if the Lithuanians would win the weak Swedish flank - but were beaten back unexpectedly. Then the Swedes mauled the Lithuanian center. The center was then saved by the Polish dragoons at the very last second, and then the Swedish main force and its main commander were all destroyed!

It also looks like we will be 8 guys playing this game at the club once the Kickstarter ends, two more guys seem to have given in the past couple of days. And with more people here in Sweden also picking up the game I can see a tournament in the near future after the Kickstarter has been delivered and the guys have had the time to paint up their stuff!

6mm Confederate infantry regiment painted up

2013-05-13T11:42:00.001+02:00

Not the most fun I've had, but not a murderous task either, painting these 6mm dudes.
I picked the Confederates when Thomas asked which side I would be interested in. From what I've read their troops/armies tended to be a bit smaller but also performed/were led better. But the main reason is that they have a lot more variety in colors on their uniforms within the units, a mix and match that would be a lot more rewarding to paint than simply dark blue jackets and light blue pants for the Union side of things.

I had to paint these miniatures separately since they are super tiny and then packed tight on the bases. As such the basing had to be done once everything else is finished, which is the exact opposite of how I usually do things. Usually I trim the miniatures, glue them onto bases, add sand and then undercoat with black spray. Impossible in this situation, and it will be the one thing that won't stop annoying me with this project. The end result should be worth it.

The idea is to play "Longstreet" and according the what me and Thomas have found out so far is that infantry regiments are made up of 10 bases, cavalry of 8. We use 2x4cm for "double bases" to make moving them around easier, and a couple of 2x2cm bases to help out in casualty removal.

Each 2x2cm area holds 2 strips of infantry and a total of 8 soldiers.

Baccus 6mm ACW Confederate infantry review

2013-05-12T10:50:00.001+02:00

Thomas lured me into a completely insane project, ACW in 6mm - I suspect it is all part of a plot to make me blind. The plan is to play Sam Mustafa's "Longstreet" rules once those are released.
Until then I have a lot of 6mm stuff to paint.

This is not my first take on 6mm, I have already painted some 6mm WW2 tanks. This is however the first time I handle infantry and stuff that actually has a bit more detail to it.

Thomas recommended Baccus since this manufacturer has a lot of detail on their miniatures as opposed of just "blobs". And indeed, looking at the infantry strips there is an impressive amount of detail to be found. It may be a bit hard to see it all before you paint them - but it's there trust me. So far I've only tinkered with the infantry, and only 1 unit at a time. I will return with a review of the cavalry and artillery soon enough.

The infantry comes on strips with 4 infantrymen on each. There is very little flash on the infantry so I actually did the unthinkable and didn't bother trimming the mould lines, mainly because there were almost none to be found.

It's a very weird feeling working with this microscopic troops, but I get the idea and purpose of the scale, if you want to field massed battles of rank and file troops it should be in 6mm. There is no way in hell I would actually jump onto a Napoleonics or ACW project in 28mm, and truth to be told I think we will have a much time playing this kind of conflict with 6mm on a 6x4 table than we would have with 28mm on a 6x4 table.

This tiny scale has also forced me to my very first experience of "paint before basing" - which I personally dislike and which imo requires a lot of paint to paint the bases as you can't spray paint them like you would with an undercoat. So yeah... it will be a real adventure painting this stuff upp.

The flag on the painted up command base is also from Baccus and comes on a sheet with a dozen flags. They are made out of paper and have o be cut out and glued together.

Not having too much experience with 6mm infantry I still think these are more than OK. They are better than some indistinguishable blobs that I have seen in the WW2 period from other manufacturers at least.

Size comparison with 28, 20 and 15mm miniatures.

Warrior priest of Sigmar

2013-05-11T11:39:00.000+02:00

Painted this one up for my friend Patrik, it's the Forge World "Salute 2013 WHFB limited edition" miniature, which I bought for him during my trip to Salute this year. The miniature is quite OK, but has a lot of stuff that I really don't like painting, lots of metal and belts/straps which is just boring to me. I would have preferred it if the miniature had more robes or something, or would have been a bit more inspired as a sculpt. The shoulder pad with the candles was cool looking and a great detail, much more fun than the regular array of chains and skulls.

I experimented with washes and glazes for the skin and it is probably the one thing I'm most happy with. The skin ended up looking slightly dirty but with a nice warm tone to it as well which you don't usually get if you just paint with "triads" of flesh colors or highlight them the way I usually do.

I'm torn about the end result, part of me is happy with it, but I know some things could have been better. As a miniature I started thinking that it would be nice to use in a skirmish game, RPG or something like that.

By Fire & Sword: Capture the crossing, 9/5/13 AAR

2013-05-10T11:49:00.000+02:00

After the last couple of battles a bunch of errors were pointed out in the way we had played. I took the opportunity to read through the rules, carefully and twice, before the next game took place. I hadn't actually had the time to do that since I bought the English version at Salute, and there were some things in the English version that are a bit different and also better explained. I also double checked with "Kadrinazi" and "MiSiO" of the By Fire & Sword forum on a few things so that I was fully prepared.

So - since there was a holiday here in Sweden this Thursday, Andreas , Fredric and I went down to the club to play some more by Fire & Sword. This time Fredric was trying out the game for the first time, using Swedes, I kept to the Polish force.

Armies were again the same as in previous games since I figured we could play with them one last time before changing configuration, so:

The Polish 14 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Rotamaster with 1 command point

6 bases of Pancerni
3 bases of Pancerni with spears
9 bases cossack style cavalry
4 bases Volunteers
6 bases Polish dragoons

The Swedish 12 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Major with 1 command point

4 Bases of Mercenary Reiters
4 Bases of Mercenary Reiter Veterans (armored reiter models but played without armor)
8 Bases of New Type Infantry
2 Light regimental guns

The scenario ended up being River Crossing (I really need to build some nice obstacles which the weaker player can fortify the bridge with btw). We rolled a single additional affect, and one of my cossack style banners ended up Delayed.

I put my Pancerni cavalry with spears on the task of making a Flanking Maneuver and to appear on turn 3 at the earliest. Since last time we played I was notified that I had missed the "Swimming" special rules for my Polish force, which means that any cavalry with armor of 3 or less could ford rivers and treat it as difficult terrain. That actually made my force a lot more flexible in the way I could approach the enemy.

I had also been corrected about the way Polish cavalry is handled in the field, so as you will see a lot of units will ride around in Open Order as they approach the enemy and close ranks as they charge into contact.

......
Deployment:

Fredric was briefed on how all units worked prior to the battle, and he chose the following setup. Both Reiters and Veteran Reiters were grouped into squadrons of 4 bases each. The infantry was also grouped into 4 base strong squadrons so that he could fire salvo and counter march. The light artillery was placed at the center of the Swedish deployment, flanked by the infantry and overlooking the river crossing at the far right side of the table. Reiter squadrons were placed near the bridge.

The Polish deployment was two Pancerni banners deployed in column formation and the Volunteers deployed on the right flank under supervision of the Colonel. Polish Dragoons and a squadron of cossack style cavalry were placed on the left flank under supervision of the junior officer, the Rotamaster.
1 banner of cossack cavalry was delayed, and 1 banner of Pancerni were flanking the enemy positions.
.......

The battle

All Polish units moved out towards the casually waiting Swedish lines. Just as the Pancerni columns closed in on the ford on the right flank both Swedish artillery guns began firing at them and hitting them in the flank which was really bad news for the Poles. Roundshot began clipping riders, and a base of Pancerni was lost as they entered the water where they became disorganized.

The other still intact Pancerni banner soon received the same treatment, and too lost a whole base. Swedish artillerymen were doing a great job so far.

At the other end of the battlefield, Polish dragoons and cossack cavalry approached the bridge and the awaiting Swedes. The Polish cossack cavalry opened up fire across the river at the Swedish reiters but failed to inflict any casualties. Upon entering the river the Poles came under fire from the Swedish infantry, firing a salvo, but the hail of bullets failed to hit any of the Polish riders mainly thanks to their dispersed formation.

Polish units began now crossing the river, and also charged wildly out of the waters at the enemy formations. Pancerni at the right flank rode into the musketeers who were in the middle of reloading their muskets and only fired at limited efficiency and their fire was even less accurate in the chaotic close combat that followed. The Pancerni broke the musketeers who began fleeing. This moment of triumph was overshadowed by the fact that the Pancerni banner was standing out in the middle of the field - exhausted - and within case shot range of the Swedish artillery!

In the meantime the cossack style cavalry crashed out of the river and smashed into the Reiters. The combat ended up a draw despite a favorable Polish situation and both units broke off and withdrew , the Poles with their backs to the river, the Swedes with their backs to the forest.

Polish dragoons tried to pick off some enemy Veteran Reiters but the distance made the fire widely inaccurate and they enemy saved those few hits that reached them.

Swedish artillery opened up a case shot barrage at the nearby Pancerni and killed a base and broke the remaining men into a rout which the Polish commander was unable to stop. The Poles also failed to receive any Delayed reserves, neither did their spear armed Pancerni banner show up on the enemy flank despite the Polish commander spending 2 command points to increase the probability of the unit showing up...

Things got a lot more interesting the following turn. On one flank it looked as if the Polish cossack style cavalry was going to get massacred as they themselves and both enemy Reiter squadrons charged in a death or glory assault and crashed in the middle. The fight however was miraculously won by the Polish light cavalry which managed to kill several Reiters in close combat after having landed 7 out of 9 attacks on the enemy units! Swedish tactical discipline and numbers had the fight end a Draw and both sides withdrew once again to gather their breath!

On the other flank, the beaten up Pancerni banner had just fled the field, while the remaining Pancerni cavalry charged the Swedish guns who had by this time ran out of ammunition due to their rapid and consistent firing. The gun crews were no match for the Polish medium cavalry and both guns were wiped out. At the same time the Polish Volunteers charged the Swedish musketeer unit which had been fleeing but which was now rallied and in good order - although still lacking a command order. The fight saw the Swedish musketeers lose another base and the remaining two bases flee off table.

Once more the left flank saw a clash of cavalry, this time the cossack style cavalry lost the battle and suffered serious casualties, and fled across the river, the Reiters had held their ground - but as they had won over one Polish unit another appeared behind their backs as the Polish Pancerni with spears appeared at the eleventh hour.

The nearby Swedes rolled for morale but passed the test without problem, obviously not minding to fight this unexpected enemy reinforcement.

A weird close combat went down towards the end of the battle as the Polish Pancerni on the left flank charged the musketeers that were left on the table. The enemy unit was disorganized and thus easy pickings, however one weakened Reiter squadron and the enemy junior commander counter charged and hit the Pancerni from one flank and supported the musketeers from the front. The fight saw the Swedish combined effort prevail and had the Pancerni break off and flee. However the Swedish junior commander had been killed in the close combat and his retinue had failed to protect his life, this also mean that all Swedish units within 20cm had to take a morale test - the musketeers passed, while the Reiters failed and became disorganized.

Not being able to charge the enemy due to not having a commander in range or even command points to change the order, the Polish Pancerni cavalry with spears simply had to move towards the enemy Veteran Reiters which had taken up position near the bridge and now had a Defend order. Their formation had reformed so that they did not expose their flanks to the Polish dragoons firing across the river.

As the Pancerni moved towards the enemy, out of nowhere, the Swedish commanding officer charged the flank of the Polish unit! The crazy move saw a Swedish pistol shot hit but not wound anyone and then the officer fought with a base of spear armed Pancerni, a fight which the Swedish commander lost as he was hit and wounded, but his retinue passed the skill check and saved his life - and then dodged out of the combat in disarray.

The battle had been a bloody affair, the bridge was held by both sides at this point so it came down to counting the dead to see who would win. The Swedish casualties had piled up during the second half of the game, and the Poles who had lost a bunch of men were still fortunate enough to have a couple of fleeing units that had not yet been able to make it off the table.

As it turned out the Swedish force suffered heavy losses, the Polish side suffered acceptable losses. This meant that both sides got 2 points for contesting the bridge, the Poles got 1 additional point for keeping their losses down. In the end however the difference of a single victory point still meant that the scenario was a Draw.
…………..
I think the Swedes were saved by the Pancerni banner showing up way too late into the game (they could have broken the last pocked of resistance given 1 more turn!), and my delayed cossack style cavalry arrived at the battle very late in the game as well and was unable to actively take part in the fight. The final turn also saw some good rolls on the Swedish part, the musketeers in particular saved all hits they received by the Pancerni! I thought I was playing it safe by dividing my efforts between two damaged units at the end, but I should have focused on crushing one of them completely to cash in more victory points. One more destroyed enemy base would have given me 1 additional victory point and made the fight a Tactical Victory.

In any case, it was a great game and I think Fredric enjoyed it, and even though this was his first time he played very well and picked up on the rules quickly imo. He was also suckered into the ongoing Kickstarter by Andreas. This is great as we will then actually have 6 people playing the game at the club after the Kickstarter (possibly more). I think 6 people is the bare minimum for running a tournament, and I really want to organize a Skirmish level tournament down at the club. Who knows, maybe some other guys who are also getting into the game here in Sweden would be able to travel down to southern Sweden and participate.

Vikings season 1 review

2013-05-09T10:14:00.003+02:00

Vikings is a great show from History Channel of all places, it's only 9 episodes and I would say that the budget is somewhere in the medium range so it's not spectacular in scope but it does however not spare any expense on actually getting costumes, locations and sets properly built and filmed. It has good actors, realistic special effects, real blood effects (no shitty CGI blood which I hate), and a fairly interesting plot, which I think will get more solid over the coming seasons.

At the core the show is about Ragnar Lothbrok a Viking warrior with great ambition who ends up discovering a way to navigate the sea between Scandinavia and the British islands and open up its the kingdoms to Viking raids. His rise in popularity and opportunistic insubordination sets him on a collision course with the Earl Haraldson which serves as the main intrigue for the most of season 1.

Other characters in the show worth mentioning is Ragnar's wife, the shieldmaiden Lagertha (who can kick ass with the same skill and ferocity as the men), Floki a quirky and pious Viking shipwright, Ragnars jealous and tormented brother Rollo and the English priest Athelstan who is captured by Ragnar during the first into the kingdom of Northumbria.

The plot while interesting may be a bit predictable when it comes to some major events and character development but it is still quite solid. And even if the show isn't 100% historically accurate I think it still gives a decent view of viking culture.

The show is just 9 episodes long, but they pack quite a lot of content, character development, pretty awesome action sequences and great locations. It's a show well worth watching, and one that made me think about picking up a SAGA warband of Vikings haha.
8.5/10

Polish Pancerni banner with spears

2013-05-08T12:06:00.000+02:00

My third banner of Pancerni, bought a box of Pancerni with spears at Salute since I figured I needed something to really support the cavalry charges of my Winged Hussars. Spear armed cavalry are a minority but if you can get them they are good on the offensive reducing the enemy armor by 1.

In any case, this first banner will be regular Pancerni with spears, the second banner will be Elite rated, meaning they will be able to fight in both open and closed order and improve their chances of flanking enemy units and reducing damage from enemy fire while closing in on them. Elite cavalry also receives shields, while archaic they offer additional protection in close combat, improving the armor value of the unit by +1, which in the case of the already well armored Pancerni means that they will be almost as tough as Winged Hussars and as already stated - make perfect shock troops.

Before I started playing By Fire & Sword and learned more about the Pancerni they just seemed quirky, nowadays they are my favorite "standard" unit.

By Fire & Sword: Forage supplies AAR

2013-05-07T11:52:00.000+02:00

Second Skirmish level battle played against Patrik this weekend, we still used the exact same forces as in our previous battle. Both Skirmish lists were maxed out in units and points.

The Polish 14 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Rotamaster with 1 command point

6 bases of Pancerni
3 bases of Pancerni with spears
9 bases cossack style cavalry
4 bases Volunteers
6 bases Polish dragoons

The Swedish 12 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Major with 1 command point

4 Bases of Mercenary Reiters
4 Bases of Mercenary Reiter Veterans (armored reiter models but played without armor)
8 Bases of New Type Infantry
2 Light regimental guns

Patrik was as such once again the weaker played and rolled for scenarios. This time he picked the "Forage" scenario, which is quite interesting and difficult for the stronger player if the weaker player makes the right decisions.

As the scenario in itself was worth enough points to bring both our armies to the same level of points, we both just rolled 1 additional effect per army. Once again, Patrik rolled "Delayed", this time my large Pancerni squadron was delayed and placed in reserves.

I rolled "Unexpected reinforcements" which fit this scenario perfectly, if you imagine the rest of the Polish army being camped nearby. In any case, my effect meant that every unit that fled or got killed could return as reinforcements on a successful skill test at the end of each turn.

Just like in the previous scenario I won the Reconnaissance massively, and once again could use all effects available to me. I choose not to deploy anything in Ambush, I placed my Pancerni banner with spears to make a Long Flanking maneuver, no unit made any pre-game move either.

Deployment & Victory conditions
The Polish force is split into two 20x20cm square deployment zones where they are foraging supplies. Each of these squares must contain at least 1 unit, and each square has a supply marker (in our case a haystack). To win, the weaker player (the Swedes) must attack and destroy the supplies, while the stronger player (the Poles) must defend their food.

In order to destroy a supply marker, a unit must have the order Move or Defend and be within 10cm of a supply marker and have no enemy unit within 10cm of the supply marker.

Crippled due to Delayed troops and the foolish choice of sending more men off to flank the enemy, the Polish troops were divided as such - Volunteer cavalry and Dragoons on the left flank along with the Rotamaster, all cossack style cavalry on the right flank with the Colonel.

The Swedes formed their assault in the following way - all musketeers and 1 3pdr artillery gun on the left flank with the Major, all their Reiters on the Right flank under supervision of the Colonel.

The battle

Caught in a very bad position there was little do to but to instantly charge the enemy Reiters with all the cossack style cavalry. Both Reiter units and cossack style units charged and clashed in counter charges. The fate of the right flank was really in the hands of the large cossack squadron, but they were facing off against the Veterans so chances of victory were just slim.

As it turned out both attacks were a disaster for the Poles. The Veteran Reiters completely messed up the Polish light cavalry which lost half its men, broke and began fleeing. The smaller cossack unit fared surprisingly well against the regular Reiters, the battle saw each side lose 1 base and the Poles were just pushed back, second round of close combat was a draw so the sides just withdrew to regain their breath.

Still, the right flank was a mess, and was pretty must lost already. Indeed, during the following turn, Swedish artillery, pistols and cold steel made short work of the remaining cavalrymen and those who were fortunate to survive started to flee at breakneck speed.

Neither was the situation on the left flank any source of comfort. The Swedish artillery and musketeers began firing like mad at the Polish dragoons, whittling them down bit by bit until they broke. The Volunteer cavalry had to move towards the center of the table to evade the mayhem but was fired upon at long range by the second Swedish 3pdr!

The disheartening situation was salvaged by both Pancerni units arriving on the table at the end of turn 2. Pancerni that were making the Long Flanking maneuver showed up just behind the disorganized Dragoons, and the large Pancerni squadron that was delayed showed up at the end of the Polish deployment zone.

A small boost to Polish morale, but the situation was overall a complete pandemonium, and the Swedes were advancing towards the still fragile left flank.

Deciding to play heroes and stop the tide of Swedish cavalry, the Volunteers were sacrificed. The skirmishers charged the approaching Reiter company, the enemy Reiter formations gladly countercharged and ended up on both the front and a flank of the Volunteers who lost 3 bases but miraculously didn't flee but instead ended up pushed back and disorganized. The Swedish line was now messed up and one Reiter unit was blocking the other, reducing their efficiency.

Riding through artillery and musket fire the Pancerni with spears cleared the tents and the supply point, riding past disorganized Polish dragoons and ultimately made a charge on the enemy Veteran Reiters - supported by the single remaining base of Volunteers. The attack was a success, the Veteran Reiters badly mauled thanks to the spear armed Polish Pancerni cavalry. The enemy lost 2 bases, the Poles none. Meaning the Veteran Reiters began fleeing the field, and pursuing Polish cavalry smashed into the next Reiter unit - which too was defeated at the cost of the Volunteers who finally succumbed.

Despite that late victory the Polish force was still neck deep in trouble. Swedish infantry was advancing under the cover of artillery and musket fire, units frog leaping forwards towards the Polish supply point. The Polish dragoons which had been rallied but still remained Disorganized were once again fired upon and began fleeing again, two options remained for the Poles. Both were attempted.

The first thing was to move the regular Pancerni and then give them the Defend order so they could protect the supplies, this unfortunately forced them to stoically take the fire from 2 musketeer units and 1 artillery. The other thing that the Poles could try was to charge with one of the "unexpected reinforcement" unit which had arrived on the table, in this case a cossack style cavalry unit.

As it turned out the cossack squadron was just out of range and had to withdraw back from the enemy position, I was a single centimeter short of succeeding with that!

The scenario would be decided by the shooting of the Swedish artillery, musketeers and Polish Pancerni. The Polish Pancerni tried and failed to inflict a morale test on the Swedes, the Swedes in turn fired Salvo with two units and two case shots with their artillery at the Pancerni - who dodged bullets, saved armor saves and also passed all their morale tests. Had that unit become disorganized or had begun fleeing the scenario would have ended up 6-0 to the Swedish force.

As the game ended the scenario score was 2-0 to the Swedes for managing to destroy one of the two supply markers.

Again we consulted the casualty ratio for both sides. As it turned out we both had "Heavy losses" in this battle, meaning "25-50% killed or fled. Such casualty ratio does not yield any bonus victory points to the player. Fortunately for both sides, their losses were not heavy enough to grant the enemy side any victory points either.

With the total amount of victory points being 2-0 to the Swedes, it meant that they had won a Tactical victory while the Polish side had lost a Tactical defeat by the slimmest of margins.

Another great game that I thought would be over on turn 2 but where the Poles managed to come back in the mid game and probably at least even out the score a little with some kills.

By Fire & Sword: Capture the crossing AAR

2013-05-06T10:23:00.000+02:00

Played two skirmish games of By Fire & Sword this weekend with Patrik, I played the Polish skirmish list while he played the Swedish detachment. Both Skirmish lists were maxed out in units and points.

The Polish 14 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Rotamaster with 1 command point

6 bases of Pancerni
3 bases of Pancerni with spears
9 bases cossack style cavalry
4 bases Volunteers
6 bases Polish dragoons

The Swedish 12 point Skirmish force was:

Colonel with 4 command points
Major with 1 command point

4 Bases of Mercenary Reiters
4 Bases of Mercenary Reiter Veterans (armored reiter models but played without armor)
8 Bases of New Type Infantry
2 Light regimental guns

Since my army was two points stronger Patrik ended up being the defender, and rolled on the scenario list and picked the scenario "Capture the crossing", which is about controlling the bridge.

Patrik still was 1 point short of making the battlefield conditions equal in points, he received 1 "additional effect" roll and got "Delayed" which meant one randomly determined unit in my Skirmish force would get lost on its way to the battle and be placed as a reserve (requiring a successful skill test to enter the table starting on turn 2)As it turned out my Dragoon unit ended up in reserve.

I won the Reconnaissance massively, having a huge cavalry based force with Dragoons and Skirmishers on top of that, which meant that I got several tactical advantages. I was allowed to make one normal move with one of my units before the game began, one unit could be placed in Ambush and one unit could be sent on a Long Flanking maneuver. I moved up my cossack cavalry squadron (6 bases strong), and sent the Pancerni squadron (6 bases strong) to make the Flanking maneuver. I had intended for the Dragoons to Ambush but since they were Delayed I opted not to Ambush with anything at all.

As a final step both sides rolled for 1 additional effect. I received "Good day/Bad Day" and decided to reduce the command rating of the Swedish Colonel by 1 command point, giving him a "Bad day".
Patrik in turn received an effect which meant that his force had already scouted the area and picked the site for the battle, and as such he could manipulate the terrain on the table - in our case he removed 1 small forest on the right edge of the table. In truth this was a tired mistake on my part and we should not have rolled for this additional effect, in this particular scenario as you only roll effects for both sides if they are equal after the scenario has been picked, otherwise only the still weaker player rolls for additional effects.

Deployment:

The Swedes on the opposite side of the river deployed in such a way that they prevented ambushes and any Long Flanking maneuver to appear on the left side of the table, they also locked down the bridge with a unit of infantry which would with a high probability mess up any Polish unit trying to cross it.

The Polish force was as such forced to take the right flank, over a shallow crossing and try to take the Swedes from the flank.

Objectives:
To win the scenario a unit had to be within 20cm from the center of the bridge and preferably have the order "Defend". If one side held the bridge that side would get 6 victory points. If both players held the bridge they would each get 2 victory points.

.........

The battle began, rather uneventful, the main bulk of the Polish cavalry moved to the right and began fording the river at the shallow spot, a slot task. Fortunately the Pancerni squadron sent on a long flanking maneuver managed to arrive by the end of turn 1!

The Polish Volunteer cavalry just moved up and tested the Swedish infantry which fired at the Poles inflicting just 1 wound, the Poles fired back half heartedly before withdrawing back. Maybe they would have made it across the bridge with a charge order next turn, but since my Dragoons were delayed and not yet on the table I really wanted to have at least 1 unit as a "reserve" near the bridge in case my attack from the right side didn't pan out.

The Swedes seeing that the Volunteers were locked down with artillery and infantry units began moving their Reiters towards the Polish force which was making relatively good progress in column formations across the shallow waters of the river.

Veteran Reiters rode up to meet the Polish cossack style cavalry, both units still had the order "Move" which meant no one would make contact, but both units stopped short of each other and fired pistols, carbines and bows at each other. The Poles took 1 wound; the Reiters didn't take any casualties at all.

As the turn ended, the Polish Dragoons found their way to the battle after having been delayed. Appearing at the Polish table edge they began moving up towards the bridge.

The real action on the other side of the river was just about to unfold.

Reiters and cossack style cavalry charged each other at short range, neither side getting the impetus (cavalry shock) bonus. They hacked away with swords and firing pistols at short range, the Polish light cavalry found themselves mastered by the Veteran Reiters, the combat was a slaughter. 3 bases of Polish cavalry lost, but only a single Reiter killed! The Poles backed away but kept their cool, which just led to another round of close combat where they were finally pushed back even further and ended up being disorganized.

Luckily for them the Polish commander was nearby and rallied them at the end of the turn.

Meanwhile the large Pancerni squadron charged full speed ahead at the small Swedish unit of musketeers who were desperately trying to break the mass of cavalry by firing Salvo. The Pancerni shook off the damage and crashed into close combat. Oddly enough the musketeer unit survived the onslaught, and initially just lost a single base, it was pushed back and lost another base - last two musketeer bases fled off table.

This put the spent Polish cavalry just yards away from the Mercenary Reiter regiment protecting the 3pdr cannon.

Back on the Polish side of the river, the Volunteers kept out of range from the Swedish muskets, still waiting for the Dragoons to arrive and set up a defensive position. It was hard to restrain the urge to charge across the bridge, but common sense prevailed this time. Especially since the Swedes now had reloaded all their guns and were ready to fire another Salvo.

Back on the Swedish side, the Pancerni squadron was far outside of the Polish commander range, forcing him to spend 3 points to give them another order, the Pancerni squadron and the regular Reiter company smashed into each other. This combat was brutal and the Reiters lost decisively and began fleeing. They were rallied just short of the table edge but remained disorganized. Unfortunately for the Polish Pancerni they were now left standing in front of the 3pdr artillery. The Swedish artillerymen wasted no time and fired off a case shot, completely disrupting the Polish formation and having the Pancerni become disorganized and useless!

Just a few hundred yards back the Veteran Reiters, sure of victory, decided to charge the Polish commander which would have ended up a disaster if not for the Polish cossack style cavalry, now in good order, which performed a counter charge of sorts. Both units and the Polish commanding officer ended up in one large fight.in which the Poles nearly annihalated the Reiters while taking no losses themselves!

This sudden turn of events was most welcome for the Polish side, a remaining base of Reiter Veterans withdrew and became disorganized, while the two Swedish commander became surrounded by Polish troops. The Swedish Major valiantly rode up to shield the Colonel, and was killed by carbien and bow fire from the Polish pancerni unit with spears.

The Swedish artillery fired off their last rounds of ammunition killing some dragoons, but failing to kill any more Pancerni with case shot. As the battle was coming to an end, the Polish dragoons managed to arrive near the bridge, dismount and lock it down with the "Defend" order. Both sides held one end of the bridge.

The scenario victory points ended up being 2-2 in victory points. Now both sides had to check their casualty ratio. The Polish side ended up having "Acceptable losses", meaning they had lost less than 25% of their men, this awarded the Poles with +1 Victory point.

Swedish casualties were rated as "Heavy losses", meaning they had lost more than 25% but less than 50% of their troops. As such they received 0 additional victory points.

As all victory points are summed up the battle ended 3-2 to the Poles, but due to the minimal difference of just 1 victory point the battle was a "Draw". And truth to be told, the situation on the battlefield could not have been explained in any other way so it was a very true result. Nevertheless a good game!

Kulturkommissariatet 5 års jubileum

2013-05-04T19:00:00.003+02:00

My international readers will have to excuse me today as I promote a local trader here in Sweden who has a 5 year anniversary, if he did international shipping I would have translated the offers into Swedish but this is purely a local trader.

........

"Vi har nu varit uppe och igång i fem år. Det är ju en icke försumbar tid och vi har hunnit med en hel del, besökt olika konvent, arrangerat speldagar och t.o.m. SM i SoTR tillsammans med Svenska brainwürst här i Lund. Sist men inte minst har vi dessutom introducerat en hel hög med spel och tillverkare på den svenska spelfronten.

Så hur uppmärksammar man genomförandet av den första femårsplanen på bästa sätt? Efter lite funderande bestämde vi att fem dagar eller ens en vecka skulle räcka, nej det blir hela fem veckors firande där vi kommer erbjuda extra rabatter på nästan allt som vi har samlat på oss i lagret. Det blir fem olika erbjudanden varje vecka, plus att vi kör 15% på alla brädspel i lager och 5st Vallejofärger för 100kr/120kr under hela perioden.

1-7 maj
Scotia 20% på allt som finns i lager.
Grendel 20% på allt som finns i lager.
Battlefront 20% på allt som finns i lager, 10% på det som inte finns i lager och det som ligger i fyndhörnan.
Urban mammoth 25% på böckerna och 10% på figurerna.
Army painter 15% på allt som finns i lager.

8-14 maj Luckan öppnas senare…

15-21 maj Luckan öppnas senare…

22-28 maj Luckan öppnas senare…

29 maj-5 juni Luckan öppnas senare…

2 juni Kalasspelning här i Lund med spel, tårta, spel, fåniga hattar och spel. Så om du kan ta dig till Lund och vill vara med och fira hör av dig senast 31/5!

Om du vill ta del av dessa jubileumspriser skriv bara Grattis! i orderkommentaren så räknar vi om priserna och hör av oss med uppdatering av ordersumman så fort som möjligt. Det är först till kvarn som gäller och rabatten gäller på det som vi har i lager om det inte står något annat ovan. Rabatten gäller fullt ut även på mängdrabattpriset."

Mayhem: Mass battle edition (rules review)

2013-05-04T12:20:00.004+02:00

This is another set of rules by Brent Spivey, some of you may remember the name since I reviewed his modern warfare rules ”The Battlefield” while back. Mayhem is surprisingly enough not an expansion to those rules or even anything within that genre but instead this is a fantasy warfare game mainly written for 6-15mm scale engagements but which can be played up to 28mm as well. The rules have units based on squares and rectangles of various size depending on scale, the playing area also ranges from a 24” square for 6-10mm miniatures, 24”-48” square for 15mm and at the very least an 36” square for 28mm miniatures. The playing area can be expanded as desired and by as much as players see fit.

I instantly, at the very first page of the rules in fact, noticed the “overdrive” mechanic that was part of the core rules in The Battlefield. Mayhem, just like The Battlefield uses a command point system. Units cost 1 CP to activate and they are allowed to perform 1 action doing so. What overdrive does is to allow a unit to perform multiple actions, but at an ever increasing cost of command points. Activating the same units starts out costing 1x CP (1 command point) and following activations of the same unit would begin to pile up to 2x, 3x, 4x, etc the amount of command points, each increasing upon the previous cost so it will be very hard or very expensive to activate a unit too many times.

So far the game is similar to The Battlefield, however where The Battlefield only used D6 dice, Mayhem uses D4, D6, D8, D10, D12 and D20! (Don't worry you will not be rolling buckets of dice so a couple of each will be more than enough).

All units don’t have regular stat numbers as such, but instead you will find their profiles to contain information on which dice they are using for their attacks, movements etc. The dice of each stat are then used to generate a result such as moving X-number of inches, or hitting someone in the face with a club.
The core dice rolling mechanic in the game is split into two terms “Default” and “Danger”. When performing an action the player is given the option whether he want to get a more controlled but limited result, or take a chance at getting above average (but at the risk of getting much lower result as well). The Default allows the player to do something at half the rate of his current Dice value. If a unit has Move D10 he does not roll the dice but instead moves half the potential range which is 5”. If the player is not satisfied with that possibility, then he may use the Danger, in which case the die is rolled and he can get a result ranging from 1-10 on his D10 stat.

Ranged attacks work in a similar way, but may due to range modifiers and distance to the enemy prevent the player from using Default to score auto hits and more often require use of Danger. Cover also works a bit differently in Mayhem compared to other games, instead of increasing durability of a unit each terrain type decrease the “effective range” of enemy ranged weapons. This can prevent the enemy from using Default to auto hit you and force them to move closer to your positions and may have them end up being within your effective range much sooner than you being in theirs.

Very simple and streamlined system, but it doesn’t erase the difference between unit types and unit stats.

Units may also end up rolling more than 1 die per attack or action in some cases, if so happens only the best result is taken into account from each players roll. Dealing damage in the game requires the player to roll as low as possible, 1’s are “Critical hits” and kill enemy units outright. Anything above 1, if rolled lower than the enemy would force the enemy to become disordered and fall back. A unit that is already disordered can be wiped out if defeated once again – even if no 1 was rolled. So it’s quick and easy. There are some units that have special rules that allow them to soak up damage instead of being instantly killed/routed but these are few.

Command of armies is left to characters such as generals and banner men. Their leadership value is also given as a specific die, such as D10. You may opt to roll or make a Default with your commanders at the start of each turn to get your pool of command points which are then distributed to units during the turn.
Interestingly enough, if these characters move on their own they are treated more or less like markers, while they are able to attack and be attacked only once they join up and lead a friendly unit. Command ranges are fixed depending on whether the hero is on foot, mounted, flying or has a monstrous mount. The main role of these characters on the battlefield is however to be the location on the table from which command points are distributed. Wherever there is a hero, you can measure the distance to nearby units and activate them with available command points. Units outside of command distance from a hero must pay additional points to activate and perform actions. As the game uses alternate activation you may want to keep your comadners within range and not stray too far with your soldiers!

Joining a unit is a permanent decision lasting the remainder of the battle, the risk of getting oneself killed is weighed up by the ability to use the hero’s own stats in combat over the stats of the unit he has joined.

Army morale is the number of units in the army divided by two, so 14 units equals a breaking point of 7. When 7 units have been destroyed the rest of the army withdraws from the table. There are two alternative variants to this end game mechanic. The first alternative is to roll to check whether the army breaks immediately or stays in the fight, this is done by the general of the badly battered army rolling his leadership die (such as a D10), on a 1 the army breaks and flees, any other result and the army is fine. Each subsequent turn the player has to add one additional die to the roll, if any of those dice end up being a 1 then the army breaks. The second alternative is a fight to the death, in which case the battle isn’t over until all enemy units are killed or routed.

The rules include a detailed army building segment which tells the player the cost of various troop types, weapons, addon and really anything that could be included in an army. The points in hits game are called crowns, and a starting game is recommended to be 200 crowns. Units are built by taking characteristics, traits and weapons and combine them into a single profile – which yields a unit cost. This way you can tailor your own units. With the download of the rules you also get something called “Generals compendium” which has a lot of ready to play unit profiles for classic fantasy races and units along with explanations on how they were built to help you understand the army building mechanics.

I mentioned earlier that all units are based on fixed measurements, this also means that there are no restrictions to the number of miniatures of a certain type you have on a single base, as long as you can see what type of unit it is and the base size is correct. The game also agrees to allow other base dimensions as long as both player have the same basing system.

All in all I think Mayhem looks to be an interesting and very open ended game for massed battles, I also don’t see anything that would prevent the player to drop the fantasy elements and play it as a straight medieval game. There is promise of an expansion to be released soon, which will include siege machines, rules for Magic, strongholds and additional unit profiles and traits.

You can check these rules out by buying them over at Wargames Vault HERE
At just $8 they are well worth considering!

Wargames, Soldiers & Strategy issue 66

2013-05-03T12:06:00.002+02:00

The latest issue of WS&S happens to be American Civil War themed, which was a lucky coincidence since my buddy Thomas lured med into the period (and 6mm) so getting a better understanding of the armies outside the basic knowledge I had and being able to read a very nice mini campaign was great.

The mini campaign in the book is was played using Black Powder and Fire & Fury, but me and Thomas intend to play "Longstreet" once those rules are released. I don't think we should have any problems replaying this campaign since it is very open ended as to which rules you pick and only provides scenario objectives and detailed information about the battles and force charts.

Rick Priestley's column talks about how rules these days feel forced to support themselves with official miniatures to be taken seriously. I agree to some extent, but I also know that players tend to use miniatures from other sources if they are of at least equal quality and cheaper than those official miniatures - an example of that would be the thousands of tanks from Plastic Soldier Company that have made their way onto Flames of War tables, and there are other manufacturers such as Peter Pig, Forged in Battle, QRF etc that offer miniatures that are either cheaper or of units which aren't produced by Battlefront. But in general, yes, players get anxious if they aren't offered a "starting alternative" of miniatures, especially if they come straight from a Games Workshop background with little knowledge of alternative manufacturers and the hundreds of various wargaming companies out there.

Richard Clarke makes the wargamer within me cry out in terror when he writes about throwing old miniatures away, but other than that he also makes a good and interesting point about miniature ranges these days not going anywhere. I can think of a couple of ranges that have changed owner over the last couple of year and production have been maintained and even expanded upon. I can't even imagine how harsh it must have been "back in the days" with ranges popping up and then vanishing.

Apart from all other quality content you will also find my ramblings in one column about how I think the internet has served our hobby well, and my review of the excellent boardgame "Spartacus".

The best wargaming magazine on the market continues with its high quality. If you aren't already subscribing it is well worth the money.

By Fire & Sword: Division list construction basics

2013-05-02T11:53:00.000+02:00

Following up on my article on the mechanics behind Skirmish lists with an article on Division lists.
Division lists are both similar and different to Skirmish lists.

The similarity lies in how you construct each regiment, which is the building stone of your Division. Regiments are made up of several banners/companies/sotnia's or whatever units are called by each nation. And just like in Skirmish lists the Regiments are made up of a core level amount of troops, optional add-on units and additional troops that expand you regiment. Regiments also have their own Regimental commanders and junior officers to help you control the regiment in the field.

The difference between the Skirmish and Division level is mainly tied to Skirmish lists being "warbands" that mix a lot of troops in one single force, while a Division is made up of 3-5 regiments, each made up of a distinct troop type or at most a variety of troops closely tied together that would historically make up a larger formation. An example of a regiment made up of mixed units that would historically form a regiment would be a Cossack regiment. Cossack regiments include both regular Cossack infantry, Registered Cossack infantry, limited amounts of Cossack cavalry support, war wagons and may field Cossack Rabble as an optional support unit.

But even in cases with "Pure regiments" made up of a single troop type - such as the Reiter regiments, you often still have a variety of options such as being able to equip some of the Reiter companies with armor, add companies with Arquebus handguns to back up your pistol armed Reiters, fielding veteran or regular companies and so on.

So, while a Swedish Skirmish force may mix Reiters, Dragoons and Musketers, the Division level Regiments are divided into troop types - Reiter Regiments made up of Reiters, Dragoon Regiments made up of Dragoons, and Infantry regiments made up of Pike&Shot troops.

Each regiment is built as an isolated option, and you need 3-5 regiments (this is the same for all armies in the book) to form a Division. All armies must field at the very least 3 regiments, which form the backbone of your division, and the last 2 are completely optional.

All armies have several regiments to pick from and you can build a Division with a lot of different configurations. However, each Division army list also comes with requirements that you need to fulfill. A "Swedish field division" is required to field at least 2 Reiter Regiments, and may skip out on infantry support completely. On the other hand a "Swedish Garrison division" is mainly made up of infantry and requires you to field at least 2 Infantry Regiments.

The pictures in this post will show how I'm putting together a Polish Crown Division, regiment by regiment. This should give you a good idea of how building Division army lists work in By Fire & Sword.

By Fire & Sword: Skirmish list construction basics

2013-05-01T11:39:00.000+02:00

As Wargamer.pl is probably going to cover list construction for the skirmish forces in detail over the next couple of days so I will focus on the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth since I can actually show the amount of models needed from my own collection.

Most nations in the book have 2 Skirmish forces, the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth is actually divided between the Polish Crown and Lithuania both on the Skirmish level and the Division level, as each part of the commonwealth fielded slightly different variations of troops, and some units were not present in armies of one or the other part of the commonwealth.

With that said, my example will be based around the Polish skirmish force 1650-66. This force covers many of the early campaigns such as the ones against invading Swedish troops. Many regiments in the rulebook do come in two variants that offer an "early" and "late" part of the Polish times of troubles. Regiments and Skirmish forces may have include some units in the early years that were not present later and vice versa, some regiments may have had more support in later parts of the timeframe and so on.

This is not to say that the book is divided into a strict "Early/Mid/Late" war mindset of such games like Flames of War. I do believe however that offering different versions of regiments was necessary since there were developments of the organization of troops - especially within the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth during its many wars. And while the difference between these variants are often quite minor, they may still be important enough for people who want to play battles that are strictly limited to the Swedish invasion of Poland to name one example.

But I digress, back to the Skirmish lists, I picked the early Polish list and you will be able to read most of the useful information in the pictures this time around but I will try to expand upon that with additional information.

First of all you have to imagine skirmish forces and regiments in By Fire & Sword as a "Tech tree" design. What that means is that you need to fulfill certain requirements before you are allowed to move beyond the next step. Once your skirmish force or regiment reach a certain size you are allowed to make choices that can be about adding optional add-on troops that are gradually unlocked, adding additional units to expand your skirmish force and adding additional commanders which become available when the size of your force reach a certain amount of companies.

This is the force which I used during my demo with Andreas this weekend:

Colonel with 4 command points
2 banners of cossack style cavalry (6 bases)
2 banners of Pancerni cavalry (6 bases)
2 companies of Dragoons (6 bases)
1 banner of Volunteers (4 bases)
1 Rotamaster junior commander with 1 command point

This force was worth 12 Force Strength Points (FSP) in total, and was at roughly at 75% strength if you look in the rulebook at how many banners/companies you can include in a Polish Skirmish force. There were quite a few choices for me to pick from, I could have fielded Tatar and Wallachian banners, skipped the Dragoons, decreased the number of Pancerni and fielded Elite units of cossack style banners instead etc.

The core and absolute minimum of a Polish skirmish force is 1 Colonel, 1 banner of 3 bases Pancerni, 1 banner of 3 bases cossack style cavalry, and 2 under strength banners of cossack style cavalry. This force comes at 5FSP.

Bringing under strength units up to full strength and adding additional and optional units, additional commanders and increasing the command points available to my Colonel expanded the force to 12FSP.

The pictures show exactly how.

And really, this is how most skirmish forces and regiments are built in the game. Some regiments are very one-key like the Muscovite Streltsy regiment which is only made up of Streltsy bases, other regiments allow for a wide diversity such as the Levy of the Nobility regiments in the Polish-Lithuanian armies, Cossack Pulk of the Cossack armies or Provinicial force from the Anatolian regions in the Ottoman army. But most of the regiments and skirmish forces allow the player to swap things around, buy various additional units and unlock optional add-on units.

It's a very good system that serves to limit cheesy power gaming and enforce historical accuracy of regiments, skirmish forces and armies. You are limited to field historical numbers of companies within a regiment and cannot field the "good stuff" such as Polish Winged Hussars in ahistorical combinations or without any support from regular cavalry units.

Bushido demo game and first impressions

2013-04-30T12:54:00.000+02:00

As a return favor for my By Fire and Sword demo Andreas ran a demo of Bushido for me, it's a game that I have seen but not really been able to make up my mind about and having also seen the catalogue of miniatures it was very hard to know what kind of game this was.

Well, the demo game with Andreas answered a lot of questions. This post is a summary of my first impressions of the game and a bit of game mechanics and rules that I can remember.

Summary of Bushido:

Bushido takes place in a feudal Japanese setting, the factions are however a mix of real humans and fantasy elements from Japanese mythology I suppose. Some factions are made up of more or less only humans, while there are some that are more or less only monsters, and everything in between.

The game is always played on a tiny 60x60cm/2x2' area, games are always about a scenario (no mindless brain bashing) and at the core the game uses D6's to generate results from actions. It's also alternate activations which is the standard of most skirmish games nowadays. Each game also lasts 6 turns.

The number of models on the table is quite small, it's a "warband" game. Models are each worth X-amount of "rice" (points) and games are meant to be played in the area of 30-50 points. With the number of named characters I thought it would be like Malifaux where you need a "commander" or something like that, but Andreas said you can play with anything you like within your faction as long as you can pay for it in points. That means that you can field a couple of strong characters or a horde of minions. The choice is up to you and there are no faction restrictions beyond that you can't field more than 1 of each named character in your warband.

Andreas said that the game plays like the old "Confrontation" game, which I never got to play - but a couple of things stood out the most to me during the demo:

1) All models can activate twice during a turn, but you can only perform 1 action at a time. This means that your little bow armed Bakamono monster (some kind of goblinoid creature) can use 1 action to move, then the enemy does something with one of his units, and after that you may move pick which model on your side to activate again - and can in this case activate the Bakamono to fire his bow.

Now the broken up action point spending in itself is not revolutionary, but the added twist which the game mechanics apply makes a whole lot of difference. You see every time you activate your miniature OR is forced to react with your miniature you accumulate stamina loss. A model that has spent, or been forced to spend, both his action cannot activate for the remainder of the turn and will also be easier to attack as it's tired.

Exactly what this means in the game is that you can block strong enemy characters and monsters by forcing them to spend their actions in defense by you attacking them with small worthless minions. Locking down or limiting the potential of powerful monsters and characters seem to be a key component to victory as each game is all about scenarios - you don't have to kill the enemy - just prevent him from completing his task! And as you might imagine, just opting to run a couple of very strong characters without any support can turn against you real quick.

2) Combat in the game uses D6 which I find as exciting as stale bread most of the time, but I am always impressed when a game manages to make something different with it. And Bushido certainly manages to do just that in a for me completely new way. Each miniature has X-amount of attack dice used in close combat. But, you bust secretly, before rolling the dice, choose the amount of dice to be used for Defense and the amount to be used for Attack. Sometimes the choice is clear, but most of the time you don't really want to be left without any defense dice because combat can be brutal.

Dice rolling mechanics in Bushido works as such, both players take a number of designated D6 and roll them. You then pick the one highest result in your roll, and then add the number of remaining dice (except for those that rolled 1) to that result. Example, Rolling 3x D6, result is 4.2.2. That means your highest result is 4, you add the other dice you that result making your final result a 6. Had you rolled 6.4.4. the final result would have been an 8.

You then compare your attack score with the defenders defense score, if the number is equal to or higher than the defenders score the attack strikes home and has the chance to inflict damage. However, instead of rolling a regular Strength vs Toughness/Armor type of roll, players consult a chart that is divided into columns ranging from 0-12. The higher the difference of the attacker’s victory, the further down the line of damage columns you go. If you win by 5 you roll on column nr.5 if you win by 12 you roll on column nr.12. Each column requires the player to roll 2d6 and score above a certain number to inflict a variety of damage points.

As you can perhaps conclude the further down the damage column you go the easier it becomes to inflict damage and most important of all - the damage inflicted is increased vastly. And it's not really as complex as it may sound, but you will have to check the column chart when dealing damage unless you are Rainman.

Ranged damage works pretty much the same as close combat, with two exceptions. Ranged weapons have short/medium/long range, each of them has a number telling you the range in inches and that is also the difficulty of scoring a hit. At medium range a Bow may require 8 to score a hit, which would require you to roll at least 3 dice, and have one of them turn out to be a 6 so you could reach the requirement. Since there is no defense roll from the target model, the damage column bonus derives from your ability to score a hit in such a way and with so many dice that you jump down the row of columns.

This makes shooting very difficult to both hit and deal damage with beyond short range, but makes shooting very deadly and close range.

3) The third and last thing that stood out is connected to the combat is that each faction has some kind of resource handling, it's different from faction to faction, but using the demons that I played as an example each model generate a "Chi" marker. Chi markers could be traded in for additional combat dice, to cast magic spells or summon additional minions onto the table. This resource carried over from one turn to the other, so it was wise to save up a bit so you could trade in for a number of additional extra combat dice when you really wanted to kill something or avoid being killed by a powerful attack. In combination with the dice rolling mechanic, being able to trade Chi in for additional dice could boost average fighters and make them quite good or make it possible to fire a bow at a range span previously deemed impossible.

So that is my summary of Bushido. I actually liked it quite a bit, the theme of the game is not really my cup of tea - but there is at least 1 faction with "generic" humans/Samurai warriors that I could consider collecting and playing with myself.

By Fire & Sword: Attack on the village SKIRMISH

2013-04-29T11:23:00.000+02:00

Finally after a year long wait I could demo the game on equal terms, both me and Andreas now had the rules in English so things went a lot smoother than during my many games against Thomas, Patrik and David in the past.

We decided to play a "Skirmish" level battle, for two reasons. One being that the Skirmish level is recommended as an entry point into the game, it covers all the rules but plays on a smaller scale which makes it easier to comprehend and faster to play. This is the tournament standard for By Fire & Sword down in Poland and it has seen great success and popularity with tournaments organized by Wargamer.pk being played frequently.

The other reason to play a "Skirmish" level battle is to enjoy the richer scenario section, which is very well fleshed out for the Skirmish level of the game. Division games are large pitched battles where you determine winners by friendly and enemy casualties (or if you can come up with thematic background stories for your large battles yourself). Skirmish battles on the other hand are about the reconnaissance force sent to scout ahead of an army and their little adventure, be it foraging supplies, scouting enemy movements, attacking a village held by the enemy etc. These battles offer two sets of victory points which are combined into a final result, making it a very dynamic experience.

A short summary of the concepts of By Fire & Sword which is stressed by the authors:

Armies are never or very seldom equal in strength, historically one side was weaker/smaller and the other larger/stronger. This should however not make the game unbalanced, balance in By Fire & Sword is maintained by a wonderfully crafty system of costs that add up and boost the weaker army. For instance, the weaker player gets to roll for scenarios, scenarios themselves are worth X-amount of army points which boost the strength of the weaker player. This is so because many scenarios have the weaker player occupy favorable positions are make his smaller army able to pick the battlefield.

If both armies are not worth equal amount of points after a scenario has been picked, the weaker player gets another handicap and that is to roll for "additional effects". Each effect is work 1 army point, and these range from getting unexpected reinforcements, your officer having a good day with increase command abilities (or the enemy having a bad day with decreased command ability), you may force the stronger enemy force to break off a small part and put them in reserves and so on.

All these scenarios and additional effects are worth army points which are added to the army strength of the weaker player. Before the game starts one player, who is on paper weaker - will in fact be equal to his opponent due to a lot of tactical advantages.
It's an interesting concept that makes scenarios and games more dynamic.

...........
Skirmish Battle: Polish Skirmish force vs Swedish detachment

Right, so I played the Poles and Andreas played the Swedes.

My Skirmish force was worth 12 points, while Andreas fielded 11 points worth of Swedes. This meant that Andreas was the weaker player and got to be the "defender" and roll 3x D10 dice on the scenario chart and pick one result. The result could not be worth more army points than the difference between our armies. Andreas rolled "Patrols" (0), "Attack on the Village" (0*) and Ambush (3).

As the difference between our armies was only 1 point he had to pick between the Patrols and Attack on the village. In the rare case you can't choose any scenario then the Patrols scenario is your standard engagement. Andreas picked "Attack on the village" this scenario can increase in army points if the defender chooses to deploy troops inside the village. The cost of the scenario increases by 1 army point for every 3 bases of infantry placed in the village. Andreas placed a company in the village which made the scenario turn into "Attack on the village (1)".

Our armies were now equally strong. This meant that we both rolled for one additional effect per skirmish force on the additional effect chart.

Andreas rolled "Delayed" and forced one of my Dragoon companies to be placed in Reserve and only able to arrive once they pass a skill test at the end of a turn.

I rolled "Good day/Bad day", this effect can be played on a friendly officer in which case his command is increased by +1, or played on an enemy officer who will have his command decreased by -1 command point. I choose to boost my own command, mainly due to having the unruly and insubordinate company of Volunteers who required twice the amount of command points to be ordered around.

One more thing that is checked prior to the beginning of the battle is the Reconnaissance effect. At the Skirmish level you count two things, cavalry bases and then add the number of cavalry units. Light cavalry, Dragoons and Skirmishers are worth more Reconnaissance points. The final tally of your army is compared with the final tally of the opponent. The player with the highest wins the Reconnaissance and can - if the Reconnaissance is favorable enough in points, receive some nice advantages.

In our case, my reconnaissance was so massive that I could put one company in Ambush anywhere on the table as long as it was a terrain feature such as woods or built up area.

Now the battle begins!
............

The Attack on the village lasts 6 turns. Both sides, looking for food or just the enemy main army forces spot a village. As it turns out the enemy has already made claims to it and its your job to retake it/drive the enemy away. In our case the Swedish detachment had deployed some sentries inside the village while the rest of the Swedish force was moving in to secure it completely.

It is up to the Polish force to drive the Swedes away. The player who completely holds the center of the village gets 6 Victory Points. If both sides contest the village each player receives 2 Victory points.

The Polish side moves onward, Pancerni banners split up on the right flank, cossack style cavalry at the left and center, Volunteers at the left flank. The two Polish commanders control one flank each. The Swedes move out with their Reiters towards the flanks to stop the Polish from outflanking the village.

A large Reiter squadron moves towards the windmill and the approaching Pancerni banners while Swedish infantry scramble towards the village, eager to fortify the position and help out the tiny garrison.

First shots are exchanged between a reckless Polish cossack style banner and the Swedish musketeers inside the village. Riding boldly the Polish light cavalry opens fire with a mix of bows and arquebus guns, the Swedish infantry behind the fence is using the cover well and avoid taking any casualties, while themselves being able to deliver a punishing broadside of musket fire - annihilating one base of enemy cavalry. The Poles pass their morale and stay in place.

In the meantime the cavalry of both armies are moving along the flanks. A banner of Polish Pancerni and the Reiter squadron face off and shots are exchanged with little effect, at the start of the following turn both both units crash into each other, warhammers and swords exchanging blows, pistols fired at close range. The charge, and countercharge of the two units is performed at such a short stretch that neither side builds up any impetuous to aid them in the fight. The charging Reiters even manage to kill a number of Pancerni with their pistols on the charge. Dead drop on both sides but the Pancerni are badly outnumbered, the Swedes have better tactical discipline and had ultimately inflicted more casualties. The fight is lost and the Poles break.

Trying to flee the Poles are pursued by the Swedish Reiters which manage to catch up with the Poles and fight a second round of combat further crippling the Polish Pancerni banner. The Polish unit breaks again while the tired Swedes remain in place. Only thanks to the nearby Polish second in command does the remnant of the Pancerni banner rally.

The opposite situation unfolds on the opposite flank with outnumbered Swedish Reiters being charge by both Volunteers and cossack style light cavalry. The light cavalry fails to hit home and are left disorganized, the Volunteers make it into close combat force the Reiters to withdraw in defeat. Not wanting to pursue the Swedes into a crossfire at the center of the village the Volunteers test - and pass - a skill test to hold their horses and keep a cool head.

The situation for the Polish force doesn't look too bright. The delayed Dragoons have yet to arrive and their participation is sorely missed. The Dragoons kept in ambush are prevented to appear due to the close proximity of enemy troops. What could have been an equalizer or even turning point of the battle for the Poles is left locked down for the moment.

Swedish infantry and artillery units make it to the village, bolstering the strength of the built up area (village center). And with the fleeing and now rallied Reiter remnants the village center is firmly in Swedish hands.

The worst thing about the whole situation for the Poles however is that the still unspent cossack style banner that failed its charge has failed to rally and is left standing without orders! Volunteers ride around the villge hoping to outflank the Swedish defenders, the remaining Pancerni base from the battered regiment is destroyed in a brutal charge by the large Reiter squadron. The remaining still unspent Pancerni banner which was initially going to help out their brothers has to change their intentions and turn towards the village instead where they take up positions behind the fence and open fire at the Swedish Reiters inside the village - who fire back. The fire exchange causes a lot of smoke and noise but no result. The Swedes are now biding their time hoping that the sunset will force the Poles to break off.

In one last act of defiance the Polish Volunteers ride around the village and open fire at the Swedes from the northern edge of the village, the Poles are welcomed by a Swedish light artillery gun and a case shot killing a base of cavalry. Strangely the Volunteers keep cool and don't panic. Meanwhile the Polish 2nd in command sees no other way to disrupt the enemy but to ride up towards the Swedish 2nd in command and open fire with his pistols. As fate would have it the Polish officer hits the Swedish counterpart and manages to slay him!

This was the closing shot of the battle and the Poles are forced to withdraw.

The Swedes occupy the village and receive 6 Victory points.

The Poles had lost 7 bases killed, and 2 bases fled, which reflect as Heavy casualties (up to 50%)giving the Polish player neither a bonus nor a penalty in points.

The Swedish side lost 3 bases killed, "Minor casualties" (up to 10%) and received 3 additional victory points for having kept his men alive.

The difference in Victory points between both sides was 9 in favor of the Swedes, who won a Strategic Victory, the Poles losing a Strategic defeat.

Our battle lasted just around 2 hours and would have been slightly shorter if we had prepared everything beforehand. Andreas seemed to enjoy the game, and I myself am hooked on the Skirmish level of the game which is a lot more accessible and fast paced than the big Division battles. I think the fight is going to give Andreas a well needed boost to finish his Swedish Skirmish force which is still WIP at this stage (he borrowed some of my infantry). It was too bad Christian came down with the stomach flu since he was also originally meant to play with us using his Cossack force and have the rules presented to him.

By Fire & Sword skirmish roster sheets

2013-04-28T10:33:00.000+02:00

As I'm off to play my first Skirmish level battle and demo the rules of By Fire & Sword down at the club I took the time to translate the Polish roster sheet into English.

There are two download version, one regular and one "landscape" layout that is larger for those having trouble filling out the regular slightly smaller one.

It should have all the information available for quick reference once filled out correctly, such as reconnaissance points, force strength and an entry for each unit type with their special rules, ammo count etc being readily accessible.

You can download the regular version HERE

And the landscape layout version HERE

17th century Wooden Church painted up

2013-04-27T12:50:00.002+02:00

And here is the Wooden Church painted up and ready to be plundered by Swedes and other invading nations. The building, like any other from the Wargamer.pl range, pretty much paints itself. It doesn't require any effort to look good as it is well textured and allows for a great result with just a mix of drybrushing and washes.

Wish the pictures were better though, but the lightning here at home sucks for taking pictures of large objects - I will take better pictures of this tomorrow down at the club when I demo By Fire & Sword.

Not much more to say, it's a great addition to my 17th century building collection, now I just need some smaller peasant huts and barns to go with the large buildings (Inn, Church, Farmyard and Windmill).

Terrain like this can of course be used for larger division sized battles, but you really want a lot of open spaces for your regiments to maneuver on that level of the game. In Skirmish scenarios however, I can see having built up areas since you only handle small units of 2-4 bases (or slightly larger if you merge them into squadrons). There is even one scenario that requires a village in the center of the table to be fought over.

Edit: As it was asked previously, the terrain piece is 15mm scale. This piece was bought at Salute and have not yet made its way into the Wargamer.pl terrain catalogue, but should be added in the near future.