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

[Anatoli]

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.

Check the full AAR over at my blog:
http://anatolisgameroom.blogspot.se/2013/05/by-fire-sword-capture-crossing-9513-aar.html