An unexpected return to By Fire & Sword (2nd edition) (2024-09-21)

[Anatoli]

Roughly 10 years ago I got into 17th century wargaming through the wargame rules By Fire & Sword. A small gang of friends joined in and the game was pretty popular for a few years until people either moved to other games or away from the hobby. Even though I did no longer play it I had kept the minis because as I had spent so much time on collecting and painting them up. This in itself is rather unusual, as I normally sell one collection to finance a new game.

Anyway, I had a substantial collection of painted up Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth, Cossacks and some western units just sitting on my shelves and collecting dust. Then a Kickstarter for a 2nd edition of the rules came last year. The new rules are completely different, almost like a new game. For some reason it did not hook me when I watched videos and I was rather skeptical about a few things.

But as I was visiting Poland this summer, and had some spare cash, I picked up all the new rules and army books. To my surprise the new edition is fantastic, and so much smoother to play than 1st Ed. I don't think the tutorial videos on the Wargamer channel on YouTube do the game full justice, you really have to play a few turns yourself to see how the game has been updated, tweaked and streamlined without losing the fun tactical combat and the special order system used by commanders to direct troops around the battlefield.

My wife easily picked up the rules as well, and thought it was fun - so suddenly after a long hiatus I started painting up both new stuff, as well as repainting/improving old paintjobs as some of my old stuff was a bit too dark and flat to my liking.

I also got the entire collection of Swedes from a friend. These were old, a bit dusty and speedpainted back in the day. Fortunately I could use the paintjob as a base coat and rather quickly repainted these regiments. The focus at the moment is to play battles featuring Swedes and Danes in Scanian Wars themed games.

I will share more pictures as I paint up the remaining new and old units that I have. Here are all the repainted minis that I got from my friend (except the Danish commanders which are completely new paintjobs that I finished this evening).

[SJWi]

Very nice work. I am interested in late 17th century eastern Europe and bought the 1st edition about 2 years ago, but by then the figures were very difficult to find in UK. I looked at the 2nd edition Kickstarter but didn't back it, and hadn't realised it had now been released.

Where did you buy it in Poland? I only ask as I have a mate visiting Krakow next month and I will be in Warsaw, Gdansk and Poznan early October albeit I don't think my wife will be particularly happy if I try to run off and find a model/gaming shop!

Thanks.       

[Anatoli]

it is a bit complicated because none of the BF&S range is available in the Wargamer.pl store at the moment or in their physical stores in Poland either as they are still struggling with shipping all the Kickstarter parcels to backers.

But, I contacted Wargamer in advance before I went to Warsaw and asked them if it was possible to purchase the books, and they had all items in stock in their storage facility. I was able to purchase the items through a "late pledge" option and pick them up in the store at Wilcza street in Warsaw two weeks later.

They have re-opened the late pledge for a second a final time, and it will close in a day or two but here is the link https://pledgemanager.wargamer.pl/
Order from there and ask in your order to pick up in a Wargamer store when you visit Poland.

Its currently the best way to get the token set (highly recommended) and book bundle. You can get cards as well, they are a tad expensive and I made my own using print screens from their army builder.

[Anatoli]

Finished painting some brand new Swedish command bases, the flag of the main commander is printed in B&W and then painted by hand (just like the danish main command flag).

Next up I will spruce up the paint job on some older units. Will share when there is more to show

[Hu Rhu]

Lovely painting.

Its a shame that this rule set and figures are 15mm, otherwise I would have jumped in but I can't afford to have a completely different scale to my other armies.

[Anatoli]

Lovely painting.

Its a shame that this rule set and figures are 15mm, otherwise I would have jumped in but I can't afford to have a completely different scale to my other armies.

Thanks, they actually swapped from centimeters to inches as the new measurements, and units are now based on "unit blocks " of 3 different sizes (small, medium, large) that now have their own stats rather than individual bases contributing to a sum total of attacks/wounds. So there is potential for playing this in 28mm scale, but the weapon ranges may be a bit off as point blank range is 4" and most musket units have a range of 12", and artillery 24/48".

[Anatoli]

Last night I finished partially repainting a unit of western dragoons. There are a few units in my old collection that in retrospect looked a bit flat or dull, this was one of them. The original paintjob was also bunch of badly matched colors that were jarring to look at. Focus was not to re-do the dismounted models and riders primarily, but I added a bit more paint to the horses and other details as well without spending too much time on miniatures already painted up.

I also added some brighter colored final highlights to the Courland command base.

One of many welcome changes in the 2nd edition of the rules is that Dragoon units are now represented 50/50 by mounted and dismounted bases placed in two rows. As an example, a "small" dragoon unit is made up of 2 cavalry and 2 dismounted dragoon bases. Placing one or the other type of models in the front row represents what stance the unit has. This change means that I can make up 2 "medium" sized units in 2nd edition from what used to be a single unit in the 1st edition!

The movement trays in the pictures are bought from Wargamer.pl and show the size of "small" and "medium" units sizes.

[Anatoli]

The light in my living room where we play games is pretty bad but I tried to take some pictures during a Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth vs Cossacks. The game that ended 6-4 in favor of the Commonwealth, both sides claimed one of the objectives, but Cossack casualties were slightly more severe with a destroyed unit of Cossack Rabble and a unit of Registered Cossack Moloitsy. The Commonwealth lost a unit of Pancerni cavalry and had their Cossack style reduced down to near breaking point.


The second edition of this game uses a lot of tokens, unit cards, equipment cards, standardized movement trays etc. It can be a tad expensive to upgrade your 1st edition collection with all the extras. Tokens and measurement tools aren't that bad, and I got two sets of those. A full set of rulebook, scenario book and both army books to cover all nations in the game were also priced fairly. Bases were a bit towards the expensive side, but oh man - this is exactly what the game needed, moving units and deploying them on the table is so much quicker and easier now.


Final bit of upgrade material are the unit and equipment cards. The 2nd edition has all new boxes and blisters come with the correct and relevant cards (a bit like Malifaux to give an example that I can think of). So for new players this is not a problem. But old players will need to either get the card packs (which were limited to the Kickstarter and will not be sold in retail later on) or make your own. Since the card packs quickly became expensive for me as I both wanted and needed cards for Poland-Lithuania, Cossacks, Sweden, Denmark, Brandenburg/Prussia and the Holy Roman Empire I resolved to make my own. This took me about two days, using print screen and copy&pasting things from the online army builder, printing them in color and then laminating the cards.

I think the unit cards that you get from the boxed sets also include all the special rules explanained on the reverse side of the cards, something I did not have the energy to replicate myself.

[Anatoli]

More pics from the P-L C vs Cossacks game.

[Anatoli]

Also, a comment regarding the cost of the upgrade products , token sets, cards, movement trays etc. Since I want to be able to play with all of my collection with friends and my wife, I purchased two sets of movement trays and two sets of tokens. Normally you could get away with a single set of each as it is exactly the right amount that you need. Regarding unit cards and the purchase cost of the upgrade kit this purpose, I guess it depends on whether you played a single army or multiple ones like I did.

The idea to actually have unit cards is very good. I had my own home made unit cards for the 1st edition as well (not as fancy as these). However in the 2nd edition of the  game the cards also help you track status of your troops and how their efficiency is reduced as they get disorder tokens during the course of  the gameplay from fighting and taking casualties. The number of tokens and markers may look like much, but is is roughly the same as in 1st edition. There have been made some tweaks such as ammunition and pistol counters has replaced the ammunition stock of units from the previous version that reduces the upkeep and necessity to have ammunition counting using D6's.

All in all the second edition is very much more of a "game with a theme", than a "theme with a game" (1st edition), meaning it is less heavy, easier to teach, turn sequences have been streamlined, very heavy turn resolution with multiple simultaneous sequences has been scrapped. It takes a moment to get used to coming straight from 1st edition, but it all makes sense and I highly enjoy the changes.

Btw, the digital army builder for 2nd edition can be found here, and makes list building quick, and easy to follow compared to writing lists using pen and paper: https://oim.wargamer.pl/index.phpv

[Thaddeu]

Thanks for all the details, this version sounds much more my style. I loved first edition as a period reference, but it sounds like I can actually wrap my head around playing this one!

[Anatoli]

Another battle summary, this time Polish-Lithuanian (Lithuanian army list) forces clashed with veteran Swedes. Insane fight. The Swedish army was all made up of highly disciplined veteran units, which means that they hit hard and get a bonus to their combat resolution score in melee.  The Swedish side was made up of two units of mercenary reiters, one unit of armored mercenary reiters and one unit of dragooned musketeers. The force was led by a Colonel supported by a Major.

The Lithuanian force was made of of a motley array of units . Apart from a small Polish veteran dragoon unit they included Cossack style cavalry with shields, Tatars and insubordinate volunteers. I really wanted to try out the Tatars and volunteers, both units surprised me. The force was led by a Colonel.

The battle opened with the Swedish side moving up super-fast onto the Lithuanian side of the table instantly threatening all opponent units with both potential musket fire and charges next turn. The Lithuanian tatar unit moved up close to the armored reiters and unleashed a point-blank hail of arrows which did impressive damage, and then retreated away as the same reiter unit attempted to charge and hunt them down with no luck.

This led to an opening where the Lithuanian side managed to annihilate the armored reiters relatively early in subsequent close combat with the Cossack style cavalry even though the Swedes moved up another reiter unit as support.  Weakened from the loss of their best unit the Swedes still managed to push back the Lithuanians and inflict losses on both Cossack style cavalry, volunteers and Polish dragoons all while moving even closer.

It honestly looked as if the Lithuanian side would crumble at the end of turn 2. However, luck was with the Lithuanians in the 3rd turn, as they both won the initiative which allowed for activating the commander who removed a little disorganization from the most beat up units and the Cossack style cavalry that was on the brink of breaking.  Not only did the Cossack style cavalry managed to avoid getting wiped out (taking a single casualty) but also managed to inflict 4 casualties on the Swedish reiter unit and stall the situation long enough for the Tatar cavalry to move around and charge the side of the Swedish reiter unit - wiping it out!

At the same time the Volunteer unit wisely moved away out of charge range from the remaining Swedish reiter unit, but the Polish dragoons failed to hit the Swedish musketeers, and in turn were pushed back by a Swedish salvo.

The Swedes now didn't have any objective markers left under their control and started taking a morale hit at the end of each turn alongside the morale impact from the lost reiter units.

Still, the battle was not yet over, as the Swedish reiters slammed into the retreating Volunteers, that swung around to bravely face the charge, and impressed me with the number of attacks the unit was able to dish out. They stalled the Swedish charge, and in a last ditch attempt the Swedish musketeers charged in to join the fight, but even with overwhelming numbers and attacks the Volunteers stuck in the fight despite taking several casualties - passing every morale test that followed.

The battle ended at the end of turn 5 with the remaining Swedish force breaking away from combat and leaving the battlefield due to low force morale.

The battle score was 12 for the Lithuanians and 2 for the Swedes, a somewhat unexpected crushing victory in no small way due to some lucky rolls on part of the Lithuanian volunteer and Cossack style cavalry units when needed the most!

[Anatoli]

More pictures from the same battle.

[Anatoli]

A unit of Polish-Hungarian infantry (Haiduks). You can only field a single small (6 bases)/medium (9 bases) unit of these in your army in the 2nd edition.

They are much more a viable choice now compared to the 1st edition however where you could field them in tiny 4 base units basically subordinated to the main HQ or artillery commander. A big plus is their mobility on the battlefield, being able to fire on the move without penalty and being pretty decent (as infantry without pikes goes) in close combat considering their small unit size.

I already had 4 painted up since before, but expanded with another 5 bases so I could field both size options of this unit. As I was lacking one base, I cobbled together one using some spare miniatures and painted them up as Haiduks. Also, since the miniatures were purchased many years ago when these were sold in blisters of 4 bases, it also means I had 2 "command bases" with two flags in a single unit. Considering however that this formation was usually private property of local Magnates or directly employed by the kings I figured some extra flair would be thematic enough to let this detail pass.

[Dr. Zombie]

I found that in the first version the rules were very heavily in favor of the polish to the point were it became quite off putting. It was extremely har to win over a polish army with any other army. Have they fixed some of this in the second edition?